The Reception and Remembrance of Abraham 9781463221690

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The Reception and Remembrance of Abraham

Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and its Contexts 13

The series Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and its Contexts publishes academic works dealing with study of the Hebrew Bible, ancient Israelite society and related ancient societies, biblical Hebrew and cognate languages, the reception of biblical texts through the centuries, and the history of the discipline. Volumes in the series include monographs, collective works, and the printed version of the contents of the important on-line Journal of Hebrew Scriptures

The Reception and Remembrance of Abraham

Edited by

Pernille Carstens Niels Peter Lemche

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34 2011

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2011 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2011

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ISBN 978-1-4632-0054-1

ISSN 1935-6897

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The reception and remembrance of Abraham / edited by Pernille Carstens, Niels Peter Lemche. p. cm. -- (Perspectives on Hebrew scriptures and its contexts, ISSN 1935-6897 ; 13) Based on papers originally presented at a conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Abraham (Biblical patriarch) 2. Bible. O.T.--Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Carstens, Pernille. II. Lemche, Niels Peter. III. European Association of Biblical Studies. BS580.A3R43 2011 222'.11092--dc23 2011025601 Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ................................................................................ vii Abbreviations ......................................................................................... ix List of Contributors .............................................................................. xi Pernille Carstens and Niels Peter Lemche Introduction ......................................................................................... xiii Philip R. Davies From Moses to Abraham: Jewish Identities in the Second Temple Period ............................................................................. 1 Ehud Ben Zvi The Memory of Abraham in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Period Yehud ........................................................................... 13 Beate Ego Remembering Abraham in Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum ................................................................................... 61 Klaus Baltzer Abraham in the Patriarchal Texts of the Book of Genesis and the Reception of this Tradition in the Book of Isaiah ........................................................................................ 77 Thomas Römer Abraham and the ‘Law and the Prophets’ ..................................... 87 Thomas L. Thompson Memories of Return and the Historicity of the ‘Post-Exilic’ Period .................................................................................... v

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Index of Authors ............................................................................. 131 Index of Biblical References ........................................................... 135

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost thank you to Ehud ben Zvi and Diana Edelman for the cooperation on the conference at European Association of Biblical Studies. Warm thanks to the colleagues taking part in the join session investing their time both making papers and in the following articles in this publication. This kind of cooperation is the backbone in most of the publications we all contribute to, but to often it is taken for granted that researchers use their time to pull together in creating new knowledge for a common good. We also want to express our thanks to the Gorgias Press, and especially Katie Stott being so helpful to us. We are grateful to research assistant Michael Perlt for doing the final indexes, and for any kind of help we also express our gratitude to the rest of the staff of Centre for Cultural Memory and Biblical Studies in Copenhagen, sponsored by the Danish Council for Independent Research.

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ABBREVIATIONS AB BIS BR BWANT BZAW CBET CBQ COS DBAT DDD EI FAT GLAJ HTR IEJ INT JBL JNES JSOT JSOTSup LAB LHBOTS OBO PEQ RHR

Anchor Bible Brill Interpretation Series Biblical Research Beiträge zur Wissenschaft des Alten und Neuen Testaments Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly The Context of Scripture, I-III Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Eretz Israel Forschungen zum Alten Testament Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism Harvard Theological Review Israel Explorations Journal Interpretation Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Near Eastern Societies Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplements Liber Antiquitatem Biblicarum Library of the Hebrew Bible Old Testament Studies Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Palestine Exploration Quarterly Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses

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SBL SJOT SR TAD VT VTS WMANT WUNT ZAW

ABBREVIATIONS

Society of Biblical Literature Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Studies in Religion Textbuch of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, I-III Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplements Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Philip R. Davies Professor emeritus, University of Sheffield, UK Thomas Römer University of Lausanne, Schwitzerland/College de France, France Klaus Baltzer Professor emeritus, University of München Beate Ego University of Osnabruck, Germany Ehud Ben Zvi University of Alberta, Canada Thomas L. Thompson Professor emeritus, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

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INTRODUCTION PERNILLE CARSTENS AND NIELS PETER LEMCHE In the preface to Approaching Yehud, New Approaches to the Study if the Persian Period Jon L. Berquist wrote: “These chapters not only reflect the new perspectives on Yehud but also raise a number of matters that scholarship in only beginning to address,” (p.5) some of the issues are “identity” and the challenge connected with “scribalism and canonization” and lastly “understanding the production and uses of texts within the period, including the history of different writings now extant and the intertexual relation between texts.” The present collection of essays is a product of a collaboration between two research programs at the European Association of Biblical Society, namely Israel and the Production and Reception of Authoritative Books in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis. We joined forces at the EABS meeting in Lincoln in the summer 2009, where we arranged a session on “Remembering Abraham in the Persian-Hellenistic Period.” This volume represents an experiment combining different approaches. We have to accept that we are far from solving the challenges drawn up by Berquist. We agree about investigating the literary texts as one type of media from the past, but not all of us are happy to operate with a specific historical “period,” in this case the Persian and the Hellenistic period. The fundamental question is always how it is possible to time-estimate a tradition or a period constructed through memory itself. xiii

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INTRODUCTION

Literary texts are paths or tracks into cultural memory, not “direct access to unmediated memory.”1 Cultural memory studies are about how the past is mediated, how memory is produced and circulated. It is not about history “as such”: it is about how memory works. “History is, on the other hand, a reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete, of what is no longer.”2 In this volume we try to trench down a specific period, using the Persian and Hellenistic periods as the context, although our information about these periods is less than satisfying. The Persian Period is itself a lieu de mémoire, a place of memory; it only exists in the mind of the people who construed it. The Hellenistic Period is different since in the books of the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament it is not remembered time, although in the Greek Bible, the Septuagint, it is already remembered time in the Books of Maccabees. It is debatable when the Judean literati—to use Ehud Ben Zvi’s terminology—wrote their account of the past, but they definitely saw all of Israel’s history, from the beginning to Ezra and Nehemiah, as a world lost, a memory. In his contribution to this volume Philip R. Davies emphasized the memory of (or perhaps better: in memory of) Abraham: Whose memory are we talking about? Judean Literati (Ehud Ben Zvi), peoples of many origins (Philip R. Davies), or others belonging to the late Persian or Hellenistic Jewish community? The Old Testament was created in periods of globalization. The writing is a piece of memory work meant for creation of national or local identity and particularity in a global world here counter-activity is always present, which focuses on the local, small tradition, the particular narrative, which creates its own way of coherence, Abraham seems to be one of these narratives. This collections of essays explore the uses of “the past in the past,” especially the memory of Abraham. Memories are not readyprepared reflections of the past, they are both eclectic and selective Max Saunders, “Life-Writing, Cultural Memory, and Literary Studies": Astrid Erll and Ansgard Nünning (eds.), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 322. 2 Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémorie,” Representations 26 (1989), 7-24, 8. 1

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reconstruction,3 remembering and forgetting the past reflect the needs in the present. It is an active and ongoing not monolithic process not easy to delimit. Abraham is like a lieu de mémoire, a place of memory, because there no longer exists a real environment of his memory.4 When discussing the subject of cultural memory, we should understand that it is a relatively recent issue for biblical scholars. In general history it has been important for a while, but contemporary historians do not normally use it in connection with ancient societies, but often in connection with cognitive studies of modern or late pre-modern societies, and sometimes without much precision when it comes to definitions.5 This is also the case of this intro-text, but memory studies do not represent a coherent field, and having a struggle to agree about definitions seems to be a useless tool when one wants to introduce this conceptualizing approach into the Old Testament discipline, and not only to introduce, but to use the approach in analysis. Memory studies are coming from different disciplines and discursive areas. It is an analytic instrument and a heuristic tool focusing the socio-cultural context.6 Memory can be something individual (personal or autobiographical memory) and something related to the collective or social areas, shaping ones own identity (or mental equipment) or the group’s identity. There exist conceptual confusion using the terms “collective memory,”7 “social memory”8 and “cultural memory.”9 See D. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 210. 4 Cf. Nora 1989, 7 and Lawrence D. Kritman, Rethinking the French Past of Memory, XXX, XII. 5 Cf. Geoffrey Cubitt, History and Memory (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2007), 1-25. Memory studies do not constitute an coherent field, and there is certainly no agreement within different disciplines involved in memory studies about definitions. 6 Erll 2010, 4. 7 Cf. J-K Olick, V. Vinitzky-Seroussi and D. Levy (eds), The Collective Memory Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 8 “Social memory and collective memory are not synonymous. Social memory is “a set of processes that are not necessarily neatly bounded by the dividing lines between different human communities,” Cubitt 2007, 18f. 3

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INTRODUCTION

Cultural memory has been used in the sense cultural heritage is connected to materiality. It is as Astrid Erll states: “A multifarious notion, a term often used in an ambiguous and vague way.”10 The notion of “cultural memory” is used both in the humanities and in social science. Cultural memory appears as overwriting (palimpsests) and re-use of material artifacts, such as buildings, monuments, and texts, and of ritual practice. Memorization can be conscious or unconscious, incorporated in the body, and become visible material culture and monuments. People are never alone, but always relate to place, education, nation, family, religious and political groups, and so on. These collectives are the frames that direct people’s comprehension of reality. This is the human context from which one also should look upon memory and remembrance. This little collection of essays will not solve any problems. There is long way to go before biblical scholars have reached any kind of agreement about cultural memory really is and has to contribute to biblical studies/any degree of consensus among biblical scholars may emerge. We publish this collection in the hope that at least one or two steps along this way has been taken.

9 Cubitt 2007, 13ff. For an introduction to Cultural Memory studies see A. Erll 2010 also Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz, Memory. Histories, Theories, Debates (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010). 10 Erll 2010, 1.

FROM MOSES TO ABRAHAM: JEWISH IDENTITIES IN THE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD PHILIP R. DAVIES CULTURAL MEMORY IN BIBLICAL STUDIES As I understand it, the first two questions to be asked of a cultural memory are: whose is the memory and what is its function? The historical reliability of that memory concerns conventional historians, but for the purposes of cultural analysis is quite secondary and often unimportant—quite apart from the fact that such questions are most often unanswerable. Cultural, collective or social memories1 are (like personal memories) images of the past that serve to define or explain an awareness of identity and cannot simply be adopted as ‘evidence’ of a historical event, as they so often are in biblical scholarship. Nor should cultural memory be equated with ‘tradition’: analysis of tradition, especially in biblical studies, is dominated by diachronicity, by the search for historical origins and by a division into traditio and traditum, the handing down of a body of data. A cultural memory, on the other hand, is better observed synchronically, and best of all when it is in negotiation, or even better, in conflict, with other memories and identities. For an identity, very often a boundary issue, is most clearly discernible when defining itself against others. Collective memories confront the conventional historian with many problems. Firstly, and especially in societies that have 1 I do not distinguish for the present purposes between cultural, collective, group or social memory and will use the terms interchangeably.

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little recourse to the past other than memory lack any ‘objective’ temporal or spatial grid required by histoire eventuelle. Just as the modern study of space differentiates the ‘objective’ measurement of ‘first space’ with the ‘subjective’ perceptions of interior ‘spaces,’ a similar differentiation is needed between ‘dated’ time and the dimensions of time belonging to memory. ‘Dating’ an event imaged by a memory (assuming it to be real and datable) requires deduction and cross-referencing and can rarely be inferred from the memory itself. Second, all memories, whether individual or social, are the result of a process of interpretation in which the image accumulates features of earlier rememberings and re-rememberings, attracts features from other memories, and sometimes conforms memories to cultural stereotypes: in these ways it is overlaid and modified every time the memory-image is reproduced. The numerous well-known examples of differences in eye-witness recollection illustrate very well how both perception and recollection of even recently observed events can differ among witnesses, so that reconstruction of the witnessed event requires (as in many forensic procedures) more than a single witness. External reference and careful critical comparison are required to determine that a particular memory is a more or less reliable representation of what it is that the witness did in fact see or hear.2 The greater the time over which the memory exists, the greater the distortion—though this principle does not mean that recent memory is necessarily reliable, either. The biblical ancestral narratives illustrate perfectly the problem of applying conventional historical analysis to collective memory. There is a long history of scholarly efforts to trace historical roots in these stories. The futile attempts to define a ‘patriarchal age,’ for example, were not so much abuses of archaeology (which they certainly were) as methodologically inappropriate to the character of the narratives. The efforts of the mid-twentieth century Albrighteans to interpret biblical stories as historical ‘witness’ led to precarious projections whose dating jumped from one century to another depending on the parallels that were 2 For this reason the use of the word ‘testimony’ to apply to memory transcribed in the biblical literature is totally unhelpful: testimony can be true or false, but is rarely totally accurate, however honest the witness.

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optimistically invoked as the external temporal controls. The lack of historical specificity in a very loosely related sequence of episodes is strikingly apparent (as it was to those scholars like Gunkel who applied the insights of folklore studies [e.g. Gunkel 1987]). Only in the last few decades has the notion of a ‘patriarchal’ or ‘ancestral’ age finally been laid to rest, so that we can declare that it exists only in the historical imagination of certain evangelicals, amateur biblical archaeologists and editors of popular biblical magazines. This realization is not the end, but the beginning of the task of properly analyzing what must be classified as inscribed cultural memories and not as an attempt to relate ‘what really happened’ (which was beyond the possibility of the memorizers (Davies 2008). That task is, as already stated, who remembered and why—in this case the memory being of Abraham. WHO DOES ABRAHAM REPRESENT? In his Judaism: The First Phase (2009:37–43), Joseph Blenkinsopp asks, pertinently, ‘Who Are the Children of Abraham?’ Here he makes two points: that the figure of Abraham is not attested before the Persian period (it is now increasingly problematic to confirm what in the Bible is attested earlier!), and that it ‘came to serve as a model for those who returned from Babylon.’ This second point, which is shared by several commentators, is suggested by the mention of Abraham’s departure from Ur to settle in Canaan (Gen. 11:31). But it is actually to Harran that the family sets out: there they settle and from there Abraham is summoned to a land unknown to him. It is also from this region on the Upper Euphrates that his son Isaac (Gen. 24) and grandson Jacob (Gen. 28:1–5) obtain their wives. The retrojection of Abraham’s itinerary from this part of Aram to Ur does, no doubt, intend to embrace those among migrants from Babylonia who claimed his ancestry, but hardly indicates an original share in the patriarch: it is rather an extension of an existing lineage located in part of Syria-Palestine. But here lies a complication already. The region where Abraham’s family live, in Aram, suggests a connection with Samaria rather than Judah, yet the further derivation from Ur suggests rather Judean memories of deportation under the Neo-Babylonians. Abraham is, of course, an ancestor of the twelve-tribe Israel

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comprising the populations of both provinces, but there are links to each one individually. There is no reason to assume that Abraham is an exclusively Judean figure, fundamentally associated with immigrants from Babylon. Indeed, Abraham’s memory extends further, to Egypt. Abraham himself, and later his descendant Joseph, find prosperity there. Thomas Römer (2008) has argued that these stories constitute a deliberate anti-Exodus polemic in the ancestral narratives and may therefore represent a discrete layer or strand of memory. Or perhaps Genesis 12 and 20 represent an extension of the patronage of Abraham to the Egyptian diaspora, in which some anti-Exodus elements may be present, perhaps incidentally— invoking a more benign image of that country. As with the Babylonian diaspora, there are good reasons to see the mantle of the ancestral figure of Abraham being cast over more than one group. But the diasporic associations seem to be secondary. The primary focus of the memory of Abraham is on neither Babylonia nor Egypt, but on Canaan—and not on Samaria and Judah alone. The territory of Edom, and its inhabitants, also figures prominently. Esau, Isaac’s firstborn, clearly represents Edom (whether or not by secondary association), while Isaac too seems to be primarily attached to Beersheba. Abraham himself also has an association with Hebron, where he and Isaac are also buried (Gen. 35:27–29). In the Persian period both Beersheba and Hebron would have to be regarded as Edomite more than Judean (though with a mixed population). We need also to widen the geographical and ethnic scope to include various tribes of northern Arabia who are traced back to Abraham’s own firstborn, Ishmael (Knauf 1989). Ammon and Moab are also included, though not configured as direct descendants of Abraham but of his nephew Lot. Aram is included, as already observed, through Abraham’s own family settled in Harran, which provides the maternal line of the Israelite ‘tribes.’ Several different regions are thus specifically collated within the orbit of a single ancestor. The cycle of stories thus represents a deliberate, unifying memory, creating or sustaining a corporate identity. Who, then, are these ‘children of Abraham’? We can recognize various groups that have affiliated themselves with this figure—Judah and Samaria via Jacob, Edomites via Esau, Arabs via Ishmael and Arameans via the maternal line. But what identity

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embraces all these groups, necessitating the memory of a common ancestor? The prominence in the ancestral stories of a single deity, known by several names and connected with several ancestors (Exod. 3:15) suggests that one focus of this unified identity is religious, the confession of a shared single deity. A second focus is land and circumcision a third, rather less central. But the deity in question is not the ‘god of Israel’—he enjoys a host of titles, including El, Yahweh, Elyon and others. This suggests a kind of syncretistic monotheism, or monarchical theism, one that extended beyond the boundaries of Judah or Israel (as argued by Niehr 1990).3 But it is the territorial aspect that offers the most important clue to the identity of those claiming Abraham as ancestor and, as I will presently argue, it also furnishes the name for this ethnic identity. The ‘promised land’ of Genesis, the ‘land of Canaan,’ is described in Gen. 15:18, as stretching from the ‘river of Egypt’ to the Euphrates. This is often wrongly conflated with the land given to ‘Israel’ in Exodus–Deuteronomy, whose extent is actually spelled out only in Numbers 34, and represents a maximal definition of the territories of the Israelite and Judean kingdoms. The linkage of the land given to ‘Israel’ with the land promised to the ‘fathers’ (Deut. 1:8; 6:10; 9:5; 29:13; 30:20) is not therefore identifying the two regions. Rather, the land allotted to the ‘tribes of Israel’ comprises simply a part of the wider area promised to Abraham’s descendants and does not constitute a claim to all the territory of the ‘Abrahamic’ neighbours. In fact, the distinct lands of Israel and of Abraham are elsewhere in the Bible defined and related differently. One such presentation is the portrait of David and Solomon who rule the kingdoms of Israel and Judah but who also govern the territory of the wider ‘Abrahamic’ region: the relationship is imperial. In another presentation, the scribe Ezra (Ezra 7:25–26) is appointed to apply the ‘laws of 3

Such a process of syncretization will have identified this one god with various El-type and Baal-type deities, a confusion that biblical scholars have noted as pervading biblical texts within and outside the Pentateuch. Inevitably, ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Elohim’ or ‘Elyon’ will have borrowed features from both types. Niehr suggests Baalshamem as the main equivalent to Yhwh.

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your god’ in the province of ‘Beyond the River’: here the ‘land of Israel’ seems in fact to be redefined as Judah, but adherents of the cult of Ezra’s god are assumed to dwell throughout the satrapy of Abar Nahar—a recognized geopolitical unit since neo-Assyrian times that corresponds almost exactly to the lands of Abraham’s descendants. After Achaemenid rule, the Ptolemaic administration (this is the real Dark Age in Palestinian history) may well have united its Palestinian territories into a single nome, a part of greater Egypt, bringing an even tighter administrative uniformity not only to the population of ‘biblical Israel’ (and perhaps reinforcing the memory of a ‘united monarchy’) but all of the former satrapy of ‘Across the River’ that it now controlled. The process by which the children of Abraham came to identify themselves as a definable ethnic group may thus have come about through a number of factors and over several centuries. But that identity rested on good foundations; administrative unity, a monotheistic cult, an indigenous language (Aramaic) and the practice of circumcision. But its members also acquired a name. As people from ‘abar nahar, ‘Across the River’ they were called, and called themselves, ‘ibrim, ‘Hebrews’ or, in dynamicequivalent English: ‘Transis.’ When he is interrogated about his identity by the sailors in the ship, Jonah (a figure from a post-Assyrian period) responds that he is an ‘ibri, a ‘Hebrew’ who ‘worships Yahweh the god of heaven.’ He does not call himself an ‘Israelite,’ and although several commentators equate the two terms, they do so wrongly. Some centuries later, Saul/Paul of Tarsus describes himself (Phil. 3:5) as a ‘member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew (‘ibri) of Hebrews.’ Here clearly, ‘Hebrew’ does not mean ‘Israelite.’ In 2 Cor. 11:22 he again declares himself again to be ‘a Hebrew, an Israelite, and of the seed of Abraham.’ He means that the first language of himself and his family is Aramaic, something that would distinguish him from Greek-speaking Jews (cf. Acts 6:1 which shows these Jewish linguistic communities in conflict). ‘Benjaminite’ and ‘Israelite’ are undoubtedly ethnic markers too (though ‘Jew’ is a religious one and hence Saul/Paul’s reluctance to use it of himself). But ‘Hebrew’ is a broader cultural ethnicity often used by those from outside Syria-Palestine and in conversation with them,

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which is why it is chosen by Jonah on board a ship. It is a natural identity to claim since the sailors would probably infer identity primarily from language and accent (and his primary Aramaic language also explains how he is able to address the Ninevites without need of an interpreter!4). Like many such ethnic groups, the ‘Hebrews’ are provided with an eponymous ancestor. In fact, the Bible provides two. The obvious one is Eber, a grandson of Shem (Gen. 10:21–25; 11:14-17). But the information given about him is confusing. In the ‘Table of Nations’ of ch. 10 he and his descendants should represent ethnic or social groups within a designated area of settlement. But only one of his sons, Joktan, is assigned further descendants or territories and these appear to lie in the region of the Arabian peninsula. Nevertheless, according to 10:21 Shem is the ‘father of all the descendants of Eber,’ a statement that has the effect of equating ‘Hebrews’ with all those descended from Shem: these descendants are listed as the inhabitants of the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent from Elam to Aram. In chapter 11, however, Joktan is omitted entirely and Eber’s other son, Peleg is furnished with a line of descent that leads to Abram (vv. 16-26). This second genealogy suggests a connection between Eber/Hebrews and the distribution of Aramaic. Such a linguistic equation is also suggested by the name ivrit/hebraios given to the language that is clearly not what we now call ‘Hebrew’ but Aramaic. To summarize: the original ‘children of Abraham’ are the ‘Hebrews,’ members of the Aramaic-speaking population of SyriaPalestine, including Samariana and Judeans. The Genesis stories explain how each of the areas within the ‘Hebrew’ region has land promised to them by the high god (under various titles). They thus convey an ideology that embraces the descendants of Israel/Jacob within a wider community. Abraham and his immediate descendants do not then primarily represent a Samarian or Judean diaspora: the ‘Hebrews’ are not ‘Israelites’ who have been displaced 4

We are, of course, speaking of the narrative world of the book. Whether or not many of the inhabitants of Nineveh did in fact speak Aramaic, the readers of the story would be aware that conversation with Assyrians in their own world took place in Aramaic, the lingua franca of its Western empire.

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east of the Euphrates (nor in Egypt), but those who live ‘across the River,’ meaning to the west of it. Rather, they buy into that identity—since quite possibly it came to be a primary identity of native West Aramaic speakers. Abraham is called ‘Hebrew’ (Gen. 14:13) not because he is strictly the progenitor of the Hebrews: according to Genesis, that is Eber. But he is the Hebrew to whom the god of this region revealed himself and to whom the whole of the land of ‘Across the River’ was promised. So he is their cultural founder. WHY REMEMBER ABRAHAM? MEMORIES IN CONFLICT What is the function of the memory of Abraham as recorded in Genesis? We should look first for the function of differentiation, and recognize how the perspective in which Genesis sets the origins of ‘Israel’ differs from the xenophobic definition that characterizes the remainder of the Pentateuch, in which the Abrahamic world is reconfigured, the ‘promised land’ being redefined as the territory of Israel and its relations with near-neighbours characterized by hostility (Davies 2006). But in addition to these ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Israelite’ identities we also find a further, distinctively Judean memory in the remainder of the Judean canon that is antiSamarian. It is attested not only in Ezra and Nehemiah, but also the books of Kings, for whose authors Samaria is full of foreigners, not children of Jacob (2 Kings 17). Even in Chronicles, for whom Samarians are still part of Israel, Israel must be centred on Jerusalem.5 The life of these memories through the Persian and Hellenistic eras is shadowy, as is much of our knowledge of the societies to which they belong. But cultural memories are most 5 The gulf between the Pentateuchal and the supersessionist Judean perspectives is bridged in the Judean canon by the narrative transition of the books of Judges and Samuel, wherefrom the twelve tribes of the single nation of ‘Israel’ separate ‘houses’ of Judah and Israel emerge and Judah begins to assert a hegemony (already in the figure of the judge Othniel and in Judg. 19–21). The final stage in the transition is effected by the story of a union of two kingdoms and the subsequent secession of Israel from that, paving the way for the portrait of Judah as the sole legitimate survivor of that ancient nation following the alleged deportation of all Israelites from Samaria.

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easily observed when they are in conflict, and so we can best see their interaction in a fairly well-document historical period, when the Hasmonean rulers of Judah, Johanan Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannai, extended their rule over their neighbours, thus bringing the various memories into play. Hyrcanus’ destruction of the Gerizim temple is well-known and reenacts the memory of Jerusalem as the only legitimate Yahwistic temple in the ‘land of Israel.’ The enlargement of the kingdom also reenacted the memory of the Davidic-Solomonic realm, though it went further in creating ‘Jews’ out of its newly acquired subjects. It did not, therefore, (re)create the memory of a twelve-tribe Israel by annexing merely Samaria. It fulfilled instead the Abrahamic memory of a Hebrew realm. In incorporating Idumea and parts of Transjordan into the kingdom—as much as practical of the territory ‘Across the River’—it unified ‘Judeans’ ‘Israelites’ and ‘Hebrews’ into a single community.6 Under the name ‘Judaism’ it also gave this integrated community a new name: henceforth ‘Jews’ and ‘Judeans’ would not be identical. However much political opportunism may have prompted such expansion, it is remarkable that the Hasmonean achievement expressed each of the three memories present in the Judean canon: the ‘Abrahamic,’ the ‘Mosaic’ and what we might call the ‘Davidic’ or ‘Zionist,’ the political supremacy of Jerusalem.7 Of these three, the ‘Mosaic’ memory is arguably the least strongly sustained, since the ‘land of Israel’ and the ‘people of Israel’ were now absorbed into a wider ethnic mix of ‘Judeans’ whose obedience to the Judean Torah was questionable. The ‘conversion’ of the non-Judean ‘Hebrews’ to ‘Judaism’—as the 6

The figure of Melchizedek, which the Hasmoneans seem to have adopted as a dynastic totem, not only conveniently combined the roles of priest and king but also represented the sovereignty of Jerusalem. Abraham’s homage to Melchizedek (Gen. 14) may thus serve to underline Jerusalem’s claim to be the capital of the land of the Hebrews. It might also be argued that the Hasmoneans claimed patronage over diaspora Jews, though it is with Herod the Great that this becomes an overt policy. 7 The manner in which the family of Mattathias is presented in 1 Maccabees, the revival of the antique ‘Hebrew’ script and the canonization of the scriptures all point clearly to more than political opportunism on the part of the Hasmonean dynasty—quite apart from the religious ideology of the coalition on which its power had originally rested.

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Hasmonean initiative is sometimes described—was perhaps less radical than such terms imply—closer to a political recognition of an already shared cultural, Abrahamic, ‘Hebrew’ heritage that included monotheism, language and circumcision.8 The strong reaction to this policy is clearly expressed in contemporary writings that affirm obedience to Torah as the mark of the true Israel.9 Conversely, one major marker of Hebrew ethnicity, circumcision, now became a religious mark of Judaism. Judaism was still an ethnos, but a religion (in Greek terms, a ‘philosophy’) rather than a nation. As noted at the beginning of this essay, the synchronic interplay of memory is often more successful in the study of cultural memory than the diachronic emphasis exhibited by traditionhistory, because memory, and the identity it sustains, is more marked and more active when challenged by alternative memories and identities. We cannot write a detailed history of the memory of Abraham but we can see the communities that associated themselves with him: ‘Hebrews,’ ‘Israel,’ ‘Jews’ and later, of course, Christians and Muslims. Claims to Abraham as a Jew and as a Muslim persist to this day, and a memory of him as the first monotheist (perhaps also originating from the ‘Hebrews’) promotes him as the father of all three siblings. For the serious student of biblical cultural memory, there is perhaps no more complex nor fascinating figure (pace Assmann 1997).10

8 On the effects of this expansion of ‘Jewish’ population see Schwarz 2001:36–42. 9 The writer of the book of Jubilees attempts to restore the Mosaic definition of Judaism by making Abraham a paragon of the Mosaic Torah, effectively adopting him as a ‘Jew’ and affirming racial segregation. The strong affirmation of Mosaic identity in the Qumran manuscripts is further evidence of resistance to Hasmonean values (and not, as often asserted without evidence, to ‘Hellenism’). 10 See the bibliography.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Assmann, Jan 2005 1997

Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (5th ed.; München: Beck). Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press).

Blenkinsopp, Joseph 2009 Judaism: The First Phase. The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). Davies, Philip R. 2007 The Origins of Biblical Israel (London: T&T Clark, 2007). 2008 Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press). Finkelstein, J.J. 1962 ‘Mesopotamia,’ JNES 21, 73‒92. Gunkel, H. 1987 [1917] The Folktale in the Old Testament (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Halbwachs, Maurice 1992 On Collective Memory, Edited and translated by Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) original: Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (Paris: F. Alcan, 1925). Knauf, E.A. 1989

Niehr, H. 1990

Ismael: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Palastinas und Nordarabiens am Ende des zweiten Jahrtausends (2nd ed.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Der Höchste Gott: Alttestamentliche YHWH-Glaube im Kontext syrische-kanaanäischer Religion des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr. (Berlin: de Gruyter).

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Römer, Thomas 2008 ‘Exodusmotive und Exoduspolemik in der Erzvätererzählungen,’ in Ingo Kottsipere, Rüdiger Schmitt and Jakob Wöhrle (eds.), Berührungspunkte. Studien zur Sozial- und Religionsgeschichte Israels und seiner Umwelt (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag), 3‒21. Schwartz, Seth 2001 Imperialism and Jewish Society 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press).

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM IN LATE PERSIAN/EARLY HELLENISTIC PERIOD YEHUD EHUD BEN ZVI INTRODUCTION There is no doubt that by the late Persian/early Hellenistic period the figure of Abraham played a prominent role in the memory of ancient Israel.1 By that time, the authoritative repertoire of the Jerusalemite centered literati included the pentateuchal books, the deuteronomistic historical collection, the book of Chronicles and most or all of the fifteen prophetic books in a form or forms similar to those we know about. As the literati, and those who heard their readings, imagined the past evoked by reading and rereading these books, they encountered Abraham as one of Israel’s most important founding figures.2 The level of continuity between the late Persian and the early Hellenistic periods in Yehud/Judah and particularly in terms of intellectual discourse allows (and perhaps even demands) that the study of at least the main aspects of the cultural memory of the relevant Jerusalem-centered community, as reflected in its stories about Israel’s past be carried without attempts to separate the two. One may keep in mind also the notorious problem of precisely dating some of the books within the authoritative repertoire; e.g., Chronicles, and the fact that, to some extent, Alexander was ‘the last ‘Achaemenid, as P. Briant has often formulated (e.g., P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander. A History of the Persian Empire [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2002], 2). Any too strict differentiation between the two periods and between their respective Jerusalemite centered intellectual discourses is bound to encounter quite insurmountable problems. 2 Other founding figures, within the Jerusalem-centered discourse of 1

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This essay is not meant to reconstruct a kind of narrative ‘biography’ of Abraham that the literati of the time could have construed on the basis of their readings and rereadings of these authoritative books—by necessity, such a ‘biography’ would end up being for the most part a re-narration and interpretation of Genesis 11:27–25:10. It is also not a comprehensive analysis of any particular set of references to Abraham, here and there in some biblical books.3 More importantly, and for reasons that soon will become clear, this essay does not focus on the figure of Abraham in various books or their forerunners in terms of the possible intentions of their respective authors. There is room for all that, but this study is about social/cultural memory. Social memory is certainly not a book, nor what happened when an individual in Yehud read or wrote a particular book or short sections of text here and there, but the public, integrated and socially integrative representation of the past that is held, shaped, negotiated within and which holds together a social group. Social memory is about the past that is constantly present within the community and about the present of the community that is legitimized by that past. Of course, different social groups have different cultural memories, and thus, different ‘Abrahams.’ 4 The focus here is on a particular group, namely that the period, include Moses, Jacob/Israel and since Israel became ideologically associated with Jerusalem and its temple, also David—and to a less extent, Solomon. Of course, within this discourse, YHWH, who although not an Israelite, established/founded Israel and as such it was its ‘father/ruler/highest-level patriarch.’ 3 See, for instance, J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975); and among more recent works, but of non-monographic scope, Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, ‘Abraham—A Judahite Prerogative,’ ZAW 120 (2008), 49–66. She discusses references to Abraham in Isa. 41:8; 51:2; 63:16; Ezek. 11:15; 33:23; and Nehemiah 9. 4 Needless to say, Abraham was remembered by Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups for centuries. Each had their own ‘Abraham/Ibrahim.’ Likewise, reconstructions of ancient remembered Abrahams would vary substantially according to the remembering community the historian associates with the figure of Abraham. Cf. and contrast this essay with R.S. Hendel, Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). For late second

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of the poor and small community that existed in Yehud by the late Persian period and its continuation in the early Hellenistic period. Since the traces of their social memory that we access are all left in written texts, the focus is mainly the community’s literati, who were the only group in society competent to reread time and again the repertoire of authoritative books held by the community at large. This said, given that social isolation was not an option for these literati, one may assume their social memory trickled up and down within the community at large. It is reasonable to assume that by the late Persian period (or early Hellenistic) there existed within the community a repertoire of (authoritative) books that included the pentateuchal, prophetic, and historical books (including Chronicles) as well as many Psalms, more or less, in their present form.5 Reading and rereading these books made present within the ‘remembering community’ multiple images of a shared, construed past, and even of a shared, imagined future (see prophetic books in particular). Or to put it slightly differently, the central, collective memory of this group can be approached in terms of a comprehensive cultural system upheld by the group which included a vast array of interwoven, mutually informing, partial memories. These memories were then evoked and relived by the literati as they read and reread authoritative texts within the context of the world of knowledge of the community and above all its shared discourse, including its basic assumptions, identity and boundaries, cultural norms, questions, ways to address temple period constructions of Abraham see, for instance, S. Sandmel, Philo’s place in Judaism: A Study of Conceptions of Abraham in Jewish Literature (New York: Ktav Pub. House, 1971); L. H. Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 223–89. 5 Most of these books likely had a pre-late Persian period history, but it was the mental world evoked by reading them within the particular discourse and world of knowledge—including repertoire of books—that shaped and reflected the shared, imagined and imaginative social memory of the rereading community. It may well be, for instance, that the patriarchal traditions and the Exodus traditions were originally two separate corpora, but this observation would not be relevant to the study of the social memory of an Israel who understood itself in terms of the Primary History (Genesis-2 Kings).

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them and a repertoire of potential answers, fears and hopes, and generative tendencies for preferred and dis-preferred ways of thinking about the world, self, and about textual features and, characterization of personages from the past. Cultural memories are, of course, part and parcel of this general discourse and had to be approached from that perspective. A study of the collective memory of the literati in Yehud cannot focus on any single book or section within it as if it were a stand-alone historical entity. To reconstruct the social memory of Yehud or its literati in the late Persian/early Hellenistic period, one must deal with the comprehensive cultural horizon of the group and in terms of text-based information, with the type of general basic convergences among very diverse books within the repertoire that cut across the particular exigencies and idiosyncrasies of any given text and point at the general discursive matrix of which all of them are a part and to which each of them attests. This means dealing not only with the repertoire of authoritative texts of the period—rather than a particular, isolated text—but above all analyzing each of these texts in light of their Sitz im Diskurs—for examples see the following sections in this chapter. To be sure, a full reconstruction of the memories of Abraham that existed within the community is something that cannot be achieved.6 But more importantly, even the less pretentious goal of reconstructing the memories associated with Abraham held by the community discussed here according to the traces that can be found in the extant sources is well beyond the scope of any single essay. The goal of this contribution is thus far more modest, namely to draw attention to several central topoi and core concepts in the general ideological discourse of the relevant community/ies (hereafter, ‘the community’) that became associated with the figure of Abraham to the point that the latter, most likely, became a site of memory7 that embodied and ‘broadcasted’ them. This chapter Such a goal belongs to the same category of unachievable goals as ‘total historical reconstruction.’ 7 I use the term ‘site of memory’ to refer to any constructed space, place, event, figure, text or the like—whether it exists ‘materially’ or only in the mind of members of a social group—whose presence in the relevant cultural milieu evokes or was meant to evoke core images or 6

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demonstrates that Abraham became a site of memory or cipher within that community meant to evoke and reinforce matters and images at the core of its self-characterization and selfunderstanding. In addition, this chapter suggests ways by which to approach the characterization of other core figures of the Israel’s past in the same community. The process leading to the construction of Abraham as a central node in the collective memory network involved a positive feedback loop: the more central a figure was, the more it became a ‘magnet’ for issues and images at community’s core (including self-characterization, identity, ideology). Conversely, the more such matters and images were associated with Abraham, the more central the latter became. The same feedback was at work in relation to a few other core figures in ancient Israelite discourse, such as Jacob, Moses, and in a different way, David and Solomon.8 All of them became central and connective memory nodes in the community’s collective memory. As such they functioned as sites of memory that embodied and communicated, at times in an abbreviated but memorable form, most of the basic tenets of the community and were deeply connected (explicitly or implicitly) to and evocative of other such sites of memory. Functioning in this way, these sites/central nodes created a fully interwoven mental landscape that encapsulated and made memorable the community’s construed past and future and its ideological discourse. To be sure, making present these central figures of the past served as much to shape images of the past (and future) as to construct a community and socializing people to its core values and

aspects of images of the past held by the particular social group who lives in that cultural milieu. Most of these sites act as ciphers to be activated within a particular social discourse, and as places to be visited and revisited, even if only mentally, as part of a self-supportive mechanism of socialization and social reproduction. See E. Ben Zvi, ‘The Study of Forgetting and the Forgotten in Ancient Israelite Discourse/s: Observations and Test Cases,’ forthcoming. 8 Of course, in this essay I can focus only on Abraham and only on some of the most salient characteristics of social memories associated with him and only within the context of the relevant historical community.

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ideology, while providing hope and contributing to the community’s accommodation with the world in which it lived.9 The purpose of the following studies is to showcase the general considerations advanced in this introduction. THE TRIAD ‘ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB’ AND RELATED MATTERS The memory of Abraham often evoked the triad Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which was well-known to the literati of the time. In fact, participation in the triad and the entire set of stories and associations with the triad constantly informed the ways in which the memory of Abraham was construed in late Persian/early Hellenistic Yehud. The triad was remembered as the (mythical) biological ancestors of Israel and therefore these literati construed Israel, and thus themselves, as ‘the seed’ of these ancestors (e.g., Deut. 1:8 and see ‫[ זרע אברהם ישחק ויעקב‬Jer. 33:26] and see the basic narrative of Genesis). As is well known, genealogies played (and still play) an important role in the construction of cultural memory in traditional, kingship oriented societies. Among other functions, genealogies shaped and created a necessary sense of kinship and shared primordial memory within ancient Israel, advanced the claim that the community is the legitimate descendant of the patriarchal heroes of the past. Genealogies also construed and communicated the place of the community in a larger frame of global and regional genealogical communities, and finally, they provided the community with (mythical) ancestors who may assist it in the present. Since Abraham was remembered as the father of many nations (Gen. 17:5), it is obvious why his name was bound together with those of Isaac and Jacob so as to create a genealogy that construes the remembering community (i.e., ‘ancient Israel’) as the primary legitimate heir of the patriarch (and the promise associated with There is, of course, another aspect of the convergence and coexistence of all these core concepts, images and topoi within the remembered persona of Abraham (and other central characters). This convergence reflected and communicated a sense that all these attributes associated with Abraham could not only co-exist, but were at some level deeply connected to each other. 9

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him). Since Abraham occupied the foundational, first slot in genealogy, it is also understandable and to a large extent expected that at times, his figure—and that of the last member of the triad— will embody the entire line (see 2 Chr. 20:7; Ps. 47:10).10 Given the theological discourse of the literati of late Persian early Hellenistic Yehud, it is also clear why the motif of ancestral assistance tended to shape itself in terms of a concept of ancestral merit, which in turn was often associated with divine promises to the ancestors (e.g., Gen. 22:16–19; Exod. 32:13; Lev. 26:42; Deut. 4:31; 9:27; 2 Kgs. 13:23; Isa. 41:8; Jer. 11:5; Ps. 105:42). The theme of ancestral assistance led, however, to its discursive counterpart in the discourse of ancient Israel. The latter arose when the community was construed as, or imagined itself through reading, as lamenting its own situation. If Israel is in such a lamentable shape, the patriarchs have rejected it and therefore, refused to assist Israel (see Isa. 63:16).11 In addition, the triad as a group, and each of them in particular, embodied, and served as a reminder to the community’s image of itself and of the patriarchs that symbolized it as involved in a particular and exclusive relation with the deity that characterizes not only them, but the deity—see, for instance, the phrase ‫ אלהי אברהם אלהי יצחק ואלהי יעקב‬in Exod, 3:6.15; 4:5 and cf. 1 Kgs. 18:36; 1 Chr. 29:18; 2 Chr. 30:6 and references to ‘the god of our ancestors’ (e.g. Deut. 26:7; 1 Chr. 12:18). This exclusive characterization, within the hierarchical metaphors of the time served to evoke a image of YHWH as the ultimate head/patriarch of Israel12 10 All is Israel became embodied in ‘Jacob;’ similarly Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may become embodied in ‘Abraham.’ 11 See R. J. Bautch, Developments in Genre between Post-exilic Penitential Prayers and the Psalms of Communal Lament (Academia Biblica, 7; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), pp. 37–38; 61–62 and literature cited there. 12 Imagining YHWH as father was among the (rhetorically) preferred metaphors used to construe the relationship between Israel and YHWH in the discourse of the period (e.g., Deut 32:6; Jer 31:9; Isa 63:16; 64:7; comparable images appear elsewhere in the ancient Near East. See, for instance, the (Sumerian) Prayer of King Sin-Iddinam to Utu in which Utu is referred to as ‘the father of the black-headed ones’ (W. W. Hallo, COS 1.165, p. 534).

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and of the latter as YHWH’s son (see, among others, Exod. 4:22– 23; Deut. 14:1; Isa. 1:2; Jer. 31:9.20; Hos. 2:2; 11:1). Of course, as usual in these cases, memory not only creates a link to the deity but also an inner discourse about boundaries separating those who share this memory and those who do not and shaping a sense of privileged inner group and less privileged ‘other’ (i.e., YHWH is the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not of Abraham, Isaac and Esau, or of Ham, Canaan and Sidon, or of Nahor for that matter). Of course, within the discourse of these literati, this claim had to be informed by the stance that their deity is actually the great (and only) god ruling the universe and all that is in it, including all the nations. Thus, for instance, the leaders of the peoples are imagined as the retinue of the god of Abraham (i.e., YHWH) in Ps. 47:10. The memory of the triad and, particularly, Abraham was emphatically associated with the land and the promise of the land (e.g., Gen. 12:7; 13:15.17; 15:18; 24:7; 26:3; 28:13; 50:24; Exod. 3:8; 6:8; 13:5.11; 32:13; 33:1; Lev. 26:42; Num. 14:23; 32:11; Deut. 1:8; 6:10; 9:5; 30:20; 34:4; Jer. 11:5; cf. Ps. 105:9-11; 1 Chr. 16:15-18). In other words, the cipher, or better, site of memory Abraham-IsaacJacob was saliently associated with the land in the memory of Israel and contributed to a construction of the relation between Israel and YHWH in which the land stood at the center. On the surface, this explicit and underscored association seems odd given that none of its members held the land at any time, nor are portrayed as able to conquer it. The first member of the triad was not born in the land and the last died outside it. Both had to leave it for substantial periods of time. Moreover, the prioritization of the association of the land with Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob) runs contrary to a general tendency in collective memory (or even literary representations of collective memory), namely that when socio-political spaces such as lands and cities become strongly associated with an individual, the latter activates directly or indirectly the memory of the person who ‘created’ them either through conquest or ‘founding’13 (e.g., 13 The motif of founding a city is a variant of the conquest motif as the founder takes control of the site away from nature and thus turns a ‘non-cultural’ or ‘chaotic’ space into a cultural, ‘ordered’ space within a polity that stands over and against a previous situation of ‘chaos.’ The

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Gen. 4:17; Deut. 3:14; 2 Sam. 5:9; cf. Alexandria, Rome—the biblical references show that this tendency existed within the discourse of ancient Israel). This trend contributes to the ideological construction of the space by those who inhabit it. Against this background, it is particularly noticeable that the land was not primarily associated with Joshua—as one might have expected—or even Moses for that matter,14 but was construed as primarily linked to Abraham-Isaac-Jacob in ancient Israelite founder ‘defeats’ nature/chaos, just as the conqueror defeats a human enemy whose rule over the city is contrary to (divinely-set) ‘order.’ 14 For Moses as a conqueror see Num. 21:21–35; Deut. 2:26–3:13. The image of Moses as a successful, mighty general is, on the whole, downplayed in the HB. For the possible reasons for this feature see below. (It is worth noting that even in some of the instances in the Hebrew Bible in which Moses is involved in war. Of course, Moses could have seen as the founder of the community in the land also because the blueprint for the society to be established is associated with him. Yet, neither the land nor any continuing polity or, for that matter, any important space in the land was directly or strongly and particularly associated with Moses. The ‘torah,’ however, was. On the difference between Abraham and Moses in this respect, see below). The metanarratively somewhat anticipated role of Moses as ‘founder’ is fulfilled in the recounting of Israelite history in Hecateus of Abdera (as cited in Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historical 40.3). On this text see M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Volume One: From Herodotus to Plutarch (= GLAJ I; Jerusalem, 1974), 26‒35; D. Mendels, ‘Hecataeus of Abdera and a Jewish ‘patrios politeia’ of the Persian period (Diodorus Siculus XL, 3),’ ZAW 95 (1983), 96‒110; R. Albertz, ‘An End to the Confusion? Why the Old Testament Cannot Be a Hellenistic Book,’ in L. L. Grabbe (ed.) Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period (JSOTSup, 317, Sheffield: Academic Press, 2001), 30‒46 and a for a very different assessment of this text see D. R. Schwartz, ‘Diodorus Siculus 40.3—Hecataeus or PseudoHecataeus?,’ in M. Mor et. al. (eds.), Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land (Jerusalem, 2003), 181‒97. See also B. Bar-Kochva, Pseudo-Hecataeus, On the Jews: Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 18–43. On the non-warrior like figure of Moses in the Pentateuch and the warrior traditions about him, cf. T. Römer, ‘Moses outside the Torah and the Construction of a Diaspora Identity,’ Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008), article 15; available at www.jhsonline.org. On these matters see below.

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discourse, who certainly neither conquered nor possessed it at any time. Similarly, a secondary trend in social memory was to associate socio-political spaces with those who lost control over them. Through this process the latter (e.g., Gen. 17:8; Exod. 3:8; Lev. 8:3; Num. 21:25.31; Ps. 105:11; 2 Sam. 24:16; 1 Kgs. 16:24; 2 Kgs. 9:21; passim) become sites of memory that symbolize and constantly re-enact subordination and celebrate both the displacement of the previous owners, and the founding of the ‘new world.’15 At times, the remembrance of the previous world and its destruction reflects a level of anxiety about the long term stability of the ‘new world,’ which in turn creates a positive feedback loop as it feeds a need for remembering the early displacement/founding topos and for stressing the ‘unbridgeable gap’ between the former and present ‘owners.’ This rhetorical strategy, of course, as similar claims for incomparability and ‘unbridgeability,’ both eases identity worries and feeds them, leading again and again to a re-visitation of the memory/is of displacement. There are multiple references to the dispossession of the previous dwellers of the land in the social memory of ancient Israel (e.g., Exod. 3:8.17; 13:5; 33:2; 34:11; Deut. 4:47; 7:1; Josh. 3:10; 1 Kgs. 14:24; 2 Kgs. 16:3; 17:8, 11; 21:2; Amos 2:10; Ps. 105:44; Neh. 9:8; 2 Chr. 8:7–8), but significantly none of them can be related to a celebration of their actual dispossession of the land by Abraham, or any other figure in the triad. In fact, within the memory of Israel, the dwellers of the land were not (actually) dispossessed, peacefully or not, by any of the members of the triad.16 The main reason for the ubiquitous preference for an association of the land with the figure of Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob) rather than Joshua is that the former makes salient the element of promise over and against that of present or past fulfillment. Had the The case in 1 Kgs. 6:24 combines the two trends, as it both evokes a previous owner and foundational deed by Omri. Cf. the reference to the ‘threshing floor of Araunah/Ornan’ in 2 Sam. 24:18; 1 Chr. 21:22; 2 Chr. 3:1. In both cases, the memory of the displaced character causes the community to remember and re-enact in their minds an act of transfer. 16 On signposts associated with them that may evoke a future dispossession see below. 15

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land been associated primarily with Joshua, the emphasis would have been in a past fulfillment that is no longer present in the life of the community. For the same reason the land was not primarily referred to as the land held by (a construed) David and Solomon. The memory of Abraham (and the other two patriarchs) served to bring to the present of the remembering community a promise and above all memories of a future which its literati and those who follow them could imagine and experience vicariously as they read the relevant authoritative books. It is in this virtual world, and only in this virtual world, that they could imagine themselves (i.e., ‘Israel’) as enjoying the promised land. It is particularly worth stressing that the promised land is not Yehud.17 It is not even Yehud and Samaria, but the Studies that interpret Abraham’s interaction to the land in terms of (supposedly) long-term tensions between ‘returnees’ and ‘non-returnees’ to Yehud in the early Persian period and their struggle over land not only face the problems that there was no historical massive return and that by the late Persian period, at the latest, Yehudites—the majority of whom remained in the land—developed a collective memory of leaving and returning to the land as a whole, but also that the memory of Abraham was directly related to the promise of a land that includes but is far larger than Yehud. See my ‘Total Exile, Empty Land and the General Intellectual Discourse in Yehud,’ E. Ben Zvi and C. Levin (eds.), The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel & its Historical Contexts (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2010). Abraham is not, at least in the main, an immigrant to Yehud but an immigrant to a vast land that his descendants, which within this discourse were construed to be ‘all Israel,’ are going to possess—and through the process disposes others. The ancient readers of these stories in late Persian/early Hellenistic Yehud associated these stories with territoriality and territorial claims. Cf. F. Stavrakopoulou, ‘Ancestor Ideologies and the Territoriality of the Dead in Genesis,’ E. Ben Zvi, D. V. Edelman and F. Polak (eds.), A Palimpsest: Rhetoric, Ideology, Stylistics and Language Relating to Persian Israel (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009), 61–80. I agree with her that images of an ‘ecumenical,’ ‘foreigner friendly,’ or ‘non-territorial’ Abraham—no matter how helpful are for contemporary theological thought—are not likely to have dominated the intellectual discourse of late Persian-early Hellenistic Yehud, at least, if the latter was based on or reflected in readings of the whole corpus of authoritative books that existed at the time—including Genesis-Deuteronomy in more or less their 17

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(whole) land of Canaan (see, for instance, Gen. 17:8). Whatever its exact borders this is a land whose possession by the small and poor community in Yehud stood well beyond any possible or even imaginable political development within the community.18 The present compositional form. Needless to say, stories about territoriality, of possession (and their counterpart, i.e. narratives about the previous inhabitants’ loss of their land) were, for obvious reasons, part and parcel of constructions of the past of peoples that were not construed/imagined as indigenous, cf. Herodotus 4.11, 173. Stavrakopoulou’s Abraham is, however, too narrowly related to the territory of Judah/Yehud in my opinion, though this may be an accidental side-effect of her focus on Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Machpelah rather than on the memory of Abraham as shaped and reflected in the entire repertoire of authoritative books. Similarly, studies of the Abraham that emerges from a reading of the (reconstructed) ‘P’ document alone or in a way that is not strongly informed by other texts lead, by necessity, to other constructions of Abraham. See, for instance, A. de Pury, ‘Abraham: The Priestly Writer’s ‘Ecumenical’ Ancestor,’ S. L. McKenzie and T. Römer (eds), Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible: Essays in Honour of John Van Seters (BZAW, 294; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2000), 163–81; J. Blenkinsopp, ‘Abraham as Paradigm in the Priestly History in Genesis,’ JBL 128 (2009), 225–41. (To be sure, the ‘P’ Abraham as it emerges from recent research is likely to be the most helpful of all Abrahams for theological thought within many Christian and Jewish groups today; but this observation carries no weight in any historical analysis of the discourse of late Persian/early Hellenist Yehud.) For the image of Abraham as emblematic of the ‘golah community’ in Yehud in contradistinction with the ‘remainees’ during the Persian period, see, among others, J. L. Ska, ‘Essai sur la nature et la signification du cycle d’Abraham (Gn. 11,27–25,11),’ A. Wénin (ed.), Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 153–177; and M. Liverani, Israel’s History and the History of Israel (London: Equinox, 2005), 258–61. 18 See Gen. 10:15–19; 15:18; Num. 34:1–12; Josh. 13:1–13; Ezek. 47:13–20; 48:1, 28. All these texts created a net of mental maps of the land of Canaan/the promised land within the discourse of ancient Israel. For the present purposes, the point is neither the precise borders—which are a matter of debate—nor the degree the latter correspond with those of an Egyptian ‘Canaan’ that existed about a thousand years before the Persian

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25

‘impossibility’ of the claim was what made it so appealing. The remembering community needed, produced and experienced mental maps of the (whole) land and images of Israel possessing it that could displace the actual maps with which the community was all too familiar, but that were so far from what the ‘real world’ should be. It is worth stressing that neither Joshua nor David or Solomon was imagined as controlling the entire land.19 There seems to have been a strong tendency to imagine no past, no matter how great it was conceived, as fulfilling the community’s utopian map of the ideal future. Remembering Abraham was remembering that future. Of course, the appeal that a mental map of the possessed (to be possessed) land, a land that cannot be destroyed, invaded or empire and the early Hellenistic era, but that all the mental maps that the literati in Yehud drew of this land included much more than the territory of Yehud, and even the two provinces of Yehud and Samaria together. Members of the community in Yehud, and certainly its literati could not but be well aware that there was no imaginable, worldly political development that may lead them to rule over the promised land. They were just as Abraham in this regard. See below. On historical reconstructions of the boundaries of Canaan and discussions of the ‘biblical borders,’ see N. Na’aman, Canaan in the Second Millennium B.C.E. Collected Essays Volume Two (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 110–33; cf. idem, Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and Counteraction: Collected Essays Volume One (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 265‒78; idem, Borders and Districts in Biblical Historiography (Jerusalem Biblical Studies, 4; Tel Aviv: Simor, 1986; Z. Kallai, ‘The Patriarchal Boundaries, Canaan and the Land of Israel: Patterns and Application in Biblical Historiography,’ IEJ 47 (1997), 69–82; idem, ‘The Boundaries of Canaan and the Land of Israel in the Bible,’ B. Mazar et al. (eds), Nelson Glueck Memorial Volume (EI, 12; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society in cooperation with the Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion, 1975), 27‒34 and bibliography cited in these works. Cf. N. P. Lemche, The Canaanites and Their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites (JSOTSup, 110: Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991); Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), 54–80. 19 On David-Solomon, see, for instance, J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition, 265–66.

26

EHUD BEN ZVI

polluted by enemies, since it exists only in the minds of those who read the authoritative texts of the community, was directly related and went hand in hand with that of other but related mental ‘realities’ that involved claims that were impossible to advance or fulfill within the ‘real world,’ such as the imperial dream that all the nations of the world will flow (one day) to the small temple of one of the poorest provinces in the Persian empire and along with the nations, their treasures too, or that the deity governing the world and the destiny of ‘global’ empires is that of a miniscule group of people and ‘enjoys’ one of the poorest ‘houses’ (i.e., temples) in a vast, multi-ethnic empire. The very impossibility of any of these images in the ‘real’ world raises the (religious and ideological) importance of the imagined, mental world shaped through the reading of the authoritative texts in the community. This mental world was populated with sites of shared memory created by reading shared books. These sites embodied and communicated ideological fulfillment and all together created a new world in which the greatness and power of YHWH and the deity’s particular gifts to Israel were openly manifested. This mental, imaginary world represents the ideologically ‘real’ world and since it differs from the ‘actual’ world that the community is experiencing, the latter can only be, at some deep level, (ideologically) deceitful and therefore, certain to fall and be replaced by the ‘truthful’ world, which in this case, is the world that the literati imagine as they read the relevant repertoire of books. Of course, they ‘know’ that this is the case, because they are endowed with godly knowledge (i.e., the authoritative books of Yehud) and therefore they can figure out which world is ultimately ‘real.’ To be sure, through the process all cognitive dissonances vanish. This mental world emerges as an embodiment, symbol and expression of hope associated with local ‘secret’ but ‘ultimately truthful’ knowledge. Through its ideological characterization of the ‘actual’ world as ‘ultimately deceitful’ and thus less important, this mental world not only contributes much to a local ideological resistance to imperial main narratives, but also and as important to the ability of the local community to find an accommodation with the empire in the actual, less important world.

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

27

The point advanced here becomes evident when one uses a cognitive model represented in the following variant of a veridiction diagram (see below) This diagram shows that when the realms of ‘(truthful) reality’ and those of the external appearance of the world are understood as consistent, then the community believes that the latter sends a true message about reality. Conversely, when external appearances are imagined to be consistent with non-reality (e.g., cases of ideological resistance such as those mentioned above), then the message the world conveys to the community is considered ‘deceitful.’ In such cases, the community ‘knows’ that ‘(truthful) reality’ is actually consistent with what does not appear in (the surface of) the world as it is. They can ‘know’ that this is the case, only through a secret knowledge that they posses.20 The world ‘as is’ from the perspective of the community in Yehud included a miniscule Jerusalem but many, very large non-Israelite cities; a very poor Jerusalem temple, but splendid non-Yhwistic temples; a powerful imperial center to which the wealth of the nations flows, but an insignificant from a global perspective, meagre provincial center in Jerusalem/Yehud. The implied message, the hierarchy and the sense of an essential lack of potential for any substantial change in the status of Israel/Jerusalem/Yehud vis à vis ‘the nations’ that this world conveyed was, however, understood as dangerously misleading— even if grounded in YHWH,21 by the community in Yehud, as it stood contrary to what they considered to be the ‘(truthful) reality.’ The latter was, from their perspective, unseen in the external world, 20 Of course, this diagram is a variant of Greimas’s semiotic square. The form I have used is similar to that in my A Historical-Critical Study of The Book of Zephaniah (BZAW, 198; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1991), 337–46. Cf. D. Maddox, Semiotics of Deceit: the Pathelin Era (Lewisburg, Pa./London: Bucknell University Press/Associated University Presses, 1984), 24–25. 21 Within this discourse, YHWH governs the world and anything that happens in it, including the presence of powerful non-Yhwistic empires/temples and miniscule Yhwistic centers. The status quo that members of the community experienced and construed was from their perspective also grounded in YHWH, but they maintained that this deity provided them with texts that allowed them to see through the ‘falsity’ of worldly appearances.

28

EHUD BEN ZVI

but approachable through reading the godly texts they had and by visiting by means of imagination the sites of memory that these texts evoked (i.e., the community’s particular and unique ‘knowledge’). Reality

TRUE MESSAGE Appearance

Secret Knowledge

Non-Appearance

Deceitful Message

Non-Reality

The impossible, under any worldly turn of events, desire of the community to ‘inherit’ the land (i.e., in the ‘actual’ world) finds a direct parallel in Abraham’s practical impossibility (and Isaac’s and Jacob’s as well) to ‘inherit’ it, within the world portrayed in the patriarchal narratives and their associated memories.22 Abraham’s family was no match to the many and numerous peoples who lived in the land (see the explicit construction of the circumstances at the time of the promise in Ps. 105:12//1 Chr. 16:15), and to make matters worse, its very biological continuity hung on a thread. According to the story that the community in Yehud shaped and remembered about itself, their ancestors/Israel were few (‫)מתי מעט‬ and powerless till they became a mighty nation in Egypt, just before the Exodus and the subsequent conquest of (much of) the land23 Cf. Gen. 34:30 and this refers to only one city in the entire promised land/Beyond the River 23 It is worth noting that the social memories about the period held in ancient Israel stressed that the conquered land fell well short of the promised land/land of Canaan (see Josh. 13:2–6; Judges 1; 3:1–5). Moreover, the common construction of the territory of the ‘Israel’s’ settlement during the monarchic period was in terms of ‘From Dan to Beer-Sheba,’ (see 1 Sam. 3:20; 2 Sam. 3:10; 17:11; 24:2; 1 Kgs. 5:5) a far cry from that of Canaan. Thus, even when the community in Yehud imagined much better 22

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

29

(see Deut. 26:5; cf. Deut. 1:10, whose very language shaped in the community a memory of the [first, but partial] fulfillment of the promise of progeny to the patriarchs [cf. Gen. 22:17; 26:4; Exod. 32:13; Deut. 10:22; 28:62]). Within this construction of the past, they remained a large people through the monarchic period (cf. Deut. 28:62; 1 Chr. 27:23; and see population numbers implied in the books of Kings and Chronicles), but following the fall of the monarchy, because of its sins, Israel were again few in number (‫מתי‬ ‫ ;מעט‬Deut. 28:62—the cross reference to the memory of Abraham’s promise is clear in this verse—see Gen. 22:17 and related verses—and see also Deut. 4:27) and remained so, from the perspective of the remembering community. The text of Ps. 105:8– 15//1 Chr. 16:15–22 refers to the patriarchs, but has a multitemporal capacity, as, from the perspective of the remembering community, it applies to its members as well. They are like Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob). They may be few, and powerless and seemingly dependent on powerful rulers, but their descendants will inherit the land in the future. Just like in the case of Abraham, as YHWH promised, their progeny will grow exponentially and then when it does, with YHWH’s help and leadership, it will be able to take hold of the land. They remembered that 70 people came down to Egypt (Exod. 1:5; Deut. 10:22) and in a few generations, due to YHWH’s promise and action, they became a people with about 600,000 mature males and thus likely a group of two to three million people (Exod. 12:37–38; cf. Num. 1:46–47; 2:32; 11:21; 26:51). Such a memory was particularly relevant to them (cf. Isa. 51:1–3).24 days in terms of ‘Israel’s’ power than their own, the images they construed were bearing a sense of lack, which in term only emphasized that their (and, from their perspective, Abraham’s, Isaac’s and Jacob’s) utopia and utopian territory stands fully in the future. In addition, memories of these lacks served to communicate the point that ‘worldly power’ alone is not enough; an issue clearly advanced, among others, in the conquest book by excellence, namely Joshua. 24 Ezek. 33:24 shows awareness of Abraham as a relevant site of memory as well. In this text, however, those characterized as making ‘use’ of it are the ‘bad guys’ and consequently are portrayed as misapprehending the memory of Abraham’s promise and therefore, assigning

30

EHUD BEN ZVI

In addition, and in the meantime, they also remembered that when Israel (in the patriarchal period) was small and powerless ‘YHWH allowed no human person to oppress them (i.e., the patriarchs [and matriarchs] and by extension those who identify with them) and rebuked kings on their account, saying, ‘Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm’’ (Ps. 105:14–15; 1 Chr. 16:21–22). The remembering community likely learned that even if they seem to be powerless, there is a limit to the extent to which they may be oppressed, and that if oppressed too much, YHWH may and will intervene to save them and bring disaster to the oppressors (cf. Exodus narrative).25 it a wrong and ‘ungodly’ meaning (see following verses). They are portrayed as missing the point of Abraham’s being one (i.e., future power to the divinely chosen, but presently powerless) and multiplying their mistake by stating that they are ‘many’ (i.e., powerful) in the present (cf. the discursive concepts and social memory underlying Deut. 7:7, also known in the community). The description of the speakers in Ezek. 33:24 suits well the known pattern to characterize the enemy as hubristic and stupid, and actually condemning itself with its own words. Significantly, the speakers are not imagined as holding their own counter-memory of Abraham, but of completely missing the meaning of a shared memory. Thus, Ezek. 33:24 indirectly raises the issue of interpretative competence in social memory. (A rereadership community in which both Ezek. 33:24 and Isa. 51:2 are part of the authoritative repertoire—like the late Persian/early Hellenistic Jerusalem-centered literati—would see these texts as informing each other. From their perspective, Isa. 51:2 reflects a proper understanding of Abraham [and Sarah] as what today we would call ‘sites of memory.’) 25 To some extent this motif may be seen as an extension or variant of that of the powerless, oppressed individual. The latter, of course, focuses on the individual and tends to be ‘universal,’ the former, deals with ‘oppressed peoples.’ For obvious reasons, the preferred option for the identity of the oppressed collective in social memory is the ‘self.’ Thus, within the social memory of the communities with which we are dealing in this essay, the ‘oppressed’ is ‘Israel’ and among those Babylonians who supported Cyrus and opposed Nabonaid—perhaps after his defeat, the oppressed is ‘Babylon.’ The concept that Israel can be oppressed, but there is a limit to that oppression had to interact within the discourse of the period in Yehud

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

31

MEMORIES OF A TOKEN OF POSSESSION/LANDMARKS AND THEIR MEANINGS WITHIN THE GENERAL DISCOURSE OF THE COMMUNITY Given the emphasis on the lack of possession of the land at the time of Abraham, and the tendency of communities in the ancient Near East to construe forerunners of their present conditions it is not surprising that some stories about tokens of possession be associated with Abraham in the memory of the remembering community. These latter stories balance the memory of Abraham (who metaphorically and typologically stands for the community, see above) and allow his reported actions to create ‘ancient’ references/signposts that explain ‘future’ possession of landmarks. Moreover since these reports of actions associated with particular places are integral to the community’s social memory, they are construed as pointing to future events and landmarks. The more important the ‘ancient’ figure, the more important the memorybonds that this figure is likely to shape and reflect within the discourse of the community.26 The two main landmarks associated with Abraham are Mt. Moriah (Genesis 22) and Abraham’s purchase of burial place in Genesis 23 from Ephron, which is the only lot that Abraham came to possess in the land.27 Although the story refers to territorial with the idea that motif that Israel’s oppression was often associated with Israel’s just punishment and that the ultimate punishing authority/king is YHWH. Even here, for obvious reasons, the preferred choice was to set divine limits to punishment/oppression (see, for instance, Hos. 11:8–9). 26 The same holds true for Jacob, the other main patriarch to whom the land is promised and who could not even remain dwelling in it. For, instance, it is probably not by chance that Jacob is associated with Beth-El and his sons with Shechem (they kill Shechem and plunder the city). An analysis of these stories and the memory webs that they evoke cannot be developed within the limits of this chapter. 27 For bibliography on the study of the ancient legal background of the deal, and a discussion of a crucial term, see V. A. Hurowitz, ‘kæsæp ‘ober lassoḥer (Genesis 23,16),’ ZAW 108 (1996), 12–19; for a literary study of the pericope see M. Sternberg, ‘Double Cave, Double Talk: The Indirections of Biblical Dialogue,’ J. Rosenblatt & J. Sitterson (eds), ‘Not in Heaven’: Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press), 28–57; see also R. L. Cohn, ‘Negotiating (with)

32

EHUD BEN ZVI

possession and to a shift in ownership from a Hittite to Abraham, it suits well, on the one hand, the emphasis on his (and the remembering community’s) impossibility of possessing the land: The limits of the transaction are clear. What has changed possession is a small piece of land not ‘the land’ and as importantly, the piece of land bought by Abraham becomes an ‫אחזת קבר‬, a perpetual place to bury members of Abraham’s family—i.e., from the perspective of the readers, symbolically, Israel. He did not come to possess a place to dwell in, but to be buried in.28 On the other hand; burial places are sites of memory and serve to advance a social continuity that is directly related to territoriality.29 Moreover, and most importantly, by the time of Chronicles, at the latest and likely earlier, the story of Abraham’s purchase was associated with that of David’s purchase of the site of the threshing floor of Araunah/Ornan, that is, the place of the future temple (1 Chr. 21:21–22:1; cf. 2 Sam. 24:20–25).30 The bond created between the two stories and more importantly, between the two sites of the Natives: Ancestors and Identity in Genesis,’ HTR 96 (2003), 147–16; Blenkinsop, Abraham, 239–40. Another significant spatial landmark associated with Abraham is Shechem (see Gen. 12:6). Gen. 12:5–6; 33:18 seems to construe it as the main city in the land for those who come from Aram. Abraham, however, does not buy a field there and contrast with Gen. 33:18–19. Shechem is far more associated with memories about Jacob, and Jacob’s sons and, therefore, it stands outside the purview of this essay. 28 In addition, one may note the age of Abraham at the time and the extremely high price (see esp. vv 14–20) he pays. Both contribute to the aura of impossibility that surrounds Abraham’s possession of the land. 29 Cf. F. Stavrakopoulou, ‘Ancestor Ideologies.’ 30 See, among others, Y. Zakovitch, ‘Assimilation in Biblical Narratives,’ J. H. Tigay (ed.), Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 175–96 (181); R. Alter, The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel (New York : W.W. Norton, 1999), 358–59; S. Japhet, 1 & 2 Chronicles (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993) ; S. McDonough, ‘‘‘And David was old, advanced in years’: 2 Samuel xxiv 18-25, 1 Kings 1, and Genesis xxiiixxiv,’ VT 49(1999), 128–31; cf. J. E. Harvey, Retelling the Torah: the Deuteronomistic Historian's Use of Tetrateuchal Narratives (JSOTS, 403; London/New York : T & T Clark, 2004), 60.

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

33

memory, namely Abraham and David, is strongly reinforced by the identification of the threshing floor with Mt. Moriah (2 Chr. 3:1 and cf. Gen. 22:2),31 the other main landmark in the land associated with Abraham. Thus the patterns of social memory that were preferred in Yehud construed relations between Abraham and David (and Solomon), between the (Abrahamic) sacrifice of Isaac and the (Davidic) proper sacrificial order of the temple, and between Abrahamic obedience to the authority of YHWH—the main motif in the story in Genesis 22, see below—and (Davidic) ritual as obedience to the authority of YHWH.32 Two other landmarks associated with Abraham are worthy of note in this context. Within this array of memories it is not without significance that the place of the only space that Abraham purchased and held under control in the land was imagined to be Hebron (Gen. 23:19): The memory of Abraham’s incipient possession of the land becomes intertwined with that David’s incipient kingdom. The other landmark directly relevant to the present discussion is embedded in the memory of the encounter between Abraham and the king-priest of Salem (Gen. 14: 18–20). Clearly the remembering community in the late Persian/early Hellenistic period identified Salem with Jerusalem (see Ps. 76:3; cf. 110:2–4), and thus reinforced the bond linking memories of David, Jerusalem, and temple to Abraham.33 It is worth noting that Abraham is an important character not only in the social memory reflected in and evoked by Chronicles as this case demonstrates, but also and quite explicitly in the genealogies that open the book, which set him (and Noah) as the main figures in 1 Chr 1:1–2:2. See G. N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1-9 (AB, 12; New York: Doubleday, 2003), 277–78. 32 The cultic ritual at the temple served a sign of obedience to YHWH in both Chronicles and the so-called dtr-history. See D. Janzen, The Social Meanings of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (BZAW, 344; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2004). 33 On David and Abraham see R. E. Clements, Abraham and David: Genesis XV and its Meaning for Israelite Tradition (Naperville, Ill: A.R. Allenson, 1967). On the identity of Salem, see J. A. Emerton, ‘The Site of Salem, the City of Melchizedek (Genesis XIV 18), J.A. Emerton (ed.), Studies in the Pentateuch (VTS, 41; Leiden/New York: E.J. Brill, 1990), 45–71. 31

34

EHUD BEN ZVI

The association of Mt. Moriah with the Jerusalemite temple and Abraham with David create a ‘read Pentateuch’ that is unequivocally aligned with the ideology of the remembering community. The pentateuchal books were shared by both Samaria and Yehud, but not their interpretation. hese associations contribute to the shaping of a social memory about Abraham in Yehud that was not and could not have been shared with Samaria. This memory played a central role in the appropriation of a potentially shared founding figure and its transformation into a founding hero of ‘Israel’ as understood within Yehudite ideology. This, in turn, served to legitimize the very notion of ‘Israel’ held by the remembering community—and delegitimize alternative notions, e.g., those in Samaria.34 ABRAHAM AND THE NATIONS IN THE LAND: PRACTICAL ACCOMMODATIONS AND FUTURE REPLACEMENT For the remembering community Abraham/the patriarchs stood, among others, for Israel, and so they identified with him/them in their tribulations, powerlessness and promise. The patriarchal Israel of their memory were very few in number vis-à-vis the well-established, infinitely more powerful peoples of the land, who held all the power in the area, since neither Egypt nor any Mesopotamian empire is portrayed ruling or controlling the area.35 It is possible that there was an alternative tradition associating Salem and Shechem (for a possible trace, see Gen 33:18), but even if such a tradition existed, the community whose memory is studied here clearly identified Salem with Zion. If the place of ancient Salem was a matter of debate between Yehudites and Samarians—as was later among late Second Temple Jews [see, for instance, 1Q GenAp col. 22 l. 13 ‘Salem, which is Jerusalem’] and Samaritans and later groups evolving from them—then the memory of Abraham held in the Yehudite community helped to further the case for the Jerusalem interpretation and weaken contrary claims, at least within the own discourse of the Jerusalemcentered community. 34 The element of controversy continued in later tradition. On this matter, see I. Kalimi, Early Jewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy: Studies in Scriptures in the Shadow of Internal and External Controversies (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2002) 33–58. 35 Even the ‘minority report’ in Genesis 14 makes this point. A

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

35

Who in the world in which the remembering community lives is the overwhelmingly powerful other who actually rules ‘the land’ and compared to which Israel are just like a single family? The answer is, of course, the Persian empire. Of course, Abraham/ Israel/Yehud accommodates to the powerful other (the previous residents of the land/the Persians). They can negotiate only a minor tract of land, and certainly cannot even think of expelling ‘the other’ in any practical way. Within the discourse of the remembering community, such an accommodation/collaboration is presented/imagined not only as a practical necessity, but also a kind of response to the positive ‘other.’36 Just as the Persians are construed in the discourse of the period as an ‘other’ that is not an evil-doer or whose religious practices are considered to be an abomination, the Canaanites, with whom Abraham interacts, are neither evil-doers nor are their religious practices condemned. In fact, an opposite tendency is clearly at work. For instance, the remembering community cannot but understand that there is in Gerar ‫( יראת אלהים‬Gen. 20:11) and that it is wrong and risky for Abraham (/themselves) to think that this is not so. The community had every reason to imagine that the deity who came and talked to Abimelech in Gen. 20:3–7 was YHWH, and to associate YHWH with Melchizedek’s El Elyon (Gen. 14:18– 22; and see the explicit statement in v 22).37 Of course, the very same community remembered that YHWH did stir up the spirit of Cyrus (the paradigmatic Persian king) and talk to him (Isa. 44:28; 45:1, 13; 2 Chr. 26:22–23), and Cyrus responded in a very positive way. It is in this context of the positive ‘other’ and the intellectual mythical coalition of four kings headed by the king of Elam is defeated by the servants of one person, Abraham. On the character of this note as a ‘minority report’ see below. 36 See the memory of a covenant associated with the interaction of three positive sites of memory (Abraham, Abimelech and Beer Sheba; and, as expected, YHWH) in Gen. 21:22–34 and which concludes with Abraham living peacefully as a ‫ גר‬for ‘many days’ in present of the storyworld the land of the Philistines, but creating a landmark for a future ‘Israelite’ town in the far future. 37 Cf. L. K. Handy, ‘Biblical Bronze Age Memories: The Abraham Cycle as Usable Past,’ BR 42 (1997), 43–56 (51–53).

36

EHUD BEN ZVI

atmosphere of the period among the literati in Jerusalem, that they remembered that Abraham and therefore they themselves are (supposed to be) or carry, a blessing for the ‘other’ and should assume that it will behave wrongly just because it is the ‘other.’ At the same time, there are clear ideological limits to this collaboration. First, there is the stance that Abraham/Israel must remain distinct and that the ‘other’ must remain the ‘other.’ The Abraham narratives clearly carry this sense of boundaries (and see, esp. Genesis 23). Since social memory served to create a sense of self-identity and boundaries, this is to be expected. Second, there is the element of higher ‘self-characterization.’ For instance, YHWH communicates to Abimelech that Abraham is a prophet and his prayer is necessary and successful (Gen. 20:7). Abraham is, of course, portrayed as ‫( נשיא אלהים‬Gen. 23:6) and since the term ‫ נשיא‬can be associated with the figure of a king in the discourse of the community (e.g., Ezek. 37:25; 44:3), it is not so surprising that Abraham (and the other patriarchs) could be imagined as prophets and anointed in Ps. 105:14–15; 1 Chr. 16:21– 22. 38 The presence of this tendency and the association of explicit statements of inner-group grandeur to ‘the other’ (cf. Melchizedek’s response to Abraham) are typical of peripheral groups in imperial systems.39 Third, there is the obvious case of projecting the local deity into the ‘other’ and the latter’s quasi Israelitization. This, of course, is at work in the construction of positive foreign kings in Chronicles (including Cyrus) and is also anticipated in this type of circumstance.40 In some way, this is a kind of discursive reverse

Conceptual associations between king and head of the (enlarged) house of the father are at work too allowing and setting generative rules for the creation of potentially acceptable images in the community. 39 Cf. the emphasis on external (mainly ‘Greek’ and Roman), high evaluation of the Jews in Josephus. I discussed this phenomenon in terms of Chronicles in E. Ben Zvi, History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles (London: Equinox, 2006), 270–88. 40 See E. Ben Zvi, History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles, 270–88. 38

THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

37

imperialism, in which the other is imagined as culturally ‘colonized’ by the ‘in-group.’41 Fourth and most important, however, is the vision of the future. Abraham/Israel is promised the land. The ‘other’ will be dispossessed of the land. The direct relation between promise and future dispossession is emphatically communicated in the stories (see, for instance, the transition between Gen. 15:18 and 19). To be sure, images of (future) dispossession may lead to multiple scenarios42 and they conjure images of sins justifying the latter (cf. the images of the inhabitants of Canaan in Abraham’s time with those of Moses’ or Joshua’s, see Gen 15:16), but the point remains the same: the land will be Abraham’s/Israel’s. These memories embody and communicate a clear, ideologically shaped construction of territorial space. Abraham/Israel will not inherit the ‘four corners of the earth’ but a certain land—even if the latter is much larger than whatever territory past ‘Israel’ was imagined to have held. The limitation to a particular land is part of a discourse in which YHWH was construed as ruling over all nations and lands, but has chosen a particular land (Hos. 8:1; 9:15; ‫בית‬ Jer. 12:7; Zech. 9:8, in which at least one of the meanings of ‫‘ יהוה‬the house of YHWH’ is ‘YHWH’s land’) and within it a particular place (Jerusalem, Mt. Moriah) just as was conceived as the deity who created and governed heaven and earth and all that is in them, but at the same time had a particular people that was ‘his.’ This discursive reverse imperialism is at work in the creation of memories of a future in which far away nations and peoples will acknowledge and worship YHWH. 42 These scenarios include removal from the land due to natural causes, to forced expulsion, to physical elimination. On these scenarios see M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11 (AB, 5A; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 382–84; J. Schwartz, ‘Reexamining the fate of the ‘Canaanites’ in the Torah Traditions,’ Ch. Cohen, A. Hurvitz and S. M. Paul (eds.), Sefer Moshe. The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 151–70 and bibliography. Since social memory does not have to be logically consistent, all these scenarios could and, in fact, did co-exist within the memory of the community in Yehud during the late Persian/early Hellenistic period. Needless to say, these scenarios relate to the ‘other’ in the land of Canaan, not to the ‘other’ in any other land. 41

38

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The memory of Abraham evoked territoriality, election, YHWH’s election of a land and a future utopia. It communicated within the remembering community in Yehud a sense of accommodation and collaboration for the present and near future, but of displacement, replacement and supersession for the far and from their perspective utopian future. Abraham served as a site of memory that interwove and secreted both messages. The stories about Abraham did not explain what would be the future status of ‘the other’ in their ‘other’ lands once Israel takes over the land. But the same community was aware of images of a utopian future in prophetic literature, and experienced them as they mentally visited these future worlds in which Israel and Jerusalem/ Zion were exalted (e.g., Isa. 2:2–4; 51:4; 56:1–8; Mic. 4:1–5; Hag. 2:6–9; Zech. 8:20–23). In these worlds, the ‘other’ is (partially) Israelitized,43 and as such, it resembled the ‘other’ with which Abraham interacted. In these worlds, the center that provides peace, order and happiness to the humankind and to whom goods and people from all nations flow does not stand at the heart of the Persian Empire, but in Jerusalem at Mt. Moriah, a landmark associated with Abraham. It is in this context that the characterization of Abraham as ‘father’ of many peoples assumes a very pregnant meaning—and so do texts such as Gen. 12:3; 18:18 (cf. 28:14).44 DIVINE CHOICE, OBEDIENCE AND TEST Unlike the situation in later texts and their related remembering communities, YHWH’s selection of and promise to Abraham is presented within the repertoire of the community, at least at one level, as unrelated to any deed that Abraham may have done before The (future) ‘colonization’ of the ‘other’ is saliently present in Isa. 56:1–8 as well. All these may be seen as imperial dreams of a feeble underdog. On the one hand they are a tools of resistance, but on the other, they assume an internalization (and adaptation) of the imperial discourse. All of them involve an ideological subordination of the ‘other’ and a replacement of main features of its character by those of the ‘dreamer’ group. In other words, they involve cultural conquest and assimilation of the ‘other’ to the ‘center of the (dreamt) empire discourse. 44 Cf. with the message of Isa. 49:6–7. 43

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his selection (see Gen. 11:31–12:3).45 Thus, remembering Abraham was also remembering and construing a deity that for no humanly intelligible, logical reason chose Abraham (and thus ‘Israel’).46 The concept that YHWH selected ‘Israel,’ because of YHWH’s love (‫ )אהבה‬for Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob)/Israel/the remembering community was, of course, widely accepted in the latter (see, for instance, Deut. 4:37; 7:7–8,47 13; 10:15; 23:6; Isa 41:8; 2 Chr. 20:7; cf. Hos. 11:1; Hos. 14:5; Ps. 47:5; Mal. 1:2, and see also, among others, Jer. 31:2; Hos. 2:16–17). The love of YHWH for Abraham, which was understood as pointing to and embodying the concept of ‘Israel,’ and thus the love of YHWH for Israel was directly associated in the community with that of the latter ‘loving’ YHWH in return.48 Of course, this was never imagined as a symmetrical relationship. Although both involved a commitment (/covenant), See J. D. Levenson, ‘The Universal Horizon of Biblical Particularism,’ M. G. Brett (ed.), Ethnicity and the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 143–169. 46 A tendency to associate divine ‘unmerited’ gifts to the most important choices is present also in Chronicles, despite the popular belief that the book is about merited ‘individual retribution,’ whether in terms of reward or punishment. See E. Ben Zvi, History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles, 22–23, 124, 160–73, passim. Cases of convergence, among clear different books, constitute the best pointers we may have at the general, intellectual discourse of the community. Cf. E. Ben Zvi, ‘Reconstructing the Intellectual Discourse of Ancient Yehud,’ SR (forthcoming, 2010). 47 The reference to Israel as ‘very few’ in the text is part and parcel of the construction of the past (and the underlying ideological world) mentioned above. From the perspective of the remembering community, it points at both ‘patriarchal’ Israel and the community itself in late Persian Yehud. It points at Abraham who, after all, is one person and still embodies Israel and at they who live in one of the smallest and poorest provinces of the Persian Empire around a lightly populated, very small, indeed, Jerusalem. See above. 48 The point is made repeatedly in Deuteronomy (e.g., 6:5; 11:1.13.22), but is also expressed in a stylistically sophisticated in Isa 41:8; 2 Chr 20:7. These texts state that YHWH loves Abraham, but also connote a secondary meaning: Abraham loves YHWH. Thus they encapsulate and communicate a sense that the two are deeply interwoven. 45

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YHWH’s commitment to Israel was understood, in the main, in terms of promises of land, offspring, wise guidance (i.e., divine instruction), and an elevated role in a utopian future.49 Israel’s commitment was understood mainly in terms of obedience (cf. Gen. 26:3–5). Although the motif of Abraham’s obedience to YHWH following and in response to divine promise already appears in Gen. 12:4a—that is, immediately after 12:1–3, and plays a significant role in other places within the memory of Abraham held by the community, the most salient memorial for his obedience is the sacrifice of Abraham (Genesis 22).50 Not surprisingly, and given the foundational role of Abraham in the memory and myth of origin of the remembering community, the sacrifice of Abraham evolved into a central nodal site for social memory that encapsulated and secreted several ideological core topoi, which on the surface seemed unrelated. Moreover, the convergence of these topoi, into a single site of memory (Abraham’s sacrifice) created a sense of ‘embodiment’ (though not necessarily logical) coherence for their discourse, and communicated that all these core topoi are interwoven facets in a single theological/ideological discourse.51 To illustrate the preceding, remembering Abraham’s sacrifice was remembering a paradigmatic story about full and complete obedience to YHWH that explicitly concludes with a divine confirmation that ‘now I know that you (Abraham—and by extension any Yehudite who mentally visits this site of memory and Needless to say, they do not involve protection from disaster. To the contrary (cf. Am. 3:2), YHWH may serve the agent that brings disaster against Israel, but it involves protection from extermination, as the latter would preclude the fulfillment of the promises made by YHWH. 50 The narrative served as a focal point for constructions (and de-constructions) of obedience and morality in numerous communities up to this day. See, for example, the continuous debate about Kant’s and Kantian interpretation, e.g., S. R. Palmquist and P. McPherson Rudisill, ‘Three Perspectives on Abraham’s Defense against Kant’s Charge of Immoral Conduct,’ Journal of Religion 89 (2009), 467–97 and bibliography there. 51 Cf. the ‘embodiment’ of core aspects of early Christian discourse in the figure of Jesus in general, and in the memory of his crucifixion/ sacrifice. 49

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fully identifies with Abraham) fear God’ (Gen. 22:12). Within the discourse of the community, ‘fearing God’ was directly associated with obedience to the deity52 and with serving the deity (e.g., 1 Sam. 12:14). Significantly, Abraham was the first personage characterized as YHWH’s servant (Gen. 26:24; Ps. 105:6, 42; cf. Exod. 32:13; Deut. 9:27) within the world of this remembering community.53 Remembering Abraham’s sacrifice was remembering a founding event directly related to the establishment of the temple, the selection of Mt. Moriah as the site of the temple—and thus, by implication, that Yehud’s concept of ‘Israel’ and YHWH is the correct one—and the establishment of the temple offerings— which in turn is by itself an expression of obedience to YHWH (see above). Remembering Abraham’s sacrifice also brings forward the tenuous character in the ‘worldly’ world of the promise, both at the time of (their imagined) Abraham54 and at that of the remembering community. This indirectly, is seen to reaffirm the belief that the community is ‘Abraham,’ has been chosen by YHWH, knows about it through texts and memories that provide (only) them with true knowledge, and reinforce the certitude that a utopian future will come to be at some unknown time (see above). Remembering Abraham’s sacrifice involved developing an awareness that the fulfillment of the divine promise was advanced by Abraham’s willingness to act in a way that from any logical perspective would have precluded its fulfillment and, thus was tantamount to showcasing and developing (vicarious) experiential knowledge about human/logical modes of understanding cause and effect and their value to anticipate or control the future.55 52 And to following the ways and commandments of the deity. On this see below. 53 The other two patriarchs follow and then Moses. Needless to say, ‘Israel’ paradigmatically represented by Abraham (and the triad) was also understood as ‘YHWH’s servant.’ 54 Note the Sitz im Buch of the story of the sacrifice of Abraham and particularly the preceding narratives about promises. See K. Schmid, ‘Abraham’s Sacrifice: Gerhard von Rad’s Interpretation of Genesis 22,’ Int 62 (2008), 268–76 and bibliography. 55 The literati placed in proportion claims to knowledge derived from their access to authoritative literature, but emphasizing the limitations of

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Remembering Abraham’s sacrifice meant also placing in proportion the memory that the divine promise to Abraham (and thus ‘Israel,’ including the remembering community) has nothing to do with the actions of the latter (see Gen. 22:16–18; 26:5; note also the textual system of textual signposts linking 22:18b to 26:5a and vice versa; cf. Neh. 9:8). The issue at stake is the balance between the hope conveyed to the community by its belief that YHWH loves them and will fulfill the promise no matter what Israel would do or fail to do and the ideological and didactic value of maintaining some relation between human actions and divine responses. This issue and the balance that it requires stands at the core of the prophetic books and underlies the historiographical narratives. Remembering Abraham’s sacrifice meant also to remember Abraham as the ‘tested’ par excellence56 and YHWH as a testing deity, which, not incidentally, particularly tests the righteous, and ‘Israel.’ This facet of the deity played an important role in the discourse of the period (see Job and Chronicles). It served to explain numerous events in the (construed) past of the community.57 Moreover, the remembering community may have wondered if they (i.e., the tiny community in Yehud) were not being tested. OBEDIENCE AND ‘TORAH’ Within the discourse of the community, the related topoi of obedience to, fearing and loving YHWH were all directly associated with following YHWH’s teachings, which were in turn associated human understanding and ability to predict. Cf. Job 38, 40 and books as diverse as Chronicles and Jonah; on these two books, see respectively, E. Ben Zvi, History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles and E. Ben Zvi, Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud (JSOTsup, 367; London: Continuum, 2003.) 56 See J.L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible. A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1998),296–99, for the expression ‘Abraham the Tested’ and a study of the development of the motif in Second Temple Judaism. 57 I discussed this issue in my ‘When YHWH Tests People: General Considerations and Particular Observations Regarding the Books of Chronicles and Job,’ D. Burns and J. W. Rogerson (eds.), In Search of Philip R. Davies: Whose Festschrift Is It Anyway? (LHBOTS, 484; London and New York: T. & T. Clark, forthcoming 2011).

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with the foundational figure of Moses (i.e., ‘torah’, see, among others, Exod. 20:6; Deut. 5:10; Deut. 11:1). This being the case, it is only anticipated that Abraham, the paradigmatic case of obedience and ‘fear of God’ be imagined as one who ‘kept YHWH’s charge, commandments, statutes, and laws’ (Gen 26:5; cf. Deut 11:1; and among many others, Exod. 15:26, 16:28; 24:12; Lev. 26:15; 1 Kgs. 11:38; Deut. 5:31; 6:1–2; 2 Kgs. 17:13; 2 Chr. 7:19).58 The result is that a set of related memories informing each other—at times, for rhetorical purposes laying the other dormant, but as often recalling each other—evolved together within the general cultural memory of the community. Abraham, the first servant and ‘lover/friend’ of YHWH and the paradigm of ‘fearing YHWH’ had to follow ‘torah,’ but ‘torah’ had to be given to Moses, who lived several generations after Abraham. The interrelation between the two memories constituted a site of memory that raise among its visitors important issues about the nature and contents of ‘torah.’ Given the centrality of the concept of ‘torah,’ it is not surprising that these issues continued to be discussed for generations as later communities remembered Abraham and Moses.59 In addition, this nodal convergence of memories contributed the discursively necessary closeness between the two foundational figures of the community: Abraham and Moses. This is again an issue to be addressed by numerous references within the repertoire of the community (e.g., Exod. 2:24; 3:6.15.16; 6:8; 12:40–41[cf. Gen. 15:14]; 32:13; Deut. 30:20, passim).60 58 On the relation between ‘fearing YHWH’ and observing the commandments, following the deity’s ways and the like see, for instance, Deut. 5:29; 6:2; 8:6; 13:5; 17:19; 31:12. 59 Needless to say, among the matters at stake in this memoryinteraction is the issue of a pre-Mosaic torah. The motif of Abraham as an ideal person who observes torah is present in Ben Sira, and becomes important and a source of debate in later Judaism. See B. C. Gregory, ‘Abraham as the Jewish Ideal: Exegetical Traditions in Sirach 44:19–21,’ CBQ 70 (2008), 66–81. For a study of other texts, see J. D. Levenson, ‘The Conversion of Abraham to Judaism, Christianity and Islam,’ H. Najman and J. H. Newman (eds.), The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel (SJSJ, 83; Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2004), 3–40. 60 This being so, it is only expected that some of elements of the por-

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CIRCUMCISION Remembering Abraham was remembering YHWH’s statement: ‘This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.’ (Gen. 17:10– 11). In other words, it was remembering circumcision, its function as a sign of the covenant and establishing it at the foundational period. To the concentration of ‘firsts’ that characterize the image of Abraham in the memory of the community (e.g., first servant of YHWH, first embodiment of Israel in the land, first to be a ‘friend’ of YHWH, first to receive the promise of the land, etc.), one had to add that he was the first to be circumcised, circumcise the males in his household (including his son Ishmael) and most importantly, the first ‘Israelite’ father to fulfill the commandment of circumcising his son when he is eight days old (Gen. 21:4; cf. Gen. 17:12; Lev. 12:3). 61 Remembering Abraham the circumciser/circumcised was, of course, remembering the covenant (Genesis 17). It was also remembering a particular construction of boundaries around Israel (see, among others, Gen. 34:14; Judg. 14:3; 15:18; 1 Sam. 14:6; 17:26, 36; 31:4; Isa. 52:1; Jer. 9:25; Ezek. 44:7.9)62 in which to be trayal of the one would be associated with the other (e.g., their designation as ‘servant of YHWH;’ for Moses, see, for instance, Exod. 14:31; Num. 12:7; Josh. 1:2.7.13.15; for Abraham see above). This tendency continued to influence the developing of images of these personages after the period under discussion. For instance, the reference to Abraham as ‘lover/friend’ of YHWH, which is very popular in later literature, shifts to Moses in Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities. See J. L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, 258. 61 From the perspective of a readership well aware of the entire repertoire of authoritative books, there is a system of links partially connecting, despite all their difference, the circumcision of Abraham, of Moses (Exod. 4:24–26), and of the children of Israel under Joshua’s leadership (Josh. 5:2–8). The underlying discursive concept connecting them seems to be that circumcision is a pre-condition to perform certain godly/god mandated tasks (cf. Exod. 12:48). Note also the metaphorical language of Lev 19:23. 62 Negative associations with the concept ‘uncircumcised’ are present in the mentioned texts and in, for instance, Ezekiel 32.

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uncircumcised was not only a marker of ‘being the other,’ but also of shamefulness. Thus the demarcation is not only ‘ethnic’ but also value-laden. As expected in the discourse of the period, circumcision was also used to mark the (required) partial Israelitization (and the avoidance of the ‘shame’ of being uncircumcised) of the ‘others’ who dwell or are associated with ‘Israel’ (see, for instance, the case of Ishmael and later the legislation in Exod. 12:48 that was also remembered in the community). In addition, the positive associations of being circumcised that existed in the discourse of the community allowed for an additional semiotic association of the concept, symbolized in the expression ‘to circumcise one’s heart.’ From a cultural memory perspective, it is not surprising that YHWH’s circumcision of the heart of the Israelites is meant to cause them to love the deity (Deut. 30:6) and that the first person circumcised was Abraham, who was the paradigmatic ‘lover/friend’ of YHWH. 63 The community certainly imagined Abraham as having both a circumcised penis and a circumcised heart. The promise made to him by YHWH can be fulfilled only in his descendants, who are to be circumcised like him (cf. Lev. 26:41; Deut. 30:6–9; Jer. 4:4) INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT? Abraham was also remembered for his debate with YHWH in Gen. 18:23–32. Stories, and particularly popular easy to remember stories, tend to provide a discursive way to relate to ‘truths’ that are explicitly or, more often, implicitly agreed upon within the group, but whose members find it difficult to express or to express sharply by other means.64 The story in Gen. 18:23–32 reminded the readers that the Abraham they remembered tried to persuade YHWH (and the Note also the memory associations activated by Deut. 10:15–16. Excellent examples of other memorable stories serving these purposes admirably include the story of Micah, the son of Imlah and Jonah. I wrote about these two in my ‘A Contribution to Intellectual History of Yehud: The Story of Micaiah and Its Function within the Discourse of Persian Period Literati,’( forthcoming in a FS to be published in 2010) and Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud (JSOTSup, 367; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press/Continuum, 2003), respectively. 63 64

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readers themselves) through a rational argument that (a) to ‘sweep away the righteous with the wicked’ is wrong, unjust and a behaviour unworthy of ‘the judge of all the earth’; (b) there are standards concerning what YHWH ought and ought not to do, (c) these standards may be known to a human being, and (d) divine justice (as well as human justice) implies individual retribution. This memory of Abraham is activated within a text (i.e., Gen. 18:23-32) that implies that YHWH is unable to save the righteous from the destruction caused by YHWH to wicked cities.65 This is an important matter given that the destruction of Jerusalem was a central site of memory within the community. Were all those who died at the time to be imagined as sinners as those of Sodom, or was YHWH unable to save the few pious? Significantly, the text in Gen. 18:23-32 is set in a context that places the validity of some of the (implicit and explicit) assumptions governing the logic of the dialogue in proportion. Note, for instance, that the narrative that follows this dialogue (Genesis 19) explicitly demonstrates YHWH’s power to save a righteous person from disaster, and that the preceding one is about what Abraham does not know.66 Within its Sitz im Buch, is Gen. 18:23-32, at least in part, about what Abraham cannot fully understand? And vice versa, is the story in Gen. 18:23–32 a way of placing in proportion the implicit ideological underpinnings of the surrounding stories? In any event, remembering this dialogue between YHWH and Abraham serves a cultural memory node/site of memory that allows the remembering community to address very important ideological issues within its discourse, through a seemingly simple, memorable narrative. Certainly, remembering the Abraham of Gen. 18:23–32 is remembering him as one who certainly fears, loves, serves, and obeys YHWH but who is also able to enter into a rational debate with the deity on ideological matters. Is this Abraham a projection of the literati of the period and their desire to enter in debate with their deity? Are they part and parcel of a long tradition in the All the ‘bargaining’ concerning the fate of the city would be irrelevant if YHWH could have snatched fifty, or forty, or any number of righteous out of Sodom. 66 For a fuller discussion of these matters see my ‘The Dialogue between Abraham and YHWH in Gen. 18:23-32,’ JSOT 53 (1992), 27–46 65

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ancient Near East of (limited) intellectual freedom within which kings can be held accountable?67 ABRAHAM, EXILE AND RETURN (MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT) The remembering community discussed in this chapter had not one but an array of related myths of origins, including the Exodus, which they understood as leading to torah/Sinai and then the possession of (much of) the land, the myth of the Return from Babylonia to an empty land that led to the ‘return’ of YHWH’s presence to, and rebuilding of the Jerusalemite temple (and in Ezra’s version, imagined also in terms of the return of the book of torah), the myth of Abraham, the myth of Jacob, 68 the myth evoked by Ezek 16:3 and others. From a systemic perspective, one can easily discern some rules governing preferred and dis-preferred scenarios within the array as a whole. For instance, no matter what the precise myth was, there was strong preference for the image that the origin of Israel was outside the land. Somewhat related, there was clear preference for myth of origins that involved overcoming exile. In addition, there was a strong preference for myths that evoked and typologically resembled the other myths and thus created a generative tension between that which is basically the same and that which is different in each in case, which drew attention to each myth and to the meanings generated by (virtually) re-living each of them in a way informed by the others. The Return (from Babylonia) which became the collective memory of the community—no matter whether their ancestors were returnees or never left the land69—was typologically associated with the Exodus from Egypt. This is only to be expected since this myth served, to a large extent, as the founding myth of Israel in the land, and the other, again to a large extent, as its 67 Cf. D. C. Snell, ‘Intellectual Freedom in the Ancient Near East?,’ J. Prosecky (ed.), Intellectual Life of the Ancient Near East: Papers Presented at the 43rd Rencontre assyriologique internationale Prague, July 1-5, 1996 (Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic-Oriental Institute, 1998), 359–63. 68 This myth is clearly related and at times similar to that of Abraham, but is not identical. Of course, it cannot be discussed here in any detail. 69 A point I discussed in my ‘Total Exile, Empty Land and the General Intellectual Discourse in Yehud.’

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re-founding myth. Both reflected and shaped a sense that Israel came from outside the land. There were, of course, some differences that could not be obviated. The Exodus led to Sinai and Torah, before it reached the land. Thus within this discourse not only the origin of Israel but also what makes Israel to be Israel, i.e., torah, originated outside the land. The Return could not conjure up the image of a new Moses, but at the most of a second and secondary Moses (i.e., Ezra). In addition, the Exodus led to the settlement of much of the land, whereas the Return led to the settlement of Yehud only. Yet, on one point, the Return seemed to shine more. Isa. 52:11–12 constructed the return of the (claimed to be) temple vessels—which symbolize the return of the deity, and those who carried them, not only in terms of a reversal of the exile of the vessels and the people,70 but also in terms that clearly evoked and surpassed the image of the ‘return’ associated with the Exodus (cf. Isa. 52:12aa with Deut. 16:3 and Exod. 12:11; 31-34; Isa. 52:12b and Exod. 14:19 [and Exod. 13:21-22]; note also that in Isa. 52:1112 YHWH, not Pharaoh commands the people to leave).71 Significantly, unlike the first ‘return’ (i.e., the Exodus), in the book of Isaiah, YHWH brings the symbols marking its presence not to the land in general, but to Jerusalem. The Exodus leads directly to the land, but the Return leads directly to the Temple in Jerusalem. In which ways did the Abraham myth of origins of Israel interact with the other two main myths (Exodus and Return)? Clearly as with the others, it was consistent with the rule that Israel must come from outside the land. Whereas Exodus evoked Egypt 72 and the Return, it Babylonia; Abraham’s memory evoked and combined both. Like the Exodus, Abraham’s story was directly associated with the large (promised) land; like the Return, Abraham’s memory was directly associated with the founding of the Jerusalemite temple.

Cf. Jer. 27:22; Lam. 4:15. Cf. J. Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40-55. A Literary-Theological Commentary (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 458-60, and from a different perspective, see J. Van Seters, The Pentateuch. A Social-Science Commentary (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 153. 72 And vice versa, see Am. 9:7. 70 71

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Unlike Exodus and Return, the narrative about Abraham did not necessarily require him to leave the land so as to be in exile. Yet he does, and as he does, his story allows a convergence of the motif of exile in the north with that of in the south. The memory of Abraham’s march into exile to Egypt is, moreover, emblematic of the lack involved in exile outside the land. Abraham, the patriarch must leave the land—the alternative is to perish—but to do so involved his wife’s transfer to Pharaoh. (Within the logic of the story, and from Abraham’s perspective, if he says that ‘she is my sister,’ Pharaoh takes possession of her; if he says she ‘she is my wife,’ he is killed and Pharaoh takes possession of her. Either way Pharaoh takes possession of her.) In a patriarchal society in which men’s honour depends to a large extent on their control of ‘their woman/women,’ the portrayed situation conveyed not only a sense of extreme powerlessness but also of shamefulness. The matter, in fact, required YHWH to intervene and ‘save’ Abraham’s honour (Gen. 12:17).73 From the perspective of a community in which the memory of Abraham is associated with constructions of Israel and vice versa, this story served as a cultural memory node (or site of memory) that encapsulated and reminded the community of the shamefulness of ‘exile from the land,’ of the clear priority to remain alive even in the face of extreme shame, of hope for divine help and, within the general context of their knowledge of Abraham/Israel, of trust in the fulfillment of the promises—even when they seem impossible to be fulfilled (see Sarah’s position as Pharaoh’s concubine). In addition, this memory created a semiotic Needless to say, I am discussing the story within the cultural parameters within which it was likely understood by the relevant (male) literati in late Persian/early Hellenistic Yehud, as pertinent to a historical study like the one advanced here. To be sure, the story (Gen. 12:10–13:2) may carry a very different meaning when it is understood against present day contexts and within the cultural and social systems in which we live today. Every time I deal with this text, my students raise the image of ‘Abraham, the pimp.’ (This portrayal is shared, of course, by scholars as well; e.g., B. L. Visotzky, The Genesis of Ethics [New York: Crown Publishers, 1996], 25–28.) Yet, it is very unlikely that Abraham, the obedient, servant/friend of YHWH was imagined as a (contemporary) pimp by the mentioned literati. 73

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system which associated the loss of ‘wife’ with that the ‘land’ and the related seeming loss of potential for the future. It also created a scenario in which prominent differences raised significant issues in the discourse of the group. For instance, Abraham left the land for Egypt because of famine, not sword, but both were imagined as essentially dependent on YHWH’s will. Both sinners (late monarchic Judah) and the pious (Abraham) may be removed from the land, directly and indirectly by YHWH (cf. the underlying conceptual world of 2 Sam. 24:12–13). Thus, the common and, for didactic purposes, well hammered down cause-effect relationship between sin and exile was put in perspective. Exile may co-exist with piety. In addition, Abraham lived in ‘exilic conditions’ inside the land—a point emphatically made by the partial parallel between the memory of Abraham (and Sarah) in Egypt and Abraham (and Sarah) in Gerar. The idea that Israel can be in exile in the land was, as is well known, another central and generative concept within the discourse of late Persian/early Hellenistic Yehud—and much later periods, for that matter. Significantly, Abraham was remembered as leaving Egypt with wealth (Gen. 12:16, 20; 13:1–2) in a way reminiscent of Israel’s Exodus (Exod. 12:25–36) and of some related memories of Israel’s Return (cf. Ezra 1:4). When Abraham leaves Gerar, the same motif appears, though somewhat less prominently (Gen. 20:14). In addition, ‘the other’ acknowledges him as a prophet, and he in turn becomes a conduit of blessing for them (Gen. 20:7, 17–18). The community also remembered that Abraham’s (and symbolically, Israel’s) blessing of progeny in the form of Isaac (symbolically continuity for Israel) followed his intervention on behalf of ‘the other’ and its own blessing of progeny. Given the emphasis in the discourse of Yehud about Abraham/Israel as conduits of blessing for ‘the other,’ including the far more powerful in worldly terms than Abraham/Israel (e.g., the king of Gerar),74 and the related emphasis on the relationship between YHWH (and thus Israel) and the Persian imperial center in, at least the pre-utopia word, these considerations are particularly important.75 74 75

See above. See above.

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REMEMBERING THE ARAM CONNECTION The Abraham of memory provided also a necessary, connective nexus between narratives of origin that focused in Mesopotamia (see Gen. 11:31 and discussion above) and those that emphasized that the Aramean start of Israel (Gen. 11:32–12:1; 24:4.10; 25:20; cf. Deut. 26:5) and allowed them to be bound together with those of Egypt (e.g., Deut. 26:5; Josh. 24:2–4, and the general GenesisExodus narrative). Remembering Abraham was remembering that to go to his ‫ל־מֹול ְד ִתי‬ ַ ‫ ַא ְר ִצי וְ ֶא‬is to go Aram-naharaim, to the city of Nahor (i.e., Haran).76 It was to remember that the kinsmen of ‘Abraham’ (and the other patriarchs, and thus, of Israel) are Arameans (see, esp. Deut. 26:5). Whatever the origins of traditions that construed in-group memory that saw Israel as a ‘particular’ offshoot of an Aramean population and Arameans as close kin, the meaning of this cultural memory within the milieu of the late Persian period could not disassociated from the use of Aramaic by the remembering community and other Yhwistic groups (e.g., Samaria, Elephantine). Linguistic markers tend to be construed as group/ethnic markers. It is worth noting, for instance, that in Elephantine the same person may be characterized in one document as Aramean and as a Jew in another.77 Remembering Abraham the Aramean was imagining him (and his household, e.g., his servants) speaking Aramean, just as the remembering community did. It is also linking him (and the community) to the administrative tongue of the empire. See Gen. 24:4.10; cf. Gen. 12:1. On Aram-naharaim, i.e., the Aramean territories by the Euphrates river, see J. J. Finkelstein, ‘Mesopotamia,’ JNES 21 (1962), 73–92; Cf. J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 33-34. 77 ‘Meshullam son of Zaccur, an Aramean’ (TAD B 3.3/B 36) and cf. ‘Meshullam son of Zaccur, a Jew’ (TAD B 3.6/ B 39); ‘Mahseiah son Jedaniah, an Aramean’ (TAD B 2.1/B 23; TAD B.2.7.3/B 29 and cf. ‘Mahseiah son of Jedaniah, a Jew’ (TAD B 2.2/B 24). ‘B’ numbers refer to B. Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996); TAD = B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Document from Ancient Egypt (3 vols., Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ., 1986-89). 76

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This aspect of cultural memory served well to link the remembering community with the largest cultural group in the area and with empire. At the same time, as any ‘bridge’ this memory also calls attention to differences, as Aramean as Abraham might have been imagined, he was also envisioned as substantially different. The Arameans were not promised the land, were not servants of YHWH, nor ‘friends/lovers’ of the deity and did not obey it. In addition, the Arameans populating the era of the patriarchs in the cultural memory of the community were not perishing, homeless, or landless, but the patriarchs were portrayed as such (see Deut. 26:5).78 Abraham the Aramean served as a site of memory that embodied and communicated both closeness to, even to the point of a sense of (partial) belonging to, and separateness from the dominant cultural group and the ways in which they informed each other within the community in Yehud. TENSIONS, MINORITY REPORTS AND PREFERENCES AND DIS-PREFERENCES Cultural memories of heroes do not have to offer a fully consistent image. Tensions may exist among different images of hero, as they may fit diverse rhetorical and discursive needs. This is certainly expected within the context of late Persian Yehud. Salient tensions, statements that from a purely logical viewpoint would be seen as contradictions, or reports about events that are inconsistent with the explicit world portrayed in the text occur time and again among the books included in the repertoire of the community. In fact, all of these contributed to the shaping of the message of these books and suggested modes of readings them.79 For the purposes of reconstructing the intellectual discourse of the period and the associated cultural memory held by the On ‫ ֲא ַר ִמי א ֵֹבד‬see J. G. Janzen, ‘The ‘Wandering Aramean’ Reconsidered,’ VT 44 (1994), 359–75; J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996) 240; cf. A. R. Millard, ‘A Wandering Aramean,’ JNES 39 (1980), 153–55. 79 I have discussed these features and their meanings extensively through the years. See, for instance, my History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles, passim. 78

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community, it is helpful to focus on the generative processes or discursive/ideological needs that led to, or were reflected in these tensions. At times, some discursive/ideological needs are only reflected in a very few vignettes within the general cultural memory of the hero. In other words, they appear, as it were, as a minority report. The research question that arises then is what kind of rules of preference and dis-preference would lead to their minority status within the memory of the community―at least the one reflected in the traces it left in the authoritative literary repertoire of the community. Of course, dis-preference may lead not to a ‘minority report’ but to full or partial omission. Below I will deal with two concrete examples related to the memory of Abraham as reflected in the traces left in the books which were read and reread within the community. The first example deals with the salient tension between attaching Abraham to both worldly powerlessness and military might. The preceding discussion has emphasised the many important roles that the memory of Abraham (/Israel) as lacking worldly power served within the discourse of the community. But the same remembering community knows of the Abraham of Genesis 14 (see esp. vv 14–15) who is a mighty and clever (experienced?) military leader able to defeat with his private, well trained servants a victorious coalition of King Chedorlaomer of Elam, King Tidal of Goiim, King Amraphel of Shinar, and King Arioch of Ellasar. The report about Abraham the military hero is clearly a ‘minority report’ within the book of Genesis and elsewhere. Given the common and anticipated associations between founder and hero and, in particular, in the case of Abraham, given also some of the links between memories about Abraham and matters later associated with David, the crucial question is clearly why Abraham (and Moses, see below) tended not to be remembered as the usual ‘manly hero’ as opposed to why he occasionally was The answer to this question seems quite obvious. The tendency to prefer Abraham the powerless over Abraham the powerful general is easy to understand: powerlessness was a requirement for an identification of Abraham with (exilic) ‘Israel’ as understood in the community, and with the remembering community as well. It was necessary for binding the memory of Abraham

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to those of Exodus and Return, and to emphasize promise over fulfillment. These considerations alone suggest that the Abraham that the community, or at least the literati responsible for its books and for shaping its intellectual discourse, remembered had to be for most purposes and in most occasions mightless. He had to be surrounded by a mighty ‘others,’ but over and against them he alone held YHWH’s promise. This Abraham was perishing and landless, but obedient to YHWH and a lover/friend of the deity. There was also a complementary tendency at work to dis-prefer military power within the discourse of the community. Contrary to the general trend to attribute a heroic—and thus a strong ‘manly’ character—to figures of the past that embody a nation/city/dynasty/polity (e.g., Gilgamesh; David; Cyrus, Aeneas), the two main ‘founders’ of Israel, Abraham and Moses were not portrayed, in the main, as such mighty military leaders in the pentateuchal books.80 This is hardly a coincidence. Most likely the reason for this dis-preference was related to the actual sociopolitical situation of the community, including—but not limited to—its relation with the imperial center and its internal hierarchical organization. In addition, the related values (and concepts of what a ‘man’ is) held by its literati, and likely some other groups in the community played an important role. Of course, this tendency was not restricted to Moses and Abraham. One may note that even the narratively necessary image of Joshua the Conqueror was balanced and informed by Josh. 1:8, among others. See also the characterization of the ideal king in Deut. 17:14–20 and esp. vv 18–20, who, incidentally, is certainly not a king like those of the nations (cf. v 14). Needless to say, the images of David in Chronicles and Psalms and the ways in which they inform those of Samuel are also consistent with this trend.81 All these examples point to an image of On Moses see above. Note the lack of emphasis on Moses the general in the HB necessitated the development of Joshua the general, but even here, see how this construction of Joshua is balanced and informed by Josh. 1:8. The same holds true for Jacob. 81 One may add also that Israel identified itself with Jacob, the smooth tent-dweller, not Esau the hairy hunter. Significantly, some later literature reshaped the characterization of Jacob (e.g., Jubilees 38) and made him more ‘heroic’ in the traditional sense than Esau—Jacob kills Esau in battle 80

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what a (Yhwistic, that is, a ‘true/godly’) hero/leader/ruler (and one may say also a ‘man’) is that was counter to traditional conceptions, but well-fitting the discourse and worldview of the literati responsible for these texts and for the shaping of the community’s collective memory, and their historical circumstances. Against this background, it is still worth noting that ‘minority reports’ did occur in the HB, for both Moses and Abraham, and had a role to play in the collective memory of Israel. They suggest a not fully repressed need to balance the image of the foundational figures of Israel with ‘traditional’ attributes for maleness, greatness and power.82 These considerations lead to the unavoidable question of whether ‘minority reports’ such as those in Genesis 14 and Num. 21:21–35; Deut. 2:26–3:1383 are remnants of a larger corpus of memories in which founding figures were characterized more as ‘traditional’ heroes.84 If this is the case, then the cultural memory reflected and shaped by the present texts would represent the literati’s successful endeavor to construct a particular memory of Israel that was consistent with their worldview and values, by limiting exposure to some sites of memory,85 enhancing the imporand defeats his forces. Of course, Jubilees constructs a different memory of Israel than the one reflected and communicated by the pentateuchal books. 82 The same holds true on the matter of wealth. The patriarchs had to be imagined as poor, perishing, landless and homeless, but at the same time as very wealthy individuals, as befits the status of a might prince ִ ‫ נְ ִשיא ֱא‬carries a double meaning in this verse). (Gen. 23:6; ‫ֹלהים‬ Despite all the differences, from a typological perspective, one may compare the situation to the ‘need’ to associate the obviously wealthless, new born Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, because he was a ‘king’ (Matt. 2:11). 83 Note also the hero centered horizon of thought implied and communicated in Gen 24:60. There is also, of course, the reference to the defeat that the sons of Jacob inflicted on Shechem, but the attack itself is condemned in the text and used to emphasize Jacob’s ultimate powerlessness. 84 T. Römer, ‘Moses outside the Torah and the Construction of a Diaspora Identity.’ 85 To the list of possible traditions that could have been selected for

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tance of others and imbuing remaining problematic sites with ‘appropriate’ meanings,86 either directly or indirectly by setting them in the context of a large corpus of texts informing them (i.e., turning them into ‘minority reports’). All these questions are as interesting as they are impossible to answer in any degree of certainty. Yet they are important, because the literati-shaped, collective memory represented in the authoritative repertoire of books was most likely selective—as all collective memories are. Some texts and images were included and others excluded. Although historians of ancient Israel cannot reconstruct what was excluded, they should attempt to reconstruct at least some of the ‘rules’ governing the game of ‘exclusion and inclusion’ in the collective memory of the period. Needless to say, at later times, there appeared (re-appeared?) images of Moses the conqueror and about the ‘masterful general’ Abraham as well.87 There is nothing surprising about that, limited participation in the collective memory of Israel construed by that authoritative repertoire of the community, one may include those associated with Enoch. It seems reasonable to assume that the text in Gen. 5:24 (cf. 5:22) is the tip of the iceberg of a large tradition that was not included in the book of Genesis. It is worth noting that the principle of relative exclusion that could have operated here may have been at work in Chronicles, in which this character neither walks about with the deity nor disappears. 86 Note, for instance, the characterization of Moses in Exod. 17:8–14. Readers of these text were not asked to imagine General Moses, but Moses as YHWH’s intermediary and as a leader/writer. He is the ‘religious’ leader, Joshua is the general, and as important that latter is imagined by the readers revisiting the battle scene and its immediate aftermath, he is far less important than Moses and victory does not depend on his skill, but on YHWH’s help through Moses. 87 Concerning Abraham, see, Ant. 1.177-179 and see L. H. Feldman, Flavius Josephus Translation and Commentary. Vol. 3 Judean Antiquities 1–4 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 67, esp. n. 562 (cf. Ant. 2.213–214). Feldman’s long list of references shows the clear contrast between later rabbinic reconstruction of the Abraham of Genesis 14 and Josephus’. There is, of course, also the text that Josephus attributes to Nicolaus of Damascus in Ant. 1.159–60. As for Moses, see T. Römer, ‘Moses outside the Torah and the Construction of a Diaspora Identity.’

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communities adapt and develop memories according to their present needs. The past is always present among those remembering it as their ‘present’ past, even if they maintain and very often need to maintain that it existed in the ‘past’ as well. PREFERENCES AND DIS-PREFERENCES: THE CASE OF A SUBSTANTIAL OMISSION Josh. 23:2–3 explicitly reflects a reconstruction of the past in which Israel’s ancestors worshiped ‘other gods.88’ The presence of such a memory was to be expected since the community remembered that Israel’s ancestors were Arameans (see above). This said, it is worth noting that the story of the origin of Israel as embodied in the Abraham of the HB contains no reference to the beginning of one of the most defining features of Israel, as imagined by the remembering community, that is, worship of YHWH alone. It seems extremely unlikely that the community imagined the Abraham of Gen. 12:1–3 as a worshipper of ‘other gods.’ Moreover, this would have precluded Abraham to signify and embody ‘Israel,’ YHWH’s servant. What about the Abraham of Gen. 11:27–32? Did Abraham the child not worship the gods of his father/ancestors (see Josh 24:2–3; cf. v 15)89? At some point the fateful shift to serving and obeying YHWH, that is, to becoming ‘Israel,’ must have happened. A story of origins that does not include any reference to the origin of this ‘Israel’ raises the question of why this could have been the case in the official, collective memory of the community discussed here and as represented in their repertoire of authoritative books. Certainly, this situation seems odd and significantly, it did not hold in communities later than the one discussed here.90 The reference in vv 2–3 serves a clear rhetorical purpose as it clear from Josh. 24:15. Within a Jerusalem-centered reading of the text, the importance of location of the speech, i.e., Shechem resides in that within the constructed geography of the community it is the first main city in the land for those who come from Aram (Gen. 12:5–6; 33:18) and as such it is associated with ‘our ancestors.’ See above. 89 Needless to say that if one were to claim that Abraham’s father did not worship ‘other gods,’ then one would only move the crucial shift by one generation. 90 E.g., Jdt. 5:6; Jub. 11:16-17; 12:2–8; 12:12–14; Ant. 1.154–57; GenR 38.13, among many others. 88

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The remarkable exclusion of stories about Abraham’s rejection of the worship of ‘other gods’ in the HB and the collective memory of the community being discussed here is consistent with two important ideological positions. The first has been touched on above. It is the matter of not grounding YHWH’s choice of Abraham (and Israel) on merit. At work is a core concept in the discourse of the period involved in different ways with most of the central divine choices (e.g., the selection of the land, of Jerusalem, site of the temple, of the Davidic dynasty, of Solomon as the man of peace able to build it in Chronicles; note also that the crucial event of the Exodus is not predicated on the merit of the Israelites there—YHWH is portrayed in Exod. 3:7 as seeing the misery of the people, not their merit).91 Of course, within this discourse, the selection transforms the one being selected, and in the case of individuals or the people, carries obligations to one who made the selection, but the selection itself is left unexplained in human reason, and thus rhetorically unassailable. The second reason is that shaping memories about Abraham before Genesis 12 would of necessity involve imagining an Abraham before the land and the promise and thus weaken a crucial component in the Abraham of the site of memory reflected and shaped by the book of Genesis. It is a matter of mindshare, Genesis asked its primary readership to focus on the Abraham transformed by the divine selection, the promise and strongly connected, in his own ‘landless’/exilic way, with the land. Only the transformed Abraham could embody Israel, in this discourse, no matter how meritorious the untransformed Abraham could have been. Genesis provides a segmented story of Abraham which to some extent may be seen as a kind of segmented history of Israel. The book does not claim that Abraham kept worshiping other gods 91 It is worth noting that as mentioned in the section entitled ‘Divine Choice, Obedience and Test,’ there are texts that inform and somewhat balance this position, and that some aspects of ‘remembering Abraham’ are also involved in the process. Of course, to place an idea in proportion by informing it with (seemingly in tension, but from a general perspective) complementary positions does not eliminate of the idea being placed in proportion.

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till the events reported in Gen. 12:1–3, nor could it have done so. It suggests, however, that what happened before is not necessarily so worth remembering as what happened later to Abraham. In many ways, the same principles governing this segmented history/story are similar to those in place in Chronicles. This book does not claim that the world was not created by YHWH as described in Genesis, or that there was no garden of Eden, no Exodus, no wandering in the desert, no conquest of the land, no period of Judges and the like. Instead, it suggests to the readers to focus on other matters, to create additional paths for their virtual or mental tour of central sites of memory that do not include the garden of Eden and the like and to walk these paths and thus to reconfigure some aspects of the social memory held by the group, in the case of Chronicles in way that informs and is being informed by other texts existing in the community.92 The two observations advanced above provide grounds for dis-preferring the inclusion of stories about Abraham’s rejection of the worship of ‘other gods.’ They are not sufficient grounds for exclusion though. As shown in the previous section, different and contradicting tendencies may exist. Here it would not have been difficult to imagine a tendency to stress Abraham’s rejection of any worship of ‘other gods.’ The long list of elaborations on this motif that appears in works later than those of this period only reinforces the point. Yet unlike the previous cases in which some balance between inclusion and exclusion trends developed leading to main memories and what I called ‘minority reports,’ which even if visited separately still keep informing each other, there is no such balance about the pre-selection Abraham, but omission. This situation seems to speak loudly about the importance of the issues at stake within the world

We simply cannot know if this was the case for Genesis in the late Persian/early Hellenistic period, since we do not have ‘the other story.’ The ‘other story’ of Chronicles was textually inscribed in the books included in the Primary History. We do not have books from the period that describe the pre-selection Abraham, nor can be sure that they even existed. 92

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of the literati responsible for the pentateuchal books and for the cultural memory they wanted to shape.93 IN SUM This essay has shown how the memory of Abraham served as a central site of memory that encapsulated and evoked a large number of central issues and images in the discourse of the community, and how the latter related to the actual historical circumstances in which it lived. It has shown that this site of memory served as a memory node binding several other core sites together into a well crafted web of sites of memory, informed and shaping each other. It pointed at tendencies towards preference and dis-preference of certain motifs and explored what these can tell us about the world of the community. It also raised questions about memories that were de-emphasized and mindshare. All in all, it is illustrative of the contribution that studies on cultural memory can bring to the historical study of the world of ancient societies in general and late Persian/early Hellenistic Yehud. Of course, not only Abraham was remembered. Reconstructions of the intellectual discourse of this society (or at least its literati) must take into account the memories of at least all the other central personages of Israel past.

Needless to say, the same hold true even if there existed no stories about pre-selection Abraham within the community. If this was the case and no one even thought of how, when or why Abraham rejected the worship of ‘other gods’ then this lack would speak volumes about the intellectual discourse of the period and about the actual power that the center of the community held over its members, be them literate or not. 93

REMEMBERING ABRAHAM IN PSEUDO-PHILO’S

LIBER ANTIQUITATUM BIBLICARUM BEATE EGO In recent research, a great deal of attention has been paid to the depiction of the figure of Abraham as it is found in Jewish literature of the Hellenistic period. In this context, special emphasis was placed on the image of Abraham as it appears in the Book of Jubilees. In this tradition, Abraham is characterized as a magician who—based on his belief in the one God—has the power to withstand demonic forces. He also tries to convince his father of this belief in the one God by emphasising the worthlessness of his idols. Since his father is unwilling to dissociate himself from his gods, Abraham gets up in the night and sets his father’s house—with all his idols—on fire. In this night, his brother Haran, attempting to rescue the idols from the flames, loses his life. After this event, Abraham, his father Tara and his brother Nachor move to Karan, where God blesses him and sends him to Canaan (Jub. 11:1–24). As it has often been pointed out, this narrative element can be explained as a pun: ‘Abram comes from Ur in Chaldaea’ means ‘Abram comes from ‚‫ ‛אור‬in Chaldaea—from the fire in Chaldaea.’ Furthermore, in the Book of Jubilees Abraham also appears as the founder of highly important dates in the Jewish festival calendar, such as the Sabbath, the Feast of Passover or the Feast of the Weeks. Thus it becomes apparent that the Patriarch is totally obedient to the Torah. By this means, the author of the Book of Jubilees strengthens the Jewish identity with regard to Hellenistic culture and religion. The Abraham story, as represented in the Book of Jubilees, can therefore be characterized as a story ‘remem-

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bering Abraham in Hellenistic times.’1 A further example of the recollection of Abrahams in Hellenistic times can be found in the Genesis Apocryphon. In this tradition, Abraham is depicted as a figure demonstrating his outstanding trust in God and his magical power. By pretending that his wife Sarah is his sister, he manages to save his life from the hands of Pharaoh and his men.2 In this context, I would like to raise the question of how these Hellenistic recollections of Abraham have been subsequently received and transformed in Jewish literature in Roman times. Due to limited space here, I will focus on elucidating this issue by taking a closer look at the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, also called the ‘Book of Biblical Antiquities’ or ‘Pseudo-Philo.’ With all probability, this book dates back to the beginning of the second century BC.3. A broader investigation of the issue ‘remembering Abraham’, however, should also consider further Abraham tradi-

Concerning the figure of Abraham in the Book of Jubilees, see Ego, ‘Abraham’s Faith,’ 338–40; Calvert-Koyzis, Paul, 9–18; Mueller, Abrahams-Gestalt. 2 Cf. Falk, Parabiblical Texts, 80–94; see also my article ‘The Figure of Abraham in the Genesis Apocryphon’s Re-narration of Gen. 12:10–20’ (forthcoming). 3 Concerning the question of the dating of Pseudo-Philo, cf. Jacobson’s exhaustive remarks; see Jacobson, Commentary, 199–210. Jacobsen compiles all of the pros and cons concerning a post-70 dating of LAB. Finally, he comes to the conclusion that ‘there are no cogent arguments in support of a pre-70 date, while the arguments for a post-70 date seem to me overwhelming. How much later than 70? As I have indicated above, there may be some evidence for the period of Hadrianic persecutions and perhaps the failure of the Bar-Cochba-Revolt may underlie the tone of the work. But hard evidence is not easy to come by. I am however not inclined to think that the date of LAB could be much later than the middle of the second century’ (209). Concerning further indications of the date of LAB, see von Kienle, Feuermale, 217, (with references to earlier literature). 1

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tions of Roman times, for example, in the Apocalypse of Abraham4 or in rabbinical literature.5 In this paper, I will first present the story of Abraham as it appears in Pseudo-Philo’s Abraham narrative; reference will then be made to the historical framework of this story. After this attempt to elucidate Abraham’s depiction in the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum and its historical contextualisation, this contribution will demonstrate briefly how ‘Pseudo-Philo’ changed the image of Abraham in Hellenistic times. 1. ABRAHAM IN PSEUDO-PHILO In the ‘Book of Biblical Antiquities,’ Abraham belongs to the generation involved in the construction of the Tower of Babel. After the flood, for fear of being scattered, mankind decides to build a tower whose top would reach the heavens, in order to make a name for themselves (Gen. 11:3). For this reason, they intend to take bricks, to write their names on them and to burn them with fire (LAB 6:2). A group of twelve men refuse to join this project; one of them being Abraham, who at this point is mentioned in PseudoPhilo for the first time. Subsequently, the twelve are captured by angry men who accuse them of wrongdoing and take them to Nimrod, ruler of the country. Upon interrogation concerning their reasons for rejecting the construction of the tower, they answer as follows: ‘We are not casting in bricks, nor are we joining in your scheme. We know the one LORD, and him we worship. Even if you throw us into fire with your bricks, we will not join you’ (LAB 6,4).6

Concerning the figure of Abraham in the Apocalypse of Abraham, see Ego, ‘Abraham and the Belief in the one God, 340–348 (with references to earlier research)’; Ego, ‘La conversion d’Abraham’ (forthcoming). 5 Cf. Oberhänsli-Widmer, Biblische Figuren, 259–352, with references to earlier research. 6 Quoted according to the translation of Harrington, Pseudo-Philo, 311. 4

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In research literature, it has often been pointed out that these men’s refusal to join in the action of burning bricks is based on their rejection of idolatry.7 However, the statement cited above can be explained more easily by considering that constructing a tower whose top will reach the heavens can be considered an act of rebellion against the acknowledgement of God’s power in general.8 This expression therefore illustrates that the men’s refusal to join in the tower project is based on their will to demonstrate their devotion to the one God in a broader sense than that given in the context of idolatry. It also becomes clear that these men assume a special position amongst mankind; they claim to differ from all others because they worship the one LORD. Their resistance to the construction of the tower therefore seems to be symbolic, since it implies the special, detached status of this group.9 Joktan, one of the leaders of the tower project, is welldisposed towards the twelve, since he belongs to their tribe10 and also worships the one God. He therefore develops a strategy to rescue these men. He imprisons them and proposes in public to 7 Calvert-Koyzis, Paul, 45f; Kienle, Feuermale, 218; Fröhlich, Historiographie et Aggada, 359; cf. also Vermes, Scripture and Tradition, 77. According to Vermes, the statement ‘Let us make a name for ourselves’ signified ‘Let us make a god for ourselves,’ since in ‘the post-biblical period, ‘name’ was a substitution for ‘God’’. A combination of idolatry and the worshipping of bricks can be found a.o. in bAZ 46a. TgJon Gen. 11:4 translates ‘let us make a name’ with ‘let us make an idol’, e.g. TgJer 11:4. 8 According to Jacobson, Commentary, 357, the words ‘We know only God and Him do we serve’ have to be understood in the sense ‘when you instruct us to commit this act of rebellion against God, we refuse to follow orders from you, for we listen only to Him’ (358). Similar to Jacobsen, Murphy also criticises the idea that this tradition contains a polemic against idolatry: ‘But contrary to Vermes’s interpretation, it can be observed that the interpretation of name as ‘idol’ is unnecessary for the narrative in LAB 6 since the building of a tower whose ‘top will reach the heavens’ is itself an act of rebellion against God in Genesis 11. PseudoPhilo has merely taken over that interpretation of the builders’ action and motivation’ (42). 9 See also Murphy, Pseudo-Philo, 49, who stresses the issue of nonassimilation with the gentiles. 10 Joktan belongs to the descendants of Shem and is a son of Eber (Gen. 10:25); see also LAB 4:9.

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65

give them the opportunity to abandon their plans within seven days.11 Since he wants to prevent them from being harmed, he lets them escape from prison and hide in the mountains. Joktan supplies the men with food and water and commands them to hide for 30 days, ‘until the hatred of the people of this land subsides and until God sends his wrath upon them and destroys them,’ (6:9)12. His plan, further, is that, after seven days, when the men are to be asked about their decision by the builders of the tower he, Joktan, will tell them that their opponents have escaped from prison and that he has already sent out his troops to investigate their whereabouts. Whereas eleven men from the group opposing the construction of the tower appreciate Joktan’s plan and are ready to follow it, Abraham decides to remain in prison and to accept his fate. This decision is based on his trust in God’s will: ‘Abraham wants to clarify that if he stays in prison and is ultimately burned in the ‫ אור‬furnace, it’s not because he’s made a mistake, nor because those who want to kill him are right, nor because his enemies or their gods are more powerful than Abraham’s God. He will die, or be saved, regardless of where he is located, because his life is in God’s hands, not in the hands of the people of the land. If God will it, Abram must deserve it.’13

Thus, after seven days the tower project leaders inquire about their opponents’ decision and it is Abraham alone who is found in prison. Joktam pretends that his troops are already searching for the escapees. Abraham, however, is thrown into the furnace by Joktam himself with great emotion and dissolved with feeling (lit. ‘liquefactus sensu’‘). At this very moment, an earthquake causes a conflagration that consumes 83,500 people, all those standing around in sight of the furnace among them.14 Neverthe11 The motif of postponing the penalty is typical in the context of martyrdom literature; cf. Jacobsen, Commentary, 358f. 12 Quoted according to the translation of Harrington, Pseudo-Philo, 311. 13 Quoted according to Descamp, Metaphor and Ideology, 276. 14 Apparently, this motif has its roots in Num 11:3 and Dan 3:22; cf. Jacobsen, Commentary, 370.

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less, Abraham remains completely unharmed. He escapes the furnace; after his salvation he meets his eleven fellows who were hiding in the mountains and tells them everything that has happened. Here again we are able to detect the above-mentioned play on words in ‘Ur in Chaldaea’ and ‘‫( ’אור‬fire) in Chaldaea’. Now the statement ‘Abram from Ur in Chaldaea’ has to be understood in the sense: ‘Abram was saved from the fire in Chaldaea.’ All the same, people do not refrain from their evil deeds and continue their project of building an indestructible town and a tower. For this reason, God decides to divide up their languages, to change their appearances and to disperse them to all regions of the earth, where everyone has to struggle with the power of the wilderness and where they have to face death alone. In the speech in which God announces his plans concerning sinful mankind, Abraham is mentioned again. God decides to choose his servant Abram and to bring him to an outstanding and unique land which has not been destroyed by the waters of the flood (LAB 7,4). Everything happens according to God’s announcement: once the people inhabiting the land start to erect the tower, their languages are divided up and their appearances changed; thus they are unable to work together and to finish their high-flying project. They are urged to stop building the city with its tower, and God scatters them across the face of the earth. Abram, however, emigrates to the land of Canaan. After the separation from Lot and Ishmael’s birth, God appears to Abram again and promises to give the land to his seed and that he will establish his covenant with him. Following this narrative element, the rest of the Abram story in Pseudo-Philo mainly consists of genealogical information concerning Abram’s offspring Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and their children. The Abraham narrative concludes by listing the names of the sons of Israel who travelled down to Egypt and by pointing out that they have dwelt there for 210 years. 2. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF PSEUDO-PHILO’S ABRAHAM NARRATIVE It seems quite obvious that Pseudo-Philo emphasizes a very radical and straightforward idea of martyrdom. This is pointed out by comparing Abram’s attitude to that of Joktam or that of the eleven men who are willing to follow Joktam’s plans to save themselves.

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When it comes to the challenge of confessing the one God, going into hiding or postponing the decision cannot be regarded as a real solution. Joktam, who at the beginning of the story seems to be a true worshipper of the one God, finally sides with Nimrod and his colleagues. It turns out that he acts as Abram’s enemy, and is even willing to kill him. Abram’s eleven friends, who trusted Joktam, are only saved thanks to Abram’s intervention. Thus Abram serves as a model for the idea that the commitment to the one God does not allow any compromise.15 These utterances seem to reflect Judaism’s experiences with Hellenistic and Roman dominion. Nimrod is the pagan despot par excellence who represents foreign sovereignty. Ever since the narratives of Eleazar’s martyrdom (2 Macc. 6:18–31) or of the mother and her seven sons (2 Macc. 7:1–42) were codified in the Second Book of the Maccabees, the willingness to experience martyrdom for the one God and his Commandments, has become an integral motif of Jewish tradition.16 If the ‘Book of Biblical Antiquities’ originates from the time around the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, one can expect to find the experiences of the First Jewish War documented here. In fact, in the portrayals of Josephus, there are several traditions that attest to the important role martyr ideology played for insurgents. Josephus tells us about two teachers and their students, who, having destroyed the eagle over the great gate of the Temple, stress that it is good to die for the inherited law (Bellum 1:650ff.). In addition, many indications of Zealot martyrs can be found in the writings of Josephus. Sicariens, who fled to Egypt after finally having been defeated by the Romans, share the same unyielding willingness to experience any kind of bodily torture and maltreatment rather than accept the emperor as their lord (Bellum 7:417).17 Concerning the idea of martyrdom, see also LAB 38; cf. von Kienle, Feuermale, 218. 16 Cf. also 1 Macc. 1:57f.60–64; 2:29–38; 2 Macc 6:10–11. Traditions as Dan. 3:6 and Dan. 12:2f. belong to the earlier texts that contain martyr motifs, cf. Kellermann, Auferstanden, 51–75; see also Hengel, Zeloten, 261f; von Kienle, Feuermale, 218; Lenzen, Jüdisches Leben und Sterben, 87–94. 17 Cf. Hengel, Zeloten, 262-77. 15

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In the event of the ‘Biblical Antiquities’ originating even later, i.e. several decades after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the motif of Abraham’s willingness to become a martyr could then be seen as a reaction to the events of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Whereas historical events lie shrouded in darkness, rabbinical literature contains numerous texts which assume that adherence to the Torah Commandments was forbidden by the Romans during the time of Hadrian’s reign. Many of the pious had to pay for their faithfulness to the Torah with their lives. One of the most famous stories is probably that of R. Aqiba, who, in his readiness to bear the ‘Yoke of Heaven’, suffered a violent death (bBer 61b).18 3. CONCLUSION: REMEMBERING ABRAHAM IN PSEUDOPHILO Let me conclude by characterizing the outlines of Pseudo-Philo’s depiction of Abraham. First of all, the story of Abraham, as presented in Pseudo-Philo, can be described as a form of rewritten Bible which aims to read the Biblical tradition very carefully and to fill the gaps in the Biblical narrative.19 Pseudo-Philo closely connects the biblical account of the Babylonian tower with the biblical narrative of Abram, a connection which is unique to Pseudo-Philo. Abram belongs to the generation of the dispersion. As he refuses to join the tower project and as he worships the one God and is even prepared to be 18 An anthology of relevant text material can be found in Schäfer, Bar-Kochba-Aufstand, 194–235; especially on Rabbi Akiva, cf. ibid. 213f. Schäfer’s analysis of the material has resulted in the assumption that the Hadrianic persecution can be basically reduced to a ban on circumcision, enacted during or even just after the war, which in any case had been interpreted as a complete ban on adherence to the Torah by the Jews. The extent to which the Romans also forbade the study of the Torah or the observing of the Sabbath beyond the ban of circumcision cannot be ascertained today. It is certain—thus Schäfer—that the decrees grew in number with the growth of literature on this event (ibid. 235). The motif of the readiness to become a martyr also played an important role in the reception of the narrative of Isaac’s binding; cf. Oberhänsli-Widmer, Biblische Figuren, 302ff. with references to further literature; cf. also Lenzen, Jüdischen Leben und Sterben, 99–102. 19 Concerning the exegetical hermeneutics in LAB, see the work of Fisk, Do you not remember?; especially for the ‘filling of the gaps’ cf. ibid. 317f.

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martyred, he does not have to suffer the fate of the dispersed but is chosen to lead his people to the Land of Canaan. By relating Abram’s trust in the one God to Abraham’s election, as referred to in Gen. 12:1, the author of Pseudo-Philo closes the narrative gap of the biblical Abraham story, which does not give any reason for Abram’s election by God.20 Pseudo-Philo’s recounting of the Biblical Abraham story is very brief and – apart from God’s promise – restricted to genealogical information. In this work, however, Abram’s outstanding role in the context of the construction of the Babylonian tower is emphasised. By depicting Abram as a potential martyr, PseudoPhilo lays the groundwork for Abram’s election, as biblically referred to in Gen. 12:1–3, as well as for God’s promise to Abraham as related in Gen. 15:7 and Gen. 17.21 However, a comparison of Pseudo-Philo’s narration of the Abram story with the Abram story as described in the Book of Jubilees shows clearly that the label ‘rewritten Bible’ describes only one aspect of this narration. Pseudo-Philo also received older nonbiblical traditions from Hellenistic times and transformed them.22 Two things should be mentioned in this context: first, we have to consider the reason for Abram’s harassment. Whereas in the Book of Jubilees, Abram comes into conflict with his father’s house for defeating idolatry, according to Pseudo-Philo, Abraham’s refusal to build the tower leads to his persecution. As shown above, 20 Cf. Jacobsen, Commentary, 380: ‘In the Bible the narrative that immediately precedes the account of Abram is that of the Tower. Thus, LAB has clearly decided to see the motivation for God’s selection of Abram in the event that immediately precedes it and thus invents for Abram a pious role in the story of the Tower.’ S.a. Fröhlich, ‘Historiographie et Aggada,’ 361. 21 Cf. Oberhänsli-Widmer, Biblische Figuren, 263: ‘Obwohl das Werk eine Art ‘rewritten bible’ darstellt und von daher eine gewisse Orientierung am Original zu erwarten wäre, widmet das ‘Buch der biblischen Altertümer’ der Geschichte des jungen Abraham im Feuerofen (Liber Ant 6,37,5) annähernd siebenmal mehr Raum als der gesamten Genesisnacherzählung zum Patriarchen (8,13).’ Concerning the abbreviated retelling of the biblical Abraham story, see also Reinmuth, ‘Beobachtungen,’ 556. 22 Concerning Pseudo-Philo’s interpretation of the Bible s.a. Fröhlich, ‘Historiographie et Aggada,’ 409.

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this refusal can be viewed as a symbolic act of Judaism’s dissociation from the pagans and their activities in general. Second, we have to consider the motif of Abram’s rescue from the fiery furnace, which is already conveyed in the Book of Jubilees. In the Book of Jubilees, Abraham is confronted with the fire more or less accidently because he burns down the house of his father and his idols. In Pseudo-Philo, however, he encounters this deadly danger deliberately. Thus, Pseudo-Philo shifts the Abraham tradition, as attested in Hellenistic times, to emphasising the need for Judaism to distance itself from pagans’ activities in general and Abraham’s readiness for self-dedication. This transformation can be explained against the background of Judaism’s historical experiences in the Roman period. Thus, it becomes apparent that Pseudo-Philo does not only rewrite the biblical Abraham story; it also reformulates the remembrance of Abram as related in Hellenistic times. PseudoPhilo’s account of Abraham can therefore be characterized as a story ‘re-remembering the Hellenistic Abraham’ against the background of the experiences of Roman oppression. BIBLIOGRAPHY Berger, K. 1981

Das Buch der Jubiläen (Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, II/3; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus).

Calvert-Koyzis, N. 2004 Paul, Monotheism and the People of God. The Significance of Abraham Traditions for Early Judaism and Christianity (Journal for New Testament Supplements, 273; London: T & T Clark International). Descamp, M.T. 2007 Metaphor and Ideology. Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum and Literary Methods through Cognitive Lense (Biblical Interpretation Series, 87; Leiden/Boston: Brill).

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Dietzfelbinger, Chr. 1982 Pseudo-Philo: Antiquitates Biblicae (Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, II/2; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus). Ego, B. 1996

Ego, B. 2009

‘Abraham als Urbild der Toratreue Israels. Traditionsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zu einem Aspekt des biblischen Abrahambildes,’ in Bund und Tora. Zur theologischen Begriffsgeschichte in F. Avemarie and H. Lichtenberger (eds.), Alttestamentlicher, frühjüdischer und urchristlicher Tradition (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 92; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]), 25–40. ‘Abraham’s Faith in the One God—A Motif of the Image of Abraham in Early Jewish Literature,’ in H. Lichtenberger and U. Mittmann (eds.), Biblical Figures in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature (DCL Yearbook, 2008; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter), 337–54.

Ego, B. forthcoming ‘La conversion d’Abraham au monothéisme—Le portrait du patriarche dans l’Apocalypse d’Abraham,’ in E. Bons and Th. Legrande (eds.), Le monothéisme biblique: evolution, contexts et perspectives (Lectio divina, 2011; Paris: Cerf), forthcoming Ego, B. forthcoming ‘The Figure of Abraham in the Genesis Apocryphon,’ in D. Falk et al. (eds.), Qumran Cave 1 Revisited. Texts from Cave 1 Sixty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the the Sixth Meeting of the IOQS in Ljubljana (Studies on the Texts of the Deserts of Judah 91, 2010; Leiden: Brill), 233-43. Falk, D. 2007

The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures among the Dead Sea Scrolls (Library of Second Temple

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Studies, 63; Companion to the Qumran Scrolls, 8; London: T & T Clark). Fisk, B. N. 2001 Do You Not Remember? Scripture, Story and Exegesis in the Rewritten Bible of Pseudo-Philo (Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha. Supplement Series, 37; Leiden/ Boston: Brill). Fröhlich, I. 1980 ‘Historiographie et aggada dans le Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum du Pseudo-Philo,’ Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae 28: 353–409. Gese, H. 1991

Goldin, S. 2008

‘Die Komposition der Abrahamserzählung,’ in H. Gese (ed.), Alttestamentliche Studien (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]), 29–51. The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom (Cursor Mundi, Turnhout: Brepols).

Harrington, D.J. 1985 ‘Pseudo-Philo (First Century A.D.). A New Translation and Introduction,’ in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2 (Garden City/New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.), 297–377. Hengel, M. 1976 Die Zeloten. Untersuchungen zur jüdischen Freiheitsbewegung in der Zeit von Herodes I. bis 70 n.Chr. (2nd edition; Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Urchristentums, 1; Leiden/ Cologne: Brill). Hengel, M. 1988 Judentum und Hellenismus. Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh.s v.Chr. (3rd edition; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

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Herr, M. D. 1972 ‘Persecution and Martyrdom in Hadrian’s Days,’ in D. Asheri and I. Shatzman (eds.), Scripta Hierosolymitana vol. 23: Studies in History (Jerusalem: Magnes Press), 85–125. Jacobson, H. 1996 A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. With Latin Text and English Translation, 2 Vols. (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums, 31–2; Leiden/New York/ Cologne: Brill). Kienle, B. von 1993 Feuermale: Studien zur Wortfelddimension ‘Feuer’ in den Synoptikern, im pseudophilonischen Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum und im 4. Esra (Bonner Biblische Beiträge 89; Bodenheim: Athenäum Hain Hanstein). Kellermann, U. 1979 Auferstanden in den Himmel. 2 Makkabäer 7 und Auferstehung der Märtyrer (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien, 95; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk). Lenzen, V. 1995 Jüdisches Leben und Sterben im Namen Gottes. Studien über die Heiligung des göttlichen Namens (Kiddusch HaSchem) (Munich/Zurich: Piper). Meyer, R. 1949

‘Die Figurendarstellung in der Kunst des späthellenistischen Judentums,’ Judaica 5, 1–40.

Müller, M. (1996). ‘Die Abraham-Gestalt im Jubiläenbuch. Versuch einer Interpretation,’ Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 10, 238-57. Murphy, F. (1988). ‘Retelling the Bible: Idolatry in Pseudo-Philo,’ Journal of Biblical Literature 107.2, 275–87. Murphy, F. 1993 Pseudo-Philo. Rewriting the Bible (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Oberhänsli-Widmer, G. 1998 Biblische Figuren in der rabbinischen Literatur. Gleichnisse und Bilder zu Adam, Noah und Abraham im Midrasch Bereschit Rabba (Judaica et Christiana, 17; Bern et al: Lang). Philonenko-Sayar, B./Philonenko, M. 1982 Apokalypse Abrahams (Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, V/5; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus). Reinmuth, E. 1997 ‘Beobachtungen zur Rezeption der Genesis bei Pseudo-Philo (LAB 1-8) und Lukas (Apg 7.2-17),’ New Testament Studies 44, 552–69. Rubinkiewicz, R. 1979 ‘La vision de l’histoire dans l’Apocalypse d’Abraham,’ in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, Vol. II.19.1 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter), 137–51. Schäfer, P. 1991

Der Bar Kokhba-Aufstand. Studien zum zweiten jüdischen Krieg gegen Rom (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum, 1; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]).

van Henten, J.W. 1989 ‘Das jüdische Selbstverständnis in den älteren Märtyrien,’ in J.W. van Henten in collaboration with B.A.G.M. Dehandschutter (eds.), Die Entstehung der jüdischen Märtyrologie (Studia Postbiblica, 38; Leiden: Brill), 127–61. van Henten, J.W. 2002 ‘Die Märtyrer als Helden des Volkes,’ in H. Lichtenberger and G.S. Oegema (eds.), Jüdische Schriften in ihrem antik-jüdischen und urchristlichen Kontext (Studien zu den Jüdischen Schriften aus hellenistischrömischer Zeit, 1; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus), 102–33.

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van Henten, J.W. (ed.) 1989 Die Entstehung der jüdische Martyrologie (Studia Postbiblica, 38; Leiden: Brill). Vanderkam, J.C. 2003 ‘The Demons in the Book of Jubilees,’ in A. Lange, H. Lichtenberger and K.D.F. Römheld (eds.), Die Dämonen. Demons. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt/The Demonology of Israelite-Jewish and Early Christian Literature in Context of Their Environment (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 339–64. Vermes, G. 1973 Scripure and Tradition in Judaism. Haggadic Studies (2nd edition, Studia Postbiblica, 4; Leiden: Brill). Welzer, H. 2004 ‘Gedächtnis und Erinnerung,’ in F. Jaeger and J. Rüsen (eds.), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften. Themen und Tendenzen (Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler), 155–74. Wintermute, O.S. 1985 ‘Jubilees (Second Century B.C.). A New Translation and Introduction,’ in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2 (Garden City/New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.), 35–142.

ABRAHAM IN THE PATRIARCHAL TEXTS OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS AND THE RECEPTION OF THIS TRADITION IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH KLAUS BALTZER Literary criticism and the separation of sources belong to the fundamental experience of my studies. It was in my third semester in Tübingen in 1949 that I was introduced by Karl Elliger into the mysteries of these studies.1 We learned to read and understand the texts carefully. In addition we had to learn by heart the various sigla for the sources. The utility of this for an understanding of the texts was not, in the process, absolutely clear. Here Otto Eissfeldt’s Hexateuch Synopsis (1922)2 was a help because there continuous texts became recognizable, even if the certainty of their assignment was not always clarified. Genre and tradition history as it was developed by Gerhard von Rad3 and Martin Noth4 gave me much more insight into the See for example: K. Elliger, Die Einheit des Tritojesaia: Jesaia 56–66 (BWANT, 45; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1928), and K. Elliger: Deuterojesaja in seinem Verhältnis zu Tritojesaja (BWANT, 63; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1933). 2 Hexateuch-Synopse: Die Erzählung der 5 Bücher Mose und des Buches Josua mit den Anfängen des Richterbuches; in ihre 4 Quellen zerlegt und in deutscher Übersetzung dargeboten samt einer in Einleitung und Anmerkungen gegebenen Begründung (Leipzig: Hinrichs). 3 See G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (10th edition, München: Kaiser, 1992), and also G. von Rad, Das Opfer des Abraham: Mit Texten von Luther, Kierkegaard, Kolakowski und Bildern von Rembrandt (2nd edition; München: Kaiser, 1976). 1

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texts. The questions connected with them are not ‘finished and done with’ even today. Above all we have to work on our methodological/ explanatory models and on the connection with the ‘production of texts’ in the world to which the biblical tradition belongs. I have tried to do this by taking as an example the ‘literary criticism’ of the book of Isaiah.5 I believe that in place of a ‘linear’ literary criticism (‘half the verse is original, the other half is a secondary addition’) the ‘ancient combination technique’ of literary units must receive more attention. That requires inter-disciplinary co-operation and the examination of approaches on the basis of individual examples in tradition history. My aim in the following study is to apply this to the theme of Abraham. In structure, the book of Isaiah consists of three parts: (traditionally) Proto-Isaiah, chaps. 1-39; Deutero-Isaiah, chaps. 4055; and Trito-Isaiah, chaps. 56-66. I believe that the ancient introductions to the three parts have essentially been preserved: 1. Isaiah 6, the call and installation of the prophet Isaiah in the temple in Jerusalem. 2. The introduction to Deutero-Isaiah survives in Isa. 2 v.2: ‘It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of YHWH shall be established’; v.3: ‘and many people shall come and say: Come let us go up to the mountain of YHWH.’ That is related to Jerusalem in Isa. 40.9: ‘Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem!’) 3. Isaiah 1 functions as the introduction to the whole book, introducing it in a historical vision or overview of history across time: v.1 ‘The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz (‫ )חזון ישעיהו בן־אמוץ‬which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem …’ The structure as a whole M. Noth, Geschichte Israels (1st edition; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1950). Engl. Edition History of Israel (2nd revised edition; London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd , 1972). 5 Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Boston 2008. In press: Harvard Theological Review 103.3 (2010). 4

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is comparable to the book of Daniel and its vision of the four kingdoms. Trito-Isaiah then speaks of the 4th kingdom—the future has already begun. That brings us to our subject, Abraham and Jerusalem. These two keywords appear in all three parts of the book of Isaiah, and in substance in Genesis as well. But this already raises the question about the genre and function of the texts in Genesis where the subject is Jerusalem.6 Now here the same can be said about Jerusalem as is said about Athens in Homer’s Iliad. The name of Athens does not originally occur here. It was later incorporated in the list of ships lying off Troy. People knew this in the ancient world. The text (Iliad II 557-558) runs as follows: ‘And Aias led from Salamis twelve ships, and stationed them where the battalions of the Athenians stood.’

Even at that time there was a literary-critical dispute with political significance. Aristotle writes in his Rhetoric I 15, 13 1375b: ‘Witnesses are of two kinds, ancient and recent, of the latter some share the risk of the trial, others are outside it. By ancient I mean the poets and men of repute whose judgments are known to all; for instance, the Athenians, in the matter of Salamis, appealed to Homer as a witness …’

Strabo (IX, 1, 10 p. 394) discusses whether the interpolation in Homer’s Iliad was made by Peisistratos or Solon for political reasons. What was in question was the dispute about the possession of Salamis and Megara. Plutarch (Solon X 1) and Diogenes Laertius (I 48) pursue the discussion further.7

6 See here, K. Baltzer, ‘Jerusalem in den Erzväter-Geschichten des Genesis? Traditionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu Gen. 14 und 22,’ in Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte. FS Rolf Rendtorff zum 65. Geburtstag (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), pp. 3–12. 7 I am indebted to Kai Brodersen for making these texts available to me. Together with Stefan Ark Nitsche and Helmut Utzschneider, he was already involved in the original version of this article 20 years ago.

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There are two texts in Genesis which, taken together, provide an allusion to Jerusalem. These are narratives which, comparable to that concerning Athens, offer the solution of a politicalsocial problem. They are aetiologies. What they have in common is also that the cities of Athens and Jerusalem are both claiming a position of supremacy which they had hitherto not possessed. The two allusions to Jerusalem in Genesis are analogous, that is, they are not part of the older Abraham material but reveal the growing significance of Jerusalem since the time of David. Let us begin with Genesis 22, the Aqeda, the sacrifice of Isaac. There verse 14 ends (according to the MT): ‘And Abraham called the name of the place ‘YHWH sees’ (jir’e or is seen jira’e). In this way Abraham is connected with Jeru-Salem. It is interesting that in Deutero-Isaiah chaps. 54-55 Zion/Jerusalem is no longer named. But ‘the woman’ is given the charge ‘enlarge the place’ (of your tent Isaiah 54.2). As ‘place’ (topos τόπος‒Heb. maqom ‫ )מקום‬this term is the codeword for Jerusalem (cf. Deut. 12:5; 14:23–25; 1 Kings 8:29; Ezra 9:8–9). The second text is Gen. 14:18-20. In this text Melchizedek, the king of ‘Salem’, blesses Abraham. Thus the two components of the name are combined, ‘Jeru-Salem’. The aetiological character of the texts is interesting. Genesis 22 provides the reason for the abolition of child sacrifice, and Genesis 14 explains the payment of the tithe to the ‘king of Salem’. Both become acute when David becomes king of Israel and Jerusalem is his capital city. It is David`s historical achievement that in spite of various tensions he integrated ‘the people of the country’ (am haarez), represented by Abraham (and Sarah), into the structure of the kingdom and its capital. Those who belonged to am haarez were originally the ‘free peasant farmers.’ They were organized according to clans and tribes. It was an ‘order of elders.’ In this way it had points in common with the urban order. The fact that these people declined in the wake of the economic and political development in their class is comparable with the Greek development. am haarez became a term of abuse for ‘the stupid’ (the peasant farmers), just as in Greece, similarly, the idiotes became ‘idiots.’

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The tension between town and country increased in the Persian period.8 This does not mean that the stories about Athens and the Athenians as well as about Abraham and Jerusalem have their origin only in the Persian period. With the help of the traditional texts (´myths`) one can understand better the present time and communicate. What becomes of the Abraham tradition in the book of Isaiah? The name ‘Abraham’ occurs in all three parts of the book, in Isa. 29:22; 41:8; 51:2; 63:16— and here again the transformations in the tradition are astonishing. I. PROTO-ISAIAH Isa. 29:22: ‘Therefore says the Lord who redeemed Abraham concerning The house of Jacob. Now Jacob shall no more be ashamed …’ (‫לכן יעקב כה־אמר יהוה אל־בית יעקב אשר פדה את־אברהם‬ ‫)לא־עתה יבוש‬.

This is an ‘oracle of salvation’ which, as the name Jacob indicates, rests on the Abraham tradition in a context in which the people are taken to task extremely critically—the ruling class especially: ‘For now there is an end to the tyrant and the driveller’ (only two verses previously). It would be useful to look at the texts in the first part of the book of Isaiah which are critical of the king, and to see how far they maintain the point of view of the am haarez. The conceptual context of the text is ‘the God of the Fathers’9, the line running from Abraham as progenitor by way of Jacob to ‘the God of Israel’ (v.23). Sociologically speaking, this is a clan structure, with ties between blood relations and a political order based on the rule of 8 I believe that we ought again to take up the question about the amphictyonies as relatively open organizational forms in this Mediterranean area. The question is not ‘finally settled,’ in the legacy of Martin Noth. See M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (BWANT, 52; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1930) and also K. Tausend, Amphitkyonie und Symmachie: Formen zwischenstaatlicher Beziehungen im archaischen Griechenland (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1992). 9 A. Alt, Der Gott der Väter: ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der israelitischen Religion (BWANT, 48; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1929).

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elders in difference to kingship. This applies equally to the rural countryside and to the town or city,insofar as this structure is compatible. The text makes it clear that the promise to Abraham refers to the people of Jerusalem, not just to the king. II. DEUTERO-ISAIAH (ISA. 40–55) Isa. 41.8: ‘But you, Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend.’ Isa. 41.8 [Deutero-Isaiah] carries this line of thought further. Israel collectively is ‘servant’ (‫)עבד‬. Its election is founded on the call of Abraham (‘my friend’ ‫ )אהבי‬from ‘the ends of the earth.’ The call of Abraham [Abram] and God’s covenant are the foundation of the relationship (Gen. 15): v.6 ‘Because he put his trust in YHWH, he reckoned it to him as righteousness.’ In Deutero-Isaiah this call of Israel/Jacob is parallel to the call and installation of the ‘Servant of God’ (sing.) in the prophetic Moses tradition. But they are also fundamentally compatible. Isa. 51:2: ‘Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you.’ It is striking that Abraham and Sarah should be named together. But the mention of the progenitrix fits in well with the Persian era. In Neh. 9–10, the document of the new constitution of Judah and Jerusalem after the Exile, the women are explicitly mentioned: ‘The rest of the people … their wives, their sons, their daughters … join with their brethren, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath …’ [thus the RSV]. This means that the women too have legal standing. In Isa 51:3 ‘Zion’ is named. In DeuteroIsaiah Jerusalem is the goal of pilgrimage (cf. especially chap. 55). In that light, the question is whether ‘Look to Abraham and Sarah’ is not meant literally: were there pictures or sculptures of Abraham and Sarah as a medium for communicating the tradition to the pilgrims? (travelling to Jerusalem). In many temples in the ancient world there were ‘founding figures’ of this kind—particularly also depicting couples, man and wife. The development from Proto-Isaiah to Deutero-Isaiah can be observed immediately in the beginning chapter, Isa 40, especially in v.9: ‘You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain.

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You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout…’ Isa 40:9 (New International Version)

Two female heralds of good tidings are mentioned in the text: Zion and Jerusalem. Zion is originally the place of the temple and the palace of the king. Proto-Isaiah reflects the political and religious importance of Zion. Jerusalem is the city as a whole. There is a classic difficulty of translation in Isa. 52:1 (cf. Isa. 48:2): ‘ir haqqodesh (‫) ִעיר ַהקּ ֶֺדשׁ‬. Should it be translated with: ‘the city of the sanctuary’ or with ‘the holy city’? Deutero-Isaiah opts for the second possibility, as does TritoIsaiah (cf. Zech. 14.20‒21). III. ‘TRITO-ISAIAH’ (ISAIAH 1 AND 56‒66) Isa. 63:16: ‘For thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; thou, YHWH, art our Father, our Redeemer-from-of-old is thy name’ (cf. Zurich Bible of 2007). The context is a ‘prayer of lament and intercession’: Isa. 63:15: ‘look down from heaven and see from thy holy and glorious habitation.’ This is the most astonishing development of the Abraham tradition! No longer Abraham but YHWH is the Father! ‘Trito-Isaiah’ has generally been treated as if it were an appendix following on Proto-Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah. But as it is the framework for the whole book, we should study these texts carefully. Theologically they go beyond national and other limitations. Foreigners can even become Levitical priests (Isa. 66:21)! In this context also belongs the courage to go beyond blood relationships in finding our identity. Terminologically, this is the development from ‘brother’ (‫ )אח‬to ‘neighbour’ (‫)רעה‬, cf. Lev. 19:18: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ This means that ‘strangers’ can also be included in the community. In their understanding of God, Christians see the line that leads from this point in the book of Isaiah to the Lord`s Prayer; for

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after all it is by no means a matter of course that we are permitted to address God as Father. It is astonishing how coherent the conceptual continuity of the book of Isaiah proves to be, in spite of all the diversity of the individual elements.10 BIBLIOGRAPHY Albright, W. F. 1961 ‘Abraham the Hebrew. A New Archaeological Interpretation,’ BASOR 163, 36‒54. Alt, A. 1929

Baltzer, K. 1990

Baltzer, K. 2010 Ego, B. 1996

Der Gott der Väter: ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der israelitischen Religion (BWANT, 48; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). ‘Jerusalem in den Erzväter-Geschichten des Genesis? Traditionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu Gen. 14 und 22,’ in Stegemann (eds.), Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte. FS Rolf Rendtorff zum 65. Geburtstag (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag), 3‒12. ‘The Book of Isaiah,’ Harvard Theological Review 103.3 261-70. ‘Abraham als Urbild der Toratreue Israels. Traditionsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zu einem Aspekt des biblischen Abrahambildes,’ in F. Avemarie and H. Lichtenberger (eds.) Bund und Tora (WUNT, 92; Tübingen: Mohr), 25‒40.

10 For their help I would like to thank Margaret Kohl and Peter Marinkovic. For further literature see Hieke, T. (2005): Art. ‘Abraham.’ In: http://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/wibilex/das-bibellexikon, ed. M. Bauks and K. Koenen. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.

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Elliger, K. 1928 Elliger, K. 1933 Eissfeldt, O. 1922

Görg, M. 1993 Granerød, G. 2010

Hieke, T. 2005

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Die Einheit des Tritojesaia: Jesaia 56‒66 (BWANT, 45; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). Deuterojesaja in seinem Verhältnis zu Tritojesaja (BWANT, 63; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). Hexateuch-Synopse: Die Erzählung der 5 Bücher Mose und des Buches Josua mit den Anfängen des Richterbuches; in ihre 4 Quellen zerlegt und in deutscher Übersetzung dargeboten samt einer in Einleitung und Anmerkungen gegebenen Begründung (Leipzig: Hinrichs). In Abrahams Schoss. Christsein ohne Neues Testament (Düsseldorf: Patmos). Abraham and Melchizedek: Scribal activity of Second Temple times in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 (BZAW, 406; Berlin: de Gruyter). Art. ‘Abraham.’ In: http://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/wibilex/das-bibellexikon, ed. M. Bauks and K. Koenen (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft).

Kratz, R. G. and Nagel, T. 2003 Abraham, unser Vater: Die gemeinsamen Wurzeln von Judentum, Christentum und Islam (Göttingen: Wallstein). Mesters, C. 1984

Abraham und Sara (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag).

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Noth, M. 1930 Noth, M. 1950

Rad, G. von 1992 Rad, G. von 1976

Tausend, K. 1992

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Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (BWANT, 52; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). Geschichte Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1st edition). Engl. Edition (1972): History of Israel (London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd. 2nd revised edition). Theologie des Alten Testaments (München: Kaiser. 10th edition). Das Opfer des Abraham: Mit Texten von Luther, Kierkegaard, Kolakowski und Bildern von Rembrandt (München: Kaiser. 2nd edition). Amphitkyonie und Symmachie: Formen zwischenstaatlicher Beziehungen im archaischen Griechenland (Stuttgart: Steiner).

ABRAHAM AND THE ‘LAW AND THE PROPHETS’ THOMAS RÖMER INTRODUCTION: THE PATRIARCHS AND THE EXODUS The Torah in its present form can be characterized as a biography of Moses1 since the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy are framed by the birth of Moses (Exodus 2) and his death (Deuteronomy 34). The Patriarchal narratives appear in this regard as a prologue of a sort to the Moses narrative,2 which includes almost all ‘legal’ material. Major themes of the Patriarchal narratives, such as land and offspring, function in this construction as preparing for the exodus and conquest account where both themes appear to be accomplished. But were the promises of land and progeny in Genesis always conceived as an introduction to the Moses- and Joshua stories? Intriguingly, the first time that Yhwh speaks to Moses about the land, which he will give to the Israelites, he does it in the following way: ‘I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites’ (Exod. 3:8). As often observed the land R. P. Knierim, ‘The Composition of the Pentateuch,’ In SBL Seminar Papers, 24 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 393–415. 2 R. W. L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament. Ouvertures to Biblical Theology. (Philadelphia: Augsburg/Fortress, 1992) considers the book of Genesis as the ‘Old Testament’ of the Torah. 1

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is introduced here to Moses as if it were totally unknown: ‘there is not a word which mentions that the patriarchs have already lived a long time in this land and that God has promised it to them and their descendants as a permanent possession. Following the terminology of the land in Genesis, those addressed here would be the ‘seed’ for which the promise holds good. But they are not spoken to as such.’3 In fact the original account of Moses’ call does not seem to know the patriarchal tradition and was apparently conceived as opening an independent Moses story.4 This means that the tradition of the Patriarchs and the Exodus tradition were linked only at a late stage. They arose as independent or even competing origin myths presenting two different pictures of Israel’s beginnings. The Patriarchal narratives in the book of Genesis focus on genealogical identity and integrate Israel’s neighbors such as the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Arabic tribes into a family system,5 whereas the Moses tradition is not interested in genealogies, but draws a picture of a hostile autochthonous population, which must be driven out of the land. The discovery of the diversity (regarding the process of transmission and ideology) concerning the patriarchal and exodus traditions in recent research is not an absolute novelty. The tradition-historical independence of the patriarchal and exodus 3 R. Rendtorff, The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 89; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990 [German original 1976]), 128. 4 There is quite an agreement that the identification of the ‘god of the fathers’ with the ‘god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ belongs to the latest redactional layers of Exod 3–4, see for instance: P. Weimar, Die Berufung des Mose: Literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse von Exodus 2,23–5,5 (OBO, 32; Freiburg CH–Göttingen: Universitätsverlag–Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), and T. Römer, ‘Exodus 3–4 und die aktuelle Pentateuchdiskussion,’ in R. Roukema (ed.), The Interpretation of Exodus. Studies in Honour of Cornelis Houtman (CBET, 44; Leuven–Paris–Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2006), 65–79. 5 F. Crüsemann, ‘Human Solidarity and Ethnic Identity: Israel's Self-Definition in the Genealogical System of Genesis,’ in M. G. Brett (ed.), Ethnicity and the Bible (BIS, 19; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 57–76.

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traditions had already been emphasized by Staerk, Galling and other scholars at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, yet the combination of these traditions was located at a very early stage at the time of the early monarchy in Israel.6 In recent discussion the question has come to be whether this link was created for the first time by the Priestly author or redactor (Römer, Schmid, Blum and others7) or whether this was due to an exilic Yahwistic author or redactor (Van Seters, Levin and others8). The question may remain open here. There is quite a wide agreement that on the literary level both traditions were not combined before the 6th century B.C.E. As for the Patriarchal narratives one has, of course, to differentiate between the Jacob and the Abraham traditions. Whereas the Jacob legend may belong to the oldest traditions preserved in the Hebrew Bible,9 the first Abraham stories originated probably during the 7th century B.C.E.10 Interestingly in the oldest stories like 6 W. Staerk, Studien zur Religions- und Sprachgeschichte des alten Testaments, I. und II. Heft (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1899) ; K. Galling, Die Erwählungstraditionen Israels (BZAW, 48. Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1928). 7 T. Römer, Israels Väter. Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition (OBO, 99; Freiburg CH– Göttingen: Universitätsverlag: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 574; K. Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story. Israel's Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible (Siphrut, 3; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010 [German original 1999]); E. Blum, ‘The Literary Connection Between the Books of Genesis and Exodus and the End of the Book of Joshua,’ in T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series, 34; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 89–106. 8 J. Van Seters, ‘The Patriarchs and the Exodus: Bridging the Gap Between Two Origin Traditions,’ in The Interpretation of Exodus 1–15 (2006); C. Levin, ‘The Yahwist and the Redactional Link Between Genesis and Exodus,’ in A Farewell to the Yahwist? (2006), 131–41. See also, somewhat differently R. G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (London–New York: T&T Clark–Continuum, 2005 [German original 2000]). 9 A. de Pury, ‘The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch,’ in A Farewell to the Yahwist? (2006), 51–72. 10 J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven– London: Yale University Press, 1975); I. Fischer, Die Erzeltern Israels. Femi-

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Gen. 12:10–20 and Genesis 16 there are allusions to the Exodus, but in a quite ironical or polemical way. The authors of these texts apparently knew the Exodus tradition, but did not really agree with its ideology. REVERSAL OF THE EXODUS IDEOLOGY IN GEN. 12:10–20 AND GENESIS 1611 Gen. 12:10–20 relates like the Joseph story a descent to Egypt because of famine. When withdrawing from Canaan Abraham acts on his own initiative. He imagines the Egyptians as eager to commit murder (12:12) thus adopting the same attitude as the narrator of the exodus story (cf. Exod. 2:15: Pharaoh seeks to kill Moses; in Exod. 5:21, the Hebrews are afraid that Pharaoh will kill them). Yet according to Gen. 12:16, Pharaoh acts generously towards Abraham, paying him a large bridal price for his wife whom he had presented as his sister. Another allusion to the exodus story presents itself in the afflictions by which Yhwh strikes Egypt (Gen. 12:11), a leitmotif of the plagues narrative. Unlike the pharaoh of the exodus story, the king of the Egyptians in Gen. 12 reacts immediately to the divine intervention; while the pharaoh of the exodus narrative is reluctant to release Israel from his service (š-l-ḥ, pi.), in Gen. 12:20 the king of Egypt sends Abram, together with his wife and belongings, back to Palestine (š-l-ḥ, pi.). Likewise, the charge to Abram in Gen. 12:19 corresponds to the one spoken to the people in the exodus narrative in Exod. 12:32. Hence it seems plausible that the episode in Gen. 12:10–20 was composed with knowledge of the exodus narrative (in which form, however?). But the roles have been changed. Contrary to the exodus narrative, Abram, representing Israel, plays a rather dubious part, while the pharaoh is endowed with positive features. The same holds true for the characters of Sarah and Hagar in Gen. 16.12 Here, Hagar is introduced in Genesis 16 as an Egyptian nistisch-theologische Studien zu Genesis 12–36 (BZAW, 222; Berlin –New York: de Gruyter, 1994); M. Köckert, ‘Die Geschichte der Abrahamüberlieferung,’ in A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume Leiden 2004 (VTS, 109; Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2006), 103-28. 11 For more details see T. Römer, ‘The Exodus in the Book of Genesis,’ Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 75 (2010), 1-20.

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slave.13 In addition to serving as a reference back to Genesis. 12, Hagar’s Egyptian nationality works to reverse the exodus tradition: Hagar, the Egyptian, is oppressed by her Hebrew mistress. The root ‫ ענה‬appearing in Gen. 16:6 is used in the following books of the Pentateuch to describe Israel’s oppression in Egypt (Exod. 1:11–12; Deut. 26:6, see also Gen. 15:13). Just as Israel flees (‫ברח‬, Exod. 14:5) from Egypt, so does Hagar from her oppressor (‫ברח‬, Gen. 16:6). It is therefore Hagar who prefigures Israel’s fate, while Sarah plays a role comparable to that of the Egyptian oppressors. Like Moses, Hagar encounters a divine messenger in the desert, mediating on both occasions a message of liberation: to Moses, a promise of liberation from Egyptian slavery; to Hagar a promise of Ishmael’s living free. The substantive ‫ עני‬appears in both instances: Exod. 3:7: ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people’; Gen. 16:11: ‘Yhwh has listened to your affliction.’ To sum up, Gen. 12:10–20 and 16 consciously operate with polemic and ironic allusions to the exodus tradition. Consequently, it seems possible to presume that by the time of their composition, the exodus tradition and the patriarchal tradition were still in a certain tension. However, there is in the Abraham narrative at least one text seeking to harmonize the patriarchal tradition with that of the exodus, wilderness and occupation of the land traditions, and even to present Abraham as summarizing the ‘Law (Moses) and the Prophets’. GENESIS 15 IN THE CONTEXT OF THE REDACTION OF THE PENTATEUCH As already mentioned, Moses is the main human figure of the Torah, the mediator par excellence between Yhwh and Israel. The main protagonists of the promulgation of the Pentateuch agreed on his central role and concluded the Torah by an epitaph that underlines Moses’ incomparability: ‘Never since has there arisen a Both stories are very closely related as shown by J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition. 13 For the Exodus and wilderness motifs in Gen 16 see also T. B. Dozeman, ‘The Wilderness and Salvation History in the Hagar Story,’ JBL 117 (1998), 23–43. 12

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prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Yhwh knew face to face. He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that Yhwh sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel’ (Deut. 34:10). This text clearly marks a break between the Torah and the following books. There may be other prophets to come, but none of them compares to Moses. This praise of Moses is somewhat counterbalanced by the portrait of Abraham in Genesis 15, a text that belongs in my view to the latest texts that were added to the Abraham narratives. THE FORMATION OF GENESIS 15 There is some consensus again in recent European research that Genesis 15 is a ‘late’ text, but opinions differ in regard to the question whether it is basically the work of one author or the result of a complex history of redactions and whether it pre-or postdates the priestly account of Yhwh’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17. Those scholars who postulate a pre-priestly origin of Genesis 1514 need to affirm that Yhwh’s prediction in v.13–16 are a late insertion since the announcement of Abraham’s death in peace presupposes the priestly account of his passing away in Gen. 25:8.15 One may argue that verses 13-16 interrupt the narrative link between v 12 (the sun is about to go down: (‫ )וַ יְ ִהי ַה ֶשּׁ ֶמשׁ ָלבוֹא‬and v. 17 (the sun has gone down: ‫)וַ יְ ִהי ַה ֶשּׁ ֶמשׁ ָבּ ָאה‬16. One may add, that v. 13–16 promise a return of the exodus generation into the land 14 See for the following arguments among others E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT, 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 379–80 and J.-L. Ska, ‘Some Groundwork on Genesis 15,’ in The Exegesis of the Pentateuch. Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions (FAT, 66; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 67–81. Note however that Blum has changed his mind and considers now Gen 15 as a post-priestly composition, see E. Blum, ‘Die literarische Verbindung von Erzvätern und Exodus. Ein Gespräch mit neueren Forschungshypothesen,’ in Abschied vom Jahwisten (2002), 119–56, 140–1. 15 One may add that the 400-years time span presupposes Exod 12:40 (P) and the mention of Ur Casdim Gen 11:28.31 (also P). 16 This may be considered as a typical case of a Wiederaufnahme, which indicates in many cases redactional activity.

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whereas in v. 18 God gives the land to Abraham’s offspring. But both arguments are not compelling: If Genesis 15 is to be considered as a text that reflect the promulgation of the Pentateuch or a Hexateuch we could understand the different conception of the possession of the land in v. 13–16 and 18 as an attempt to harmonize the different land conceptions of the Patriarchal and the Exodus traditions. Without, the verses 13–16 the mention of the birds of prey in v. 11 is a blind motif of sorts17 since those birds are probably related to the announcement of a bad or difficult omen.18 Finally without verse 13 ‘Know for certain’, Abraham’s question of v. 8 ‘how am I to know?’ would remain without response. Consequently, there is no need to extract v. 13–16 from the original account, which would then appear as a post-priestly composition. Some authors also argue that v. 2–6 and 7–18* are doublets and that only one of the divine speeches to Abraham belongs to the original text.19 There is however no contradiction between 15:5 (Abraham contemplates [during the night?] the stars in the heaven) and 15:12 (where the sun is about to go down) if one considers that the whole encounter between Yhwh and Abraham takes place in the context of a vision (v. 1).20 More generally, it is difficult to 17 In a way it is logical that J. C. Gertz, ‘Abraham, Mose und der Exodus. Beobachtungen zur Redaktionsgeschichte von Genesis 15,’ in J. C. Gertz, et al. (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten. Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW, 315;. ed. Berlin–New York: de Gruyter, 2002), 63-81 eliminates v. 11 together with v. 13–16 from the original text. But this is circular reasoning. 18 See Virgil, Aeneid, 3, 225–230. There is also a Hittite text that mentions a ritual of cutting a dog into two pieces when seeing a bird of bad omen: O. Masson, ‘A propos d’un rituel hittite pour la lustration d’une armée: le rite de purification par le passage entre les deux parties de la victime,’ RHR 137 (1950), 5–25. 19 According to C. Levin, ‘Jahwe und Abraham im Dialog: Genesis 15,’ in M. Witte (ed.), Gott und Mensch im Dialog. Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 80. Geburtstag (BZAW, 345; Berlin–New York: de Gruyter, 2004), 237–57, only 15:1,3* and 4 belong to the original text, whereas L. Schmidt, ‘Genesis xv,’ VT 56 ((2006), 251–67 reconstructs the oldest account in 15:7– 11.17–18. Both authors agree that the first edition of Gen 15 is later than P. 20 S. B. Noegel, ‘A Crux and a Taunt: Night-Time then Sunset in Genesis 15,’ in P. R. Davies and D. J. A. Clines (eds.), The World of Genesis.

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consider v. 1–6 and 7–19 as doublets. Rendtorff has convincingly shown how both parts are related: the question of the descendant leads to the affirmation of an uncountable offspring, and for that offspring God announces the gift of the land (see the play on the root y-r-š).21 The list of the nations in v. 19–21 is very often characterized as an addition. It is true that there is no clear grammatical link between these verses and the foregoing gift of the land. However, the indicators of the accusative in these verses take up the ‫את הארץ‬ from v. 18 so that the whole list appears as apposition to the land. If the list were the addition of a late glossator one wonders why he composed an enumeration of ten names, whereas all others of these listings contain six or seven members. Therefore I see no convincing reason to extract Gen. 15:19–21 from the original account. With the exception of some glosses in verses 2-3,22 Genesis 15 should be understood as the work of one author writing in the Persian era, at a time, when the Torah was about to be officially published. The late date of Gen. 15 is also confirmed by the fact that this chapter clearly presupposes Genesis 14,23 which is almost

Persons, Places, Perspectives (JSOTSup, 257; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 128–35. 21 R. Rendtorff, ‘Genesis 15 im Rahmen der theologischen Bearbeitung der Vätergeschichten,’ in R. Albertz et al. (eds.), Werden und Wirken des Alten Testaments (FS C. Westermann) (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980), 74–81. 22 There is much discussion about these verses. In my view the most elegant solution is the one suggested by H. Seebass, Genesis II. Vätergeschichte I (11,27–22,24) (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1997), 69: V. 2a and 3b represent the original text: ‘Abram said, ‚My Lord Yhwh, what will you give me, for I will pass childless and so somebody born in my house is to be my heir.’’’ To this a glossator added the identification of Eliezer in v. 2b and 3s was added in order to smooth the transition after the insert of v. 2b. 23 This is rightly observed by J. Gertz, ‘Abraham, Mose und der Exodus’. In order to be able to postulate that the first edition of Gen 15 is older than Gen 14, Gertz is forced to eliminate verse 1, which clearly alludes to Gen 14. This is a somewhat circular argumentation.

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unanimously considered as a late text.24 The theme of the shield and the booty in 15:1 only makes sense if Genesis 14 is known. Therefore the best hypothesis is to consider Genesis 15 as a whole as the latest text that has been inserted into the Abraham narrative in order to present Israel’s first patriarch as almost as important as Moses. GENESIS 15 AS SUMMARY OF THE TORAH Genesis 15 resembles in some respects Joshua 24, which provides at the end of the narrative (which encompasses the time of the patriarchs to the conquest of the land) a final summary of the Hexateuch.25 Genesis 15, at the beginning of Israel’s history offers equally a ‘table of contents’ of the Penta- or even Hextaeuch.26 In v. 7, God introduces himself to Abram as ‘Yhwh who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans’. This opening is reminiscent of the beginning of the Decalogue:27 ‘I am Yhwh …, who brought you out of the land of Egypt’ (Exod. 20:2). Accordingly, Yhwh introduces himself to Abraham as an ‘exodical’ God early on. On the other hand, this presentation returns to the beginning of the Abraham cycle (11:27–12:5) by modifying it. According to this opening, it is Abram’s father Terah who takes the initiative to leave Ur with his family in order to settle down in Harran. According to 12:1–4, Abram receives the divine call in Harran (see 11:31). Gen. 15:7 antedates the relation between Abraham and Yhwh into its very beginnings in Ur. In this regard Gen. 15:7 parallels Josh. 24:3: ‘Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River,’ and Neh. 9:7: ‘You are Yhwh, the God who chose AbSee for instance J. A. Emerton, ‘Some False Clues in the Study of Genesis xiv,’ VT 21 (1971), 24–47; J. Van Seters, Abraham, 305; V. Glissmann, ‘Genesis 14: A Diaspora Novella?’ JSOT 34 (2009), 34–45. 25 See for more details T. Römer, ‘Das doppelte Ende des Josuabuches: einige Anmerkungen zur aktuellen Diskussion um ‚deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk‛ und ‚Hexateuch‛,’ ZAW 118 (2006), 523– 48. 26 T. Römer, ‘Gen 15 und Gen 17. Beobachtungen und Anfragen zu einem Dogma der ‚neueren‛ und ‚neuesten‛ Pentateuchkritik,’ DBAT 26 (1990), 32–47. 27 Further allusions to the Decalogue can be found in the ‘fourth generation’ and the ‘iniquity’ [of the Amorite], v. 16. 24

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ram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans’. It is possible that both texts presuppose a negative tradition about Abraham’s father who remains in Babylonia.28 The author of Gen. 15:7 wants to make Israel’s history to start with Abraham, not with his father. In the second part of the text, Abraham receives knowledge about exodus and return. Just like Moses who is informed of God’s future actions during his call (Exod. 3:17–22), Abram obtains here a summary of the exodus story. Contrarily to Gen. 12:10–20 and Genesis 16 the evocation of the Exodus does not serve polemical purposes, it is presented to Abraham as information about the events to come before the promise of the land can be realized. The double chronological indication in v. 13 (enslavement for 400 years) and v. 16 (return at the fourth generation) has often puzzled commentators. The fourth generation in v. 16 is certainly an interpretation of the Decalogue according to which Yhwh punishes the faults of the fathers up to the fourth generation (Exod. 20:5; Deut. 5:9; see also Exod. 34:7). The 400 years recall the priestly indication of 430 years in Exod. 12:40. The reduction to 400 years in Genesis 15 may be explained as a midrashic strategy. According to Genesis 21 (P) Abraham is 100 years old when Isaac, the next generation, is born, so that 400 may well denote 4 hundred-years generations.29 There are also allusions to the Sinai theophany, like the smoke and the fire in v. 17 (see Exod. 19:1830). The conclusion of the covenant with Abram recorded at the end of the passage does not establish any specific berît with the patriarch (as this is the case in Genesis 17), since (Gen. 15:18 excepted) the expression ‫כרת ברית‬ is exclusively used in respect of the Horeb/Sinai covenant. That is 28 This tradition appears explicitly in the 2 nd century BCE book of the Jubilees (chapter 12) where Abraham destroys the idols of his father. 29 Another explanation would be the following. The 400 years refer to the length of the sojourn in Egypt. The four generations comprise the generation involved in the Exodus, which starts with the birth of Moses. Since Moses is 120 years old when he dies, his life comprises according to Numbers 14 (a generation = 40 years) three generations, and the following one enters the land. 30 The mention of the furnace may also allude to Isa. 31.9: ‘oracle of Yhwh, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem’. In that case the author, presupposing that Abram is still in Salem (according to Gen 14) inserts a discrete allusion to Jerusalem.

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to say, Genesis 15 anticipates the Sinaitic covenant. Finally, the promise of a land, which reaches from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, may allude to such descriptions in Deuteronomy (11:24) and Joshua (1:4) and elsewhere in the Bible. In connection with Isa. 27:12 and 2 Kgs. 24:7, Gen. 15:18 may be understood as a way to make the whole Persian province of Transeuphratene the territory where Jews can live: that means there is no difference between living in Yehud, Samaria or the Diaspora: the whole Persian empire can be the homeland for Abraham’s offspring. Genesis 15 not only summarizes the main themes of the Penta- or Hexateuch, it also presents Abraham as a forerunner of Moses, but also as Israel’s ‘first prophet’ and ‘first king’. ABRAHAM, THE FIRST KING Genesis 15 opens by presenting Abraham as a royal figure. Yhwh promises him important booty and presents himself as Abram’s shield. The root m-g-n can be found in the whole Pentateuch only here, in Gen. 14:20 and in Deut. 33:29, a verse that contains Moses’ last words before his death. Yhwh’s promise to Abram is fulfilled in his intervention for a ‘royal’ Israel: ‘Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by Yhwh, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall submit themselves to you; and you shall tread upon their high places.’ Abram’s royal figure is reinforced by the divine exhortation: ‘do not be afraid’, which parallels Assyrian and Babylonian Heilsorakel given to the king. It has often been observed that Abraham is also presented as an anti-Ahab. The emphasis on his faith (v. 6) is the opposite of king Ahaz, whom the prophet Isaiah accuses of lacking faith (Isa. 7:9). But he is also the ‘first David’.31 Yhwh’s unconditional promise to Abraham anticipates his conditional promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:32

B. Gosse, ‘Abraham and David,’ JSOT 34 (2009), 25–31. Besides 2 Sam 6.11, Gen 15 and 2 Sam 7 are the only biblical texts that speak about a son coming out of his father’s entrails. 31 32

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Gen. 15:4

The one who shall come forth out of your entrails (‫ )יֵ ֵצא ֲא ֶשׁר ִמ ֵמּ ֶעיָך‬shall be your heir

2 Sam. 7:12

I will set up your seed after you, that shall come forth out of your entrails (‫)א ֶשׁר יֵ ֵצא ִמ ֵמּ ֶעיָך‬ ֲ

The transfer of royal ideology to Abraham, which occurs also in Gen. 12:1-433 and in Genesis 1734, probably reflects a democratization of a sort of royal ideology. The Torah agrees with the idea that Israel does not need a king since it has Moses, but it also has Abraham. ABRAHAM, THE FIRST PROPHET In Deuteronomy 18 Moses seems to inaugurate the prophetic office in Israel, since the text states that Yhwh will raise from henceforth other prophets like Moses (18:15).35 In Genesis 20, which according to Blum and others is the latest of the three versions of the narrative of the Patriarch presenting his wife as his sister,36 Abraham is called a prophet and intercedes for Abimelech (v. 7 and 17), so that God may heal him from his illness (sterility or impotence?). Thus, in the context of the Torah, Genesis 20 makes Abraham the first prophet and not Moses. Whereas Moses intercedes in Exodus 32 and Numbers 14 for his own people, Abraham prays in Genesis 20 for a foreign king, who symbolizes a Godfearing pagan. The idea that Abraham and not Moses is Israel’s first prophet occurs also in Genesis 15. The story opens indeed with a prophetic formula: ‫ל־א ְב ָרם‬ ַ ‫‘ ָהיָ ה ְד ַבר־יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬Yhwh’s word came to Abram.’ This WortereigJ.-L. Ska, ‘The Call of Abraham and Israel’s Birth-certificate (Gen 12:1-4a),’ in The Exegesis of the Pentateuch (FAT, 66; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 46–66, 62–3. 34 In Gen 17 Abram receives a new name like a king when he is enthroned. He also becomes the ‘father’ of all coming kings (v. 19). 35 C. Nihan, ‘‚Un prophète comme Moïse‛ (Deutéronome 18,15): Genèse et relectures d’une construction deutéronomiste,’ in T. Römer (ed.), La construction de la figure de Moïse–The Construction of the Figure of Moses (Transeuphratène Suppl., 13; Paris: Gabalda, 2007), 43–88. 36 E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT, 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 405–11; A. Leveen, ‘Reading the Seams,’ JSOT 29 (2005), 259–87. 33

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nisformel parallels Abraham with the prophets, especially Ezekiel (Ez. 1:3) and Jeremiah, where this formula occurs constantly. The prophetic context is underlined by the fact that the divine word is accompanied by a vision (see for instance Jeremiah 1). The fact that Yhwh informs Abram about his plans can also be understood from the background of Amos: ‘Certainly the Lord Yhwh does nothing without first revealing his plan to his servants the prophets’ (Amos 3:7; Gen. 18:17 probably also alludes to this text). Genesis 15 and 20 (perhaps also 18:17) construct, contrary to Deuteronomy 18, Abraham as the first of Yhwh’s prophets. In reaction to the attempt to present Abraham as the first prophet, some passages in the Pentateuch try to show that Moses is, in contrast to the assertion of Deuteronomy 18, more than a prophet (see for instance Exod. 7:1 and Numb. 12:6–8). Finally Moses appears as an incomparable mediator in the epitaph of Deut. 34:10– 12, which also distinguishes him from all the other prophets: ‘Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Yhwh knew face to face …’ Therefore, in the context of the Torah, Moses is no longer Israel’s first prophet, but more than a prophet, Israel’s incomparable mediator. Some passages in Genesis 15 however, try to show that Abraham comes very close to Moses in presenting him as his direct predecessor. ABRAHAM, THE ‘FIRST MOSES’ We have already underlined how the author of Genesis 15 links exodus events with Abraham. Moreover he modifies the priestly idea that the divine name Yhwh was only revealed to Moses, as stated in Exod. 6.3: ‘I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name Yhwh I did not make myself known to them’. In Genesis 15, however, God addresses himself to Abram with his proper name. ‘I am Yhwh, who brought you out form Ur of the Chaldeans’ (v. 7). Abraham here comes to know before Moses the real identity of Israel’s god. In a way he even surpasses Moses through his faith in Yhwh. Although Moses is, at the Pentateuch’s closure, presented as incomparable, the Torah contains a story where Moses, together with Aaron is lacking faith: ‘Yhwh said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not have faith in ֶ ֹ ‫)ל‬, to show my holiness before the eyes of the me (‫א־ה ֱא ַמנְ ֶתּם ִבּי‬

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Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land’ (Numb. 20:12): Abraham, in 15:6 however, puts his faith constantly in Yhwh (‫ ) ַבּיהוָ ה וְ ֶה ֱא ִמן‬and so becomes the ‘father of all believers’. Even if Genesis 15 wants to reconcile the Patriarchal and Exodus traditions, there seems also some competition between Abraham and Moses. The last verses of Genesis 15 seem to undertake a very discrete reinterpretation of the traditional ‘list of the peoples’. This list starts in the ‘classical form’ (six or seven peoples37) with Moses call (Exod. 3:8 and 17) and runs until the book of Kings.38 It is apparently a deuteronomistic construction and appears in a militaristic context, describing the nations that must be expelled from the land to be conquered. In Gen. 15:19–21 the traditional names are preceded by three unexpected ones, which seem to alter the meaning of the whole list.39 The Kenites are related in other biblical texts to Moses (see Judg. 1:16) and are seen in a positive way (1 Sam. 15:16: they separate from the Amalekites; Judg.17-21: Sisera, Israel’s enemy is killed by a Kenite woman). The Kenizzites also have a positive connotation. Kaleb the only one who is willing, together with Joshua, to accomplish the divine will is called a Kenizzite (Numb. 32:12; Josh. 14:6 and 14). Caleb represents a clan that was integrated into Judah. If there is a link to Kenaz in Genesis 36, a list of Edomites, then the Kenizzites would stand for Judaic (Jewish?) and Edomite reconciliation. The Kadmonites seem to have been invented by the author of Genesis 15. The term is apparently related to qedem (East) and may allude to Genesis 25 where Keturah bears sons to Abraham, whom ֶ ‫)ק ְד ָמה ֶא‬ ֵ In he sends to the ‘east, to the land of the east’ (‫ל־ארץ ֶק ֶדם‬

Twice only five names occur. T. Ishida, ‘The Structure and Historical Implications of the Lists of Pre-Israelite Nations,’ Biblica 60 (1979), 461–90. 39 The Massoretic text has ten names whereas LXX mention also the Hivites. The original texts may have contained their name. A later redactor probably added the Rephaim because of their association with the Perizzites, and dropped the Hivites in order to maintain the number ten. 37 38

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this case, the Kadmonites would refer to nations issued from Abraham. That means that the three names which the author of Genesis 15 placed at the beginning of his list, modify the hostile connotation of the traditional deuteronomistic list. By starting the description of the inhabitants of the promised land with names that evoke (familiar or friendly) links with Abraham and Moses, the idea that the land must be inherited by expelling other people is criticized. The land is given to Abraham and his offspring and to all those who live in it. CONCLUSION As the latest text of the Abraham narrative, Genesis 15 tries to achieve reconciliation between the patriarchal and the exodus traditions. But its author also wants to show the importance of Abraham for nascent Judaism. According to Genesis 15 Israel’s first and ‘ecumenical’ ancestor is as important as Moses, and in some respects surpasses him: he shows that Israel does not need any more kings since the Davidic promises are democratized in Abraham. Abraham is also the first prophet, and not Moses. Like Moses, Abraham is informed about the identity of Israel’s God, but contrary to Moses, the land that is promised to him does not need to be conquered by killing the inhabitants. Abraham’s faith surpasses Moses’, and with Gen 15,6 starts Abraham’s brilliant career for later Christianity and Islam.

MEMORIES OF RETURN AND THE HISTORICITY OF THE ‘POST-EXILIC’ PERIOD THOMAS L. THOMPSON CULTURAL MEMORY AND INTERTEXTUAL DISCOURSE Some fifteen years ago, in an article dealing with the patriarchal narratives,1 John Strange argued for dating the Joseph narrative to a date sometime after the murder of Gedaliya, which he saw not only as an historical event but also, in accord with both Kings and Jeremiah, as having occasioned the flight of a number of Judeans to Egypt (2 Kings 25:25–26; Jer. 41–43). According to his argument, this is the most fitting and appropriate context for the composition of the Joseph story, understanding it as a tract, which sought to encourage and strengthen the identity of Jews living in Egyptian exile. He argued further not only for a late ‘post-exilic’ dating of the Joseph story as a whole, but for a ‘post-exilic’ dating for the traditions of Jacob’s flight to Harran as well, insofar as this narrative similarly reflects the existence of continued communication between Israelite exiles in this North Mesopotamian city and the citizens of Samarina. The chain of wandering stories, moreover, in which Abraham is made into the great ancestor for a ‘post-exilic’,

J. Strange, ‘Patriarkernes Geografi,’ in Tro og historie: Festskrift til Niels Hyldahl I anledning af 65 års fødselsdagen den 30. december 1995 (Forum for bibelsk eksegese,7 Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1996), 215-23; idem, ‘Geography and Tradition in the Patriarchal Narratives,’ SJOT 11(1997), 210-22. 1

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ideological Israel,2 was seen to reflect just such relationships between exiles in Babylon and Judeans in Palestine. For reasons similar to those argued in regard to the Joseph stories, and to those I, myself, had used with regard to themes of exile and return implicit in both the Pentateuch and in the so-called ‘Deuteronomistic History,’3 Strange would give the developed forms of the Jacob and Abraham traditions dates which were no earlier than the beginning of exile for Israelites and Judeans respectively. The method and perspective of Strange’s argument, exploring as it does possible allusions to the past within the patriarchal narratives, is very similar to that developed and made explicit in recent discussions about Jan Assmann’s analysis of cultural memory reflected in biblical traditions.4 It, however, functions without the rhetorical benefits of cultural memory’s historiographic ambivalence and not least without the history-miming emphasis on creating and sustaining national identity.5 The analysis, therefore, begs the question of whether, for instance, the specific and historically related judgment about the Joseph story’s encouragement to Egyptian exiles is influenced rather by literary functions borne by implicit allusions to literary narratives of flight such as we find in 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 41–43, 2 For a fuller discussion of the concept of ‘ideological Israel”, see P. R. Davies, In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (Sheffield: SAP, 1992); and now, recently and much more extensively: P. R. Davies, The Origins of Biblical Israel: Library of Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament Studies, 485 (New York/ London: T&T Clark, 2007). 3 Th. L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People from the Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1992/ 2002), 339‒51. 4 J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (München: Bech, 1999); idem, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006); see also P. R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History, Ancient and Modern (Louisville/ London: Westminster/ John Knox, 2008); idem, ‘Biblical History and Cultural Memory,’ The Bible and Interpretation: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/memory.shtml (April 14, 2009), 1‒5. 5 Davies, Memories, 149. This same function—without using the trope of ‘cultural memory’—is likewise essential to John Van Seters ‘understanding of biblical historiography. J. Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).

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rather than by actual context-giving events of antiquity, whose memories influenced the composition of Genesis’ stories as has been assumed. Similarly, does the story of Jacob’s flight allude to identity-supporting associations among the people of Samerina with ‘Israelites’ in exile in Harran or, rather, to a myth-creating literary discourse, reflected in such texts as 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11 and 1 Chronicles 5:26, in which the ‘Habor on the river of Gozan’ to which Samaria’s people are deported, bears mythic allusions to the Hubur as ‘the river of death’ (Sumerian: i7-kur-ra: ‘river of the underworld’ and i7-lu2-ku2-ku2: ‘man devouring river’) and which, in the Enuma Elish, is closely linked with the figure of Tiamat.6 This discourse also includes such mythic overtones as we find in Psalm 72:8, where ‘the river’ or ‘river of death’; that is, the Euphrates, is linked to ‘the ends of the earth,’ marking a messianic dominion to be recaptured, lost as it had been in the garden story (Gen. 2:15; 3:23–24).7 Similarly, 2 Esdras 13:39–45 has the Israelite deportees, with divine help, find refuge in the land of Arzareth, beyond the river of death, ‘where no human being had ever lived’ and from where they will return when ‘the Most High once again stops the channels of the river of death’ (2 Esd. 13:47). In Revelation 9:14, the river forms the boundary between the living and the dead.8 Such observations encourage me to ask whether stories, like those in Genesis about Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, have been used to identify and reconstruct an historical context for these narratives as we have formerly argued,9 or do the implied references rather reK. van den Toorn, ‘Euphrates,’ in K. van den Toorn, B. Becking and P. W. van der Horst (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 594‒99; also H. D. Galter, ‘Hubur,’ in DDD, 815‒18. 7 On this interpretation of Psalm 72, see Th. L. Thompson, ‘Psalm 72 and Mark 1:12‒13: Mythic Evocation in Stories of the Good King,’ in Th. L. Thompson and T. Varenna (eds.), Is This Not the Carpernter? (London: Equinox, forthcoming). 8 On this whole question see further I. Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition Copenhagen International Seminar, 14; London: T&T Clark Intl., 2004), 134 and n.238. 9 As, e. g., often drawn implicitly from Wellhausen’s famous dictum: ‘Freilich über die Patriarchen ist hier kein historisches Wissen zu gewinnen, sondern nur über die Zeit, in welcher die Erzählungen über sie im israelitischen Volke entstanden . . .’: J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1905), 316. 6

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flect a memory of literary texts? 10 In accord with the theme of this book as well as for reasons of space, I give most of my attention to Genesis’ prologue and to the Abraham narrative chain and leave an analysis of the Jacob and Joseph stories for the future. GENESIS 2-5 AND THE LAND The exegetically demanding narrative, beginning in the account of creation in Genesis 1 and followed by the stories of Yahweh’s garden, of Cain and of the great flood, has been given a coherent but segmented structure through the use of stereotypical Toledoth, which allow the narrative to develop progressively through a measured succession of generations.11 The ensuing plot-line of this introductory prologue centers on the three-fold reiteration of a theologically critical allegory on humanity’s creation in the image of God12 and is epitomized in the unlikely projection implicit in the seventh day’s closure of creation with a divine Sabbath on which God rests (Gen 2:3), embracing as it does a mythic and ironically utopian illustration of Psalm 115:16. Certainly, the garden story’s eternal curse of the snake, reiterated in Psalm 72,9’s taming of the serpent or ‘great dragon’ (esp. Gen. 3:14–15; 4:7; cf. Job 29:17;13 Isa. 27:1–6; cf. Isa. 5:1–7; also Ps. 74:14) and this same story’s closure in Adam and Eve’s banishment from the garden to a life in exile from the tree of life and reiterated in Cain’s banishment (Gen. 3:22‒24), does not reflect its context in the events and situation of the Persian or early Hellenistic periods, but rather a literary context which, from the perspective of comparative literature, lays the foundation for a new 10 See, e. g., the introductory comments in Th. L. Thompson, ‘Reiterative Narratives of Exile and Return: Virtual Memories of Abraham in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods,’ (forthcoming). 11 On the function of the toledoth structure of Genesis, see S. Tengström, Die Toledotformel und die literarische Struktur der priesterlichen Erweiterungschicht im Pentateuch (Uppsala, 1981); Th. L. Thompson, The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel: The Literary Formation of Genesis and Exodus 1-23 (Sheffield: SAP, 1987), 61‒131. 12 Th. L. Thompson, ‘Imago Dei: A Problem in Pentateuchal Discourse,’ SJOT 23/1 (2009), 135‒48. 13 Th. L. Thompson, ‘Job 29: Biography or Parable?’ in Th. L. Thompson and H. Tronier (eds.), Frelsens Biografisering (Forum for bibelsk eksegese, 13; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004), 115‒34.

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creation in a utopian, ‘post-exilic’ future of Ezekielean proportions (Ezek. 47:1–12; cf. Isa. 29:17; 32:15; 44:1–6; Joel 4:18; Zech. 14:811 and Rev. 22). Along the same lines, the creation narrative’s Enuma-Elish-echoing motif of the creation of humanity ‘to rule’ over the world (Gen. 1:28) that the creator, himself, might find rest, the garden story presents the first human in the royal roles of the seventh century BCE legend about Sargon of Akkad as keeper of the garden and tiller of the soil (Gen. 2:15).14 With the soil cursed and humanity exiled from the garden (Gen. 3:23‒24), the Cain narrative divides these two roles (keeper of sheep and tiller of the soil) between two brothers. The murder of one causes the other to be cursed and banished from the land he governed (Gen. 4:11–12), creating an alienation from the land which the dark humor of the genealogical commentary on Noah’s name understands the destroying flood as overcoming (Gen. 5:29). THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INNOCENT AND THE IRASCIBLE DIVINE As is well known, the Bible’s version of the story of the great flood with its hero, Noah, follows closely and in considerable detail Sumerian and Babylonian traditions, each of which have their surviving heroes: Atrahasis, Ziusudra and Utnapishtim. It also significantly echoes some of the derivative, allegorical transformations of that story’s thematic elements as well as the intertextual discourses of the ancient literature they support. From a perspective of comparative literature, there are three major thematic elements, central to the Mesopotamian tradition, which are either strikingly absent or substantially diminished in our much later and derivative, biblical version of the myth. For example, the Mesopotamian story’s mockery of the gods, swarming like flies around the flood hero’s thankoffering, is particularly effective in introducing a moral critique of the excessive violence and implicit lack of divine compassion and care for the innocent. The absence of this critique of the imbalance and injustice in the exercise of divine wrath that brought about the 14 E. A. Speiser, ‘The Legend of Sargon,’ in J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 119.

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flood, marks the singularly most striking difference in Genesis 6– 8’s reiteration. In Genesis we find a pacified and satisfied Yahweh, responding with acceptance and reconciliation to the piety and cultic appropriateness of the ‘pleasing odor’ of Noah’s sacrifice (Gen. 8:20–21; cf. Lev. 1:1–17). The history of biblical commentaries shows a sustained effort to underline the story’s elements of piety, evoking an imitatio, which they see implicit in Genesis’ revision of this scene. Most have all too quickly moved to the following scene of promise and covenant, apparently because this seemed to offer an attractive reiteration of the Babylonian motif of Ishtar’s necklace in the form of Yahweh’s (rain)bow. The theologically driven strategy of interpretation tames the narrative by evoking well-worn themes of peace and divine compassion.15 This has been at the cost of losing the text’s stunning double entendre, transforming both bow and Yahweh himself in imitation of the god Ares with his war-bow and presenting a humanity, now newly marked by the covenant in the image of Ares’ two sons: ‘fear’ and ‘terror’ (Gen. 9:2),16 reflecting a thematic development, which connects the flood story with its covenant to the Pentateuch’s theme of holy war with its outcome ultimately embedded in the stories of Israel and Judah’s rejection, destruction and deportation. The Mesopotamian versions of the flood story, marked as they are by a critique of divine justice, is presented in the gods own confession of unthinking irascibility, destroying a mankind, to whom, in Ishtar’s own words, she herself had given birth (Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, 112-126).17 Although Genesis 5’s toledoth bears the motif of humanity as children of the divine, implied in the successive inheritance of the fatherly image of the divine, which passes from God to Adam to Seth, and while the brief mythic allusion in Genesis 6:1–2 speaks of ‘sons of God’ marrying the daughters of men just before the flood story begins, the critique itself is marked only faintly in Genesis’ revision of the narrative.18 Instead of the scornful mockery evoked by the description of Mesopotamia’s gods 15 For the alternative reading followed here, see Thompson, ‘Imago Dei,’ passim. 16 Thompson ‘Imago Dei.’ 17 For text, see E. A. Speiser, ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh,’ 94b. 18 Thompson, ‘Imago Dei,’ 145‒47.

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swarming like flies around the hero’s thank-offering (Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, 159-161), a mockery reiterated so creatively in Sophocles’ version of Electra and used in the Mesopotamian story to introduce a thematic reversal, illustrated by the divine condemnation of Enlil’s uncontrolled and irresponsible tantrum, only Yahweh’s self-destructive irascibility and his double regret—both that he had created mankind and that he had destroyed it—opens the Bible’s story to such critical questions of theodicy.19 The Bible’s story pattern of double-regret finds its most striking reiteration in the wilderness tale about the golden calf in Exodus 32. When Yahweh sees that the people ‘have corrupted themselves’ (Ex. 32:7: yistahawu) in turning away from ‘the way he commanded”—echoing Genesis 6:12’s ‘all flesh,’ which had ‘corrupted their way’ (nishatah kål basar et-darku)— Yahweh regrets having made Israel his people and will now destroy them and replace them with a new people from Moses. When Moses, however, begs him to repent the evil he intends against his people, Yahweh regrets once more what he had planned (Ex. 32:7-14). This markedly comic scene is immediately followed by a reiteration of Yahweh’s irascibility by the figure Moses, who finally comes down from the mountain. Seeing the golden calf, he throws his own tantrum and breaks the two tablets of testimony that Yahweh himself had written. While this central motif of Yahweh’s manic rage, threatening the very survival of Israel, finds further treatment in the divine response to the people’s complaint in Numbers 11,20 the particular narrative pattern of doubleregret finds its reiteration in the story in Numbers 14 about the people of Israel’s fear of the giants in the Valley of Eshkol, a fear which is set with sharpened irony in contrast to their lack of a ‘fear of God”, a virtue of humility and respect for the transcendent, which Proverbs understands as the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). In the story of the giants, Yahweh again regrets having created his people as he had in the story in Exodus 32. So too, will he once more destroy them (with a plague) and replace them with a new 19 On the figure of the irascible Yahweh in Job, see esp. P. Guillaume and M. Schunk, ‘Job’s Intercession: Antidote to Divine Folly,’ Biblica 88 (2007), 457‒72; Thompson, ‘Imago Dei,’ 145‒47. 20 Thompson, ‘Imago Dei,’ 141‒43.

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people with Moses (Num. 14:12). Moses once again is given the role of appeaser and must bring Yahweh to regret the evil he plans against his own people. The frequent reiteration of these themes of divine irascibility and fickleness reflects considerable development outside the Pentateuch. In continuation of the successive narratives of Eli and Samuel, in which Yahweh gives their houses eternal promises, only to come quickly to regret the promise given, Yahweh chooses Saul to be his anointed king in Israel. In 1 Sam 15, however, when a good King Saul had spared his enemy Agag, the defeated king of the Amalekites, along with ‘all that was good”, but had destroyed ‘only what was despised and worthless,’ Yahweh ‘regrets that he had made Saul king’ (1 Sam. 15:9–11)! With this change of heart, he turns to his beloved David. However, not even David escapes from Yahweh’s destructive irascibility. The most notable and refined development of this theme in the David stories occurs at the very end of the narrative as Yahweh’s explosive fury turns against Israel and he incites David to make a census (2 Sam. 24:1–9; cf. 1 Chron. 21, where Yahweh’s ‘temptation’ is attributed to the satan). The role of double regret is given to David (in the image of Yahweh). Having foolishly called for the census,21 David quickly regrets his rashness and turns to Yahweh because of his sin. In his judgment, Yahweh tests David to see whether his heart is true. He is given the choice of 3 years famine, 3 months in flight or 3 days plague. Piously, David chooses the mercy of Yahweh (1 Sam. 24:14). When, however, the plague ravages 70,000 and the angel of death turned towards Jerusalem, David in horror regrets his choice and begs that the punishment be turned rather against himself than against the innocent people of Jerusalem (1 Sam 24,17). The plague stops as the story closes as Yahweh finds—as in the flood story—his vicarious satisfaction in the burnt offerings and peace offerings of Jerusalem’s future temple (1 Sam. 24:25; cf. Gen. 8:20-22). While the prayer of Solomon in 1 Kings 8 (see further below) clearly brings this trope even closer to the themes of reconciliation and forgiveness which are central to an idealistic interpretations of exile and return, it is perhaps Jonah’s figure of God which best presents the goal towards which the thematic tra21

See Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty, 242.

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jectory of this trope has been cast. The story opens with the divine command to Jonah to go to Nineveh with Yahweh’s judgment because of the wickedness, which, like Sodom’s, has ‘come up before him’ (Jon. 1:2). Jonah knows the truth; namely, that Yahweh will come to regret the evil he plans against Nineveh and in the end will show himself to be ‘a gracious and merciful God, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love’ (Jon. 4:2)! SHALL NOT THE JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH BE JUST? The critique of the gods in the Mesopotamian version of the flood story is explicitly in support of the understanding of justice as expressed by the proverb: ‘On the sinner impose his sin; on the transgressor impose his transgression; (yet) be lenient lest he be cut off; be patient lest he be dis[lodged]’ (Gilgamesh Tablet XI, 180183).22 In the Pentateuch, this particular theme and proverb is delayed, but, nevertheless, clearly opened by the Cain story’s ‘Song of Lamech,’ whose unlimited 77-fold revenge, overtrumping Yahweh’s seven-fold vengeance protecting Cain, marks the transformation of the figure of the ever jealous, judging and irascible Yahweh in the direction of Jonah’s understanding of the divine as a figure of compassion and mercy. The thematic opposition between revenge and reconciliation, which dominates Genesis 4’s implied discourse on murder and blood guilt, is itself deeply rooted in the ancient theme of justice epitomized by the proverbial axiom we find in the Mesopotamian version of the flood story and is reflected throughout the wisdom literature of the ancient world. Blood guilt and revenge, based as they are in the opposition of shame and honor, are primary and centrally destructive forces within a patronage society, and are to be avoided if justice is to exist.23 Punishment is to be restricted to the guilty, while the innocent are to go unharmed and free.24 This axiom of justice not only presents the point of Speiser, ‘The Gilgamesh Epic,’ 95a. N. P. Lemche, ‘From Patronage Society to Patronage Society,’ in F. Fritz and P. R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States (Sheffield: SAP, 1995), 106‒20. 24 Th. L. Thompson, ‘Genesis 4 and the Pentateuch’s Reiterative Discourse: Some Samaritan Themes’ (forthcoming). See, especially, P. J. van der Hout, ‘The Proclamation of Telipinu,’ in W. W. Hallo, The Context 22 23

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departure for the post-flood covenant with Noah, supporting Leviticus’ logic of atonement, it also supports the plot development in the narrative of Exodus and Numbers, which develops the theme of reconciliation, with its understanding of Yahweh as a compassionate God, both just and merciful. In understanding this transformation, three passages seem critical. In Numbers 14, as Moses reproaches Yahweh for his thoughtless, self-centered anger and violence, he appeals to ‘the greatness’ of Yahweh’s ‘steadfast love’ and encourages him to once again forgive the people as he has done ever since they left Egypt. He must become a God who ‘forgives iniquity and transgression’ (Num. 14:17‒19). Nevertheless, in Num. 14:18, this transformation of the irascible Yahweh is delayed: ‘He will by no means forgive the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation’ (Num. 14:18)! Following Moses’ suggestion, Yahweh pardons Israel on these terms (Num. 14:20). It is, therefore, that the scouts who had spread false reports among the people are killed by plague (Num. 14:36–38) and the generation of the wilderness—those guilty of disobeying Yahweh’s command to attack the Nephilim in the Valley of Eshcol—is condemned to die in the wilderness (Num. 14:21–35), while the innocent children and grandchildren become a new Israel who enter the promised land. After the punishment is carried out, the narrative is superseded by a law of Deuteronomy, reiterating the ancient axiom of justice: ‘Fathers will not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers. Everyone will be put to death for his own sin’ (Deut 24:16). In terms of narrative plot, this law finds its biblical illustration in 2 Kings, in a tale that has ancient roots , reaching at least as far as the Hittite story of Telipinnu.25 After Judah’s king Joash was murdered by his own servants in Jerusalem, his son Amaziah became king (2 Kings 12:20–21).26 After consolidating power, he executed his faof Scripture I: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 194–98 and for a discussion of this narrative, Th. L: Thompson, Messiah Myth, 168–69. 25 Van der Hout, ‘The Proclamation of Telipinu.” 26 Another illustration of this principle can be found in the story of Lot’s rescue from the destruction of Sodom. Note esp., Gen. 19:15: ‘for you shall not lose your life on account of the city’s sin.’

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ther’s assassins, ‘but did not put to death the children of the murderers.’ The text explains that this was to accord with the law of Moses, citing Deuteronomy 24, 16 verbatim (2 Kings 14:5–6). The very close reiteration of this narrative in 2 Chronicles 25,1–5, appropriately adds the motif that King Joash had been assassinated in revenge for his responsibility in the stoning of the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron. 24:25). It is first in 1 Kings 8, in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple, that the justice of the ancient proverb transmitted by Deuteronomy is surpassed. Pointing out the necessity implicit in the reality that no man is without sin (1 Kings 8:46), Yahweh must in justice (sic!) meet them with mercy and forgiveness. In making his argument, Solomon points forward in time to the coming exile, in his argument that when Yahweh in the future should become angry at the people of Jerusalem for their sin and they be carried off into slavery and repent and call to Yahweh from their exile, then shall he hear their prayer and forgive them, showing compassion. As Moses had argued before him in both Exodus and Numbers, these people are Yahweh’s people, whom he himself created and brought out of Egypt (1 Kings 8:46–53). This transformation from just judgment to mercy and compassion, with its vision of the exile as a time of testing, repentance and forgiveness finds, I suggest, its definitive commentary in Ezekiel 18. Opening with a fulfilling illustration of Jeremiah’s new covenant (Ezek. 18:1–4; Jer. 31:27–30), abrogating the principle of collective guilt— ‘the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge’—the principle which the irascible Yahweh in Numbers 14:18 insisted on (and which is applied to the theme of exile in Lam. 5:7), Yahweh now declares that the righteous man must rather live and not die for his father’s sin (Ezek. 18:5–9). Ezekiel then offers a detailed casuistic commentary. If his son, however, is a robber and murderer . . ., ‘his blood will be upon himself’ (Ezek. 18:9–13). If he, in turn, should have a son, who . . . ‘walks in my statutes, he shall not die for his father’s sin . . . the soul that sins shall die’ (Ezek. 18:14–17). The argument then turns to the issues of repentance and forgiveness. ‘If a wicked man turns away from all his sins…, he will surely live.’ His sins will be forgotten. The soliloquy asks rhetorically whether Yahweh would rather have the wicked die than repent (Ezek. 18:21–23)? One must also consider

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this principle’s implicit corollary: if a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for that evil. The question of theodicy is directly raised: Are the ways of Yahweh or are the ways of men just (Ezek. 18:29)? The discourse closes with the plea that the ‘house of Israel’ repent and ‘get a new heart and a new spirit,’ evoking a utopian future when Yahweh will return the people from exile, giving them a new heart and a new spirit that they might finally dwell in the land and become his people (Ezek. 18:30–32; cf. 11:17–21; 36:26–32; Jer. 24:5–7). THE FIRE NEXT TIME In the Mesopotamian version of the flood story’s critique of the gods, they are scolded for having neglected, in their efforts to punish and diminish mankind, more measured and limited alternatives to the all-devastating flood: Instead of thy bringing on the deluge, would that a lion had diminished mankind! Instead of your bringing on the flood, would that a wolf had risen up to diminish mankind! Instead of your bringing on the flood, would that a famine had risen up to l[ay low] mankind! Instead of thy bringing on the deluge, would that a pestilence had risen up to smi[te down] mankind (Gilgamesh XI, 184-195)!27

In the biblical narrative, this theme is implicated when Yahweh regrets having destroyed mankind and promises that he will never again destroy all life as he has done (Gen. 8:21–22). Specific alternatives are missing from the flood story, as in the ambiguity of the sign of the covenant, which guarantees Yahweh’s promise that he would never again plan such evil. Yahweh’s (war/rain)bow thus creates a blind motif for the reader. When the clouds gather and Yahweh sees his bow and remembers his eternal promise to all living, will this next time bring holy war?28 This trope—the stereotypical divine alternatives for testing and punishing mankind—like other themes we have discussed, seems delayed in the narrative Speiser, ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh,’ 95a-b. Just such an understanding of the promise’s implicit threat has been perceptively evoked by the title of James Baldwin’s novel The Fire Next Time, referring to the flood story and looking ahead to Genesis 19:24! 27 28

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than entirely excluded. It is involved, for example, in the use of the stereotypical punishments of sword, famine and plague, which are used by Yahweh to punish Israel throughout the Pentateuch; as, for instance, in the story of the spies in Numbers 13–14 as already discussed, which presents itself as a parable for the proverb that only the guilty will be punished. It is, therefore, that, for example, the scouts who had spread false reports are killed by plague (Num 14, 36-38). Sword, famine and plague are also used as the stereotypical weapons of preference for ultimate divine punishment in both Ezekiel and Jeremiah and they are used to evoke the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the exile: ‘I will send sword, famine and plague against them until they are entirely destroyed from the land which I gave them’ (Jer. 24:10; cf. Ezek. 5:17; 6:11–12)! This trope is also illustrated in story form through the choices David is given in the census story; namely, between 3 years of famine, 3 months of flight and 3 days of plague (2 Sam. 24; 1 Chron. 21), but it is again in Solomon’s prayer that this trope is used within a narrative to evoke the great forgiving themes of exile and return. As Solomon pleads to Yahweh to judge only the guilty, and let his actions come upon his own head, but also to vindicate the righteous by rewarding him accordingly (1 Kings 8:31–32). He then pursues his argument, much in the same casuistic manner as Yahweh used in Ezekiel 18. In each successive example he presents, Israel is first punished and then forgiven and returned to the land: ‘If they are defeated in battle because they have sinned and if they repent, forgive them and bring them back to the land you gave their fathers’ (1 Kings 8:33-34). ‘If drought comes because they have sinned, but they pray and acknowledge your name, forgive them and grant rain upon the land you have given them as an inheritance’ (1 Kings 8:35–36). ‘If there is famine or plague or they are besieged by their enemy and they call in prayer to you, hear them and forgive them that they might live in the land which you gave their fathers’ (1 Kings 8:37–40). AN ALLEGORY OF EXILE AND RETURN The association of the flood story with the literary themes of exile and return seems clear and unavoidable. In the Assyrian King Esarhaddon’s autobiographical tale, for example, the stereotypical

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thematic function of recalling the suffering of the past in an effort to support an understanding of his reign as a saving reversal of that suffering, Esarhaddon recalls the ‘evil days’ of the past, ‘when the gods were angry and planned evil against Babylon’.29 Babylon was destroyed with a flood and the people deported and carried off into slavery. The Gods had appointed 70 years for Babylon’s exile, but Marduk in his mercy reversed their fate and ordered restoration in the 11th year,30 when he called Esarhaddon to kingship. Two recensions of the Esarhaddon story speak of the appointed time of 70 years as the time in which the land would lie fallow, much as, for example, 2 Chronicles reflects on Jeremiah’s prophecy of 70 years of exile as a means for the land to fulfill the Sabbath rest it had missed (2 Chron. 36:21–23; Jer. 25:8–14; 29:10–14). Given the narratively dominant toledoth structure of Genesis, the story of Noah and Genesis’ hugely provocative introduction should be understood as closing with the toledoth of the ‘table of nations’ which we find in Genesis 10: presenting the etiological descendents of Japheth, Ham and Shem geographically, spread over the world according to ‘the families, languages, lands and nations’ of Europe, Africa and Asia (cf. Deut. 32:8). It is within this context that the Tower of Babel story presents an epitome of the separation of the nations of the world and the Abraham story with its point of departure. This simple narrative segment with its etiology for the unending multiplicity of language is integrated into its narrative context as counterpoint to the implied ‘blessing’ of Genesis 10. The D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia II (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1926-27), §640‒646. For variations of this story, see §647‒659, 659A-E and 660‒665. For yet another inscription, using some of the same motifs, see §666‒677. The discussion here is based on my earlier analysis: ‘A Testimony of the Good King: Reading the Mesha Stele,’ in L. L. Grabbe, Ahab Agonistes: The Rise and Fall of the Omri Dynasty (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 236‒292. 30 The reversal of Babylon’s destiny, here, bringing the people home after 11 years involves a pun based on the cuneiform number system, whereby a single vertical wedge expresses both 60 and 1, so that the signs for 70; namely, 60 +10, when reversed, can be read as 10 +1. This fragile difference between 70 and 11 happily illustrates the reversal of fortune, marking a divine mercy; see W. W. Hallo, The Context of Scripture II: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 306. 29

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people of Babel attempt to resist being ‘scattered over the face of all the earth”—creating clear reiterating overtones of the rhetoric of exile (Gen. 11:4.9; cf. 1 Kings 22:17 and especially Ezek. 34:5.11‒12). Much as Isaiah’s song of Yahweh’s vineyard (Isa. 5:1–7; cf. Jer. 2:21) and Ezekiel’s parable and allegorical lament for Jerusalem as a vine planted by the running water (Ezek. 19:10–14; 17:1–10) have given Genesis’ garden story the character of a reiterating parable with its implicit reversal and return to the tree of life suggested through Psalm 1’s simile of the righteous as a tree, planted beside the water channel (Ps. 1:3), the myth of Lucifer and the fallen angels’ assault on heaven, especially as it is evoked in both Isaiah’s and Jeremiah’s songs of triumph against Babylon (Isa. 13:1-14.23; also 46:1-4; Jer. 50:1–51.58), has similarly found their parable form in the Tower of Babel story. 31 The story’s allusion to Isaiah is eschatological. Its focus is on Yahweh’s day of wrath: ‘to the destruction of this world and the sinners in it’. ‘Babylon will become like Sodom and Gomorrah, never again to be inhabited ... its pomp brought down to Sheol’ (Isa. 13:9–13.19–20; 14:11). Babylon is ‘fallen from heaven,’ that ‘morning star: son of the dawn.’ . . . who said in his heart: ‘I will ascend to heaven’ (Isa. 14:14; cf. Gen. 11:4). The corruption of Cain, who built the city Enoch in honor to his son’s name (Gen. 4:17), is to find its reversal in Babylon’s fall as Yahweh will slaughter all the sons of Babylon that they not fill the world with cities, ‘cutting off both Babylon’s name and remnant’ (Isa. 14:21–22; Gen. 11:4)! In contrast to his judgment against Babylon, Yahweh has now learned compassion for Jacob and returns Israel’s remnant to their own land (Isa. 14:1): ‘Yahweh has established Zion and, in her will the afflicted of his people find refuge’ (Isa. 14:32). The implicit understanding of the Tower of Babel story of Genesis 11:1‒9, which was held in antiquity, hardly sees Genesis 1-11 as a narrative about the creation of the real world, as suggested in T. Herbert, ‘The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures,’ JBL 126 (2007), 29‒58; see also the response of J. T. Strong, ‘Shattering the Image of God: A Response to Herbert’s Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel,’ JBL 127 (2008), 625‒34. Rather, Genesis 1-11 is an idealistic construction, whose primary function is to introduce the central themes of the Pentateuch. 31

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The parable of the Tower of Babel seems likewise to be rooted in Jeremiah’s great variation on Isaiah’s song in which Babylon’s fall is similarly given to represent Lucifer’s fall from heaven. The city falls and the land turned to desert while its people are themselves driven into exile, that—in retributive cadences— ‘the Israelites might return home and the Judeans with them’ (Jer. 50:4): Israel to ‘Bashan and Carmel, in Gilead and in Ephraim,’ while the Judeans, together with Israel, search for Zion (Jer. 50:4–5.17–19). Genesis’ story parable of this fall is used to introduce a revision of Seth’s genealogy that it might close in the toledoth of Terah. Yahweh’s final victory over Lucifer’s assault on heaven brings about a reversal of fortune as Genesis’ parable functions as point of departure for a revision of the Shem genealogy to introduce Abram and open the patriarchal narratives within the literary context of Isaiah’s ‘new creation’ and Jeremiah’s ‘new covenant’ (Isa. 65:17–66:2; Jer. 31:1–40).’32 The fall of Babylon and the exile of Babylon’s people and their gods are used retributively to introduce the theme of Israel’s return from exile and Abram’s call and his journey from Ur of the Chaldeans and Harran to the land of Canaan as allegory. 33 Israel is likened to scattered sheep, driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured him and now at last Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has gnawed his bones. Therefore says Yahweh, Israel’s god of war: ‘Now will I bring punishment on the king of Babylon and his land as I had punished the king of Assyria. I will restore Israel to his pasture and he shall feed on Carmel and Th. L. Thompson, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (New York: Basic Books, 1999) = The Bible in History: How Writers Create A Past (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999; Pimlico, 2000), 24‒25.39‒40; idem, ‘Imago Dei: A Problem in Pentateuchal Discourse,’ SJOT 23/1 (2009), 135‒148; idem, ‘Reiterative Narratives of Exile and Return: Virtual Memories of Abraham in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods’ in P. R. Davies and D. V. Edelman (eds.), The Historian and the Bible: Essays in Honour of Lester L. Grabbe (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 46-54. 33 For an alternative to this allegorical and idealist understanding of the story, cf. T. Herbert, ‘The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures,’ JBL 126 (2007), 29–58; also the response of J. T. Strong, ‘Shattering the Image of God: A Response to Theodore Herbert’s Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel,’ JBL 127 (2008), 625‒34. 32

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in Bashan and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. In those days and in that time, says Yahweh, evil will be sought in Israel, and there will be none; and sin in Judah, and none shall be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as remnant’ (Jer. 50:17‒20). The never ending story of the biblical narrative both begins and ends with Babylon’s fall and the promise of a new covenant with Abraham.34 Just so, in Genesis—as I have argued in other related articles35—Abram departs with his father and brothers to Canaan from Ur Chasdim, the ‘city of Chaldea;’ i.e., Babylon, the land of Jerusalem’s exile. Abraham is called from Harran, where Samaritan tradition places its exile ‘to the land that I will show you’ (Gen 12:3): to Moreh’s oak in Shechem (=Samaria) and, through a segmented chain of narrative, Abram wanders ever towards Moriah and the story of the sacrifice of his first-born, beloved son (Gen 11:26–12:3.6; 15;7; 22:14; cf. 2 Chron 3:1). ‘That which once was, is the same as that which is to come, and that which once happened is the same as that which will happen’ (Eccl 1;9). MEMORIES OF RETURN AND ABRAHAM’S WANDERING In the Abraham narrative’s allegory of return, the problems, destructions and losses of the exile’s time of suffering36 are positively reversed as Abram enters the promised-land and returns a united Israel to its inheritance. As Ingrid Hjelm has pointed out, ‘the sadness which closes the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, in which the temple offers no protection against the rain (Ezra 10.9) nor has room for any foreigner (Ezra 9-10; Neh 13.1-3; 23-30) contrasts sharply with the optimistic recapture of a glorious Jerusalem-Zion expressed in Isaiah, Jeremiah (Ezekiel), Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Zephaniah (Haggai), Zechariah and the Psalms,’37 a reversal of 34 For a discussion of biblical narrative as ‘never-ending story,’ see Th. L. Thompson, The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (New York: Basic Books, 2005/ London: Jonathan Cape, 2006/ Pimlico, 2007), 223–321. 35 Thompson, ‘Imago Dei’, 147; idem, ‘Reiterative Narratives.’ 36 Thompson, ‘A Testimony,’ 260–62. 37 I. Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition (Copenhagen International Seminar, 14: London: T&T Clark Intl, 2004), 258. On the negative evaluation of the return in Ezra, see also Th.

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fate, which has found no direct illustration within the narrative traditions, apart, perhaps from Genesis, which I suggest illustrates the utopian visions of return and return to the tree of life we find expressed by Isaiah 65’s new world, Jeremiah 31’s new covenant and Ezekiel 47’s new temple. Five significant but at times complex examples can be offered in illustration: 1. Genesis 12:6‒8; 22:1‒3: Abraham’s journey through the ‘land of Canaan’ from Moreh to Moriah, much like the narrative of his departure from Ur and Harran (Gen. 11:31‒12:5) reflects Isaiah and Jeremiah’s understanding of respectively Samaria’s and Jerusalem’s return and, in doing so, recalls the return of Jacob and reunification of Israel in a reconciliation of ‘fathers and sons’ (Samaria and Jerusalem). This is easily drawn from Malachi’s messianic prophecy of Elijah’s return, in line with Ben Sira’s understanding (Mal. 3:22-24; Sirach 48:9-11).38 2. Genesis 13:2‒12; Genesis 14:1‒24: It is in chapter 13 that the land of Canaan is promised to Abram. With the peaceful intention of avoiding any division between Abram and Lot, Abram suggests that Lot choose the land he wishes for himself, west towards Bethel or east towards the Valley of the Jordan, which is described to be as rich as the Garden of Eden. After Lot had chosen the rich valley and settled among its cities while Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, Yahweh promises him all the land he can see for himself and his descendents (Gen. 13:14‒17). Insofar as Genesis 13 presents an etiology for the establishment of Lot’s inheritance in the Valley and in the Transjordan, it is easy to recognize the rescue of Lot in Genesis 14 and his return from captivity as an obvious function of the tale in setting the stage for the ultimate reversal of destiny in the coming narrative of Genesis 19, reiterating the story of the L. Thompson, ‘Holy War at the Center of Biblical Theology: Shalom and the Cleansing of Jerusalem,’ in Th. L. Thompson (ed.), Jerusalem in ancient History and Tradition (Copenhagen International Seminar, 13; London: T&T Clark, 2003), 223–57. 38 Thompson, Messiah Myth, 31–33.

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garden of paradise’s destruction and presenting Lot and his daughters in the roles of its surviving remnant, the trajectory that is set in Genesis 13 to the story of the conquest of the Transjordan is far less obvious. When the long chain of conquest narratives finally opens in Numbers 32 with the conquest of the territories of Sihon and Og, the takeover of their land by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the halftribe of Manasseh did not fulfill Yahweh’s plan for Israel. Nor was it at all in accord with Yahweh’s promise of the ‘land of Canaan’ to Abram. Rather, this development in the story presents a compromise that Yahweh reluctantly accepts, much in the manner of his unhappy acceptance of kingship for Israel in another story built on a similar theme in 1 Samuel 8. The promise of the land of Canaan, for which Abraham’s peaceful division of the land with Lot lay as foundation, became rather, in the story of Numbers 32, the beginning of a divided Israel and the beginning of the separation of the tribes from the promise, which ultimately brought disaster on Samaria and Jerusalem and the loss of the land as promised. It is of particular interest that allusions in Genesis to themes about the reversal of this unhappy fate and to motifs of return related to Eastern Palestine, orient themselves around the figure of Lot and the return to his inheritance, rather than around any ultimate fate of the tribes of the Transjordan. For example, in Genesis 14, when a coalition of kings in the ‘Valley of Siddim’ rebelled against their Mesopotamian patrons, Lot’s fate is threatened with exile as he is carried off to Mesopotamia by the punitive raid from the North that responded to the rebellion (Gen. 14:1–12). In pursuit of the raiders, a heroic Abram reverses Lot’s fate and successfully returns him and the other captives to their homes. Although the narrative trajectory to themes of exile and a returning remnant are clear and direct, the historical people of the valley: Ammon and Moab, to whom this narrative’s reversal of fortune is oriented, are first to become the descendents of Lot in a coming story (Gen. 19:36–38). That the story of Sodom’s destruction is already implied in Ge-

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nesis 14, however, seems suggested by the puzzling events, following Abram’s return from his victory over Chedarlaomer. The king of Sodom goes out to meet him (Gen. 14:17), but his greeting and blessing of Abram is interrupted and it is the king of Jerusalem and priest of El Elyon, Melchizedek, who first blesses Abram. In response, Abram gives Melchizedek a tithe of his spoils: an exchange which not only can be seen as an illustration of both Abram’s role as a blessing to those who bless him, projected in Genesis 12:3, and as an illustration of the future rejoicing in Jerusalem that is idealized in Isaiah’s new-creation theme of return when all the world turns to Jerusalem to be blessed (Gen. 28:22; cf. Isa. 66:10.18–21). The eventual and belated offer of reward by the king of Sodom can now be rejected by Abram because of the oath he had sworn to ‘Yahweh, El Elyon, creator of heaven and earth’ (Gen. 14:22).39 Abram’s acceptance of the blessing of Jerusalem’s priest-king, Melchizedek, binds him as client. Salem’s god, El Elyon, is now his patron and is, accordingly, identified with Yahweh (see also Ps 110:4).40 Abram’s refusal of Sodom’s offer was already implicitly excluded by his prior acceptance of Melchizedek’s blessing.

39 For an understanding of the biblical epithets El Elyon and Elohei Shamayim and their roots in the Syro-Palestinian universal epithet Ba’al Shamem, see H. Niehr, Der Höchste Gott: Alttestamenticher JHWH-Glaube In Kontext syrisch-kanaanäischer Religion des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr. (BZAW, 190; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990); idem, ‘YHWH in der Rolle des Baalsamem,’ in W. Dietrich and M. Klopfenstein (eds.), Ein Gott allein? Israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte, OBO 139 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 1994), 307‒26; idem, ‘The Rise of YHWH in Judahite and Israelite Religion: Methodological and Religio-Historical Aspects,’ in D. Edelman (ed.), The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1995), 45‒72; Th. L. Thompson, ‘The Intellectual Matrix of Early Biblical Narrative: Inclusive Monotheism in Persian Period Palestine,’ in Edelman (ed.), The Triumph of Elohim, 107‒24. 40 On patrons and clients, see now E. Pfoh, The Emergence of Israel in Ancient Palestine: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives (Copenhagen International Seminar; London: Equinox Publishing, 2009.

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3. Genesis 18:22-19:38: Insofar as Genesis 12:3 promises blessing to those who bless Abram, the scene of the king of Sodom’s meeting with Abram is well understood as preparing for the story of Yahweh’s destruction of Sodom’s paradise. This story begins with the introductory scene in Genesis 18 in which Yahweh and Abraham debate the fate of Sodom on the basis of how many innocent might inhabit the town and how righteous the judge of the whole world might be (Gen. 18:22–33). Abraham’s argument goes out from how impossible he sees it that that divine judge would ‘indeed destroy the righteous along with those who are evil’ (Gen. 18:23). It is not a principle which is immediately at stake in the debate, but rather whether the existence of so many righteous might turn divine judgment away from the city. Surely fifty would be sufficient and, eventually, Abraham successfully argues for a mere ten whose righteousness might save the city before the narrative turns to Genesis 19’s story of judgment and destruction—a story which is oriented towards its well-recognized reiteration, with Gibeah as Sodom’s Benjaminite counterpart, in Judges 19. The debate narrative’s search for a city’s few righteous finds an even closer thematic reiteration in one of Jeremiah’s songs about Yahweh’s decision to destroy Jerusalem. Jeremiah is sent out in vain to search the city’s streets in hope of finding a single one who is righteous ‘that I might pardon her’; that is, Jerusalem (Jer 5:1). The parallelism between Sodom and Jerusalem which is established through such reiteration seems to draw on elements common to the ‘tale-type”41 of the garden and its destruction that, as we have already seen is associated with the stories of the garden, flood and Sodom’s destruction, and which has its parabolic form in Isaiah 5’s song of Yahweh’s vineyard. This thematic variation seems also to have been maintained in the story of Lot’s rescue from So41 On characteristics of a tale-type, see S. Thompson, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, Folklore Fellows Communications, 74 (Helsinki, 1927 [2nd edition, FFC 184, 1961]); idem, The Folktale (New York, 1946).

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dom in which he and his two daughters share in Noah and his family’s role of ‘the remnant saved,’ building on the new creation motif of Genesis 19’s echo of renewal after the flood. Similarly, parallel to the story of Noah’s vineyard, his three sons and his own drunken nakedness, opening a flood-ravaged world’s new beginnings, is the story of Lot’s virgin daughters, alone with their father in a world destroyed, which opens its theme of new beginnings as they lay with their drunken, unknowing father, to give birth to the Ammonites and Moabites. Reiterative motifs of vineyard and wine, of drunken nakedness and of incest and their closure in an etiology of nations, structure a story type which lends both narratives depth and resonance. The understanding of the story of the rescue of Lot and his daughters from the eschatological destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 as an allegory of destruction, exile and return, parallel to that of Jerusalem, has significant support from Ezekiel’s brutal, at times pornographic, allegory of the unfaithful wife: an interesting variation on the interrelated two-sisters allegory of Oholah and Oholibah (Ezek 16:163; Ezek 23:1-49, contra Ezek 25:1-11!). While the twosisters version of the parable present a relatively common biblical parallelism of the elder Samaria and her younger sister, Jerusalem, as sisters having parallel stories of unfaithfulness, destruction, exile, repentance and return. This allegorical parallelism—as we have seen—is echoed in the very beginning of the story of Abraham’s journey and which structures that journey between Moreh and Moriah, the allegory of the unfaithful wife, though primarily addressed to Jerusalem (Ezek. 16:1-43), not only involves the elder sister Samaria, but also a sister younger than Jerusalem, ‘who lived to the south of you’; namely Sodom (Ezek. 16:46). As in Jeremiah 5:1, Jerusalem is judged more evil than Sodom, who, in comparison, appears righteous (Ezek. 16:51). Therefore, Yahweh promises ‘to restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters,’ along with those of Jerusalem. They will return to their former estate (Ezek. 16:53-58).

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4. Genesis 12:10‒20; 20:1‒18; 26:7‒11 and Deuteronomy 24:1‒4: In his discussion of the 3-fold episode of the patriarch in Genesis, presenting his wife to Egypt’s Pharaoh and Gerar’s Abimelech as his sister rather than his wife, Calum Carmichael pointed out that in reflecting on these narratives, the ‘Deuteronomist’ understood that Abram through his deception had ‘changed (Sarai’s ) status as his wife with the result that she had become another man’s wife.”42 Deuteronomy’s law, forbidding the remarriage of the divorced partners, suggests, according to Carmichael that the ‘Deuteronomist’ objected to the extortion involved in the patriarchs’ exploitation of their situation. In drawing up his idealistic laws the ‘Deuteronomist’ sought to prevent such a situation in the future. While the episode is not developed in the Isaac and Rebecca story in Genesis 26 because Abimelech discovers Isaac and Rebecca’s true relationship before a new one could be established, the intertextual dissonance of the ‘law’ of Deuteronomy 24, seems quite relevant to the stories of both Genesis 12 and 20. In Genesis 12, Abram expresses the motive of extortion in his request to Sarai to support the deception; namely, ‘that it may go well with me, because of you’ (Gen. 12:13a), a motivation which also seems confirmed by Genesis 20’s version of the story in which Abimelech’s gift to Abraham of 1000 shekels silver is given in order ‘to close the eyes of all those who belong to Sarah’ (Gen 20:16). As Carmichael’s assumption that Deuteronomy 24 is later than these tale variants is no longer obvious to many scholars,43 Some support for Carmichael’s interpretation might be found, for example, in the Book of Jubilees’ version of Genesis 12’s tale, as it seeks to exonerate both Abram and Yahweh by presenting Pharaoh as ‘robbing’ Abram of his wife and the plague is one that Yahweh sends as punishment for the robbery (Jub. 13:13). If, on the other hand, the narratives 42 C. Carmichael, Women, Law and the Genesis Traditions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), 10; see, further on this, 8–21. 43 J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1975).

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are later than Deuteronomy 24, one might read them—and especially the story in Genesis 12—where Pharaoh had taken Sarai into his harem—as allegorical parables, in which the husband Abram/Abraham, reunited again with Sarai/ Sarah, plays the role of Yahweh and the innocent wife that of the repentant Israel, returned to its God, similar to the reversal in Hosea’s new covenant that deconstructs the covenant of Genesis 9: You will call me ‘my husband.’ ... and I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the creeping things of the ground and I will break the bow, the sword and war from the land and I will make you lie down in safety and I will betroth you to me forever ... (Hos. 2:16‒19; cf. Jer. 3:6‒13). 5. Genesis 20:17‒18 and Isaiah 37:3: Such an allegorical reading finds at least a cumulative support in the description of the plague Yahweh sent because of Sarah. That Yahweh had ‘closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech’ (Gen. 20:18). At the close of the story, Sarah’s womb too is also opened; she conceives and bears her child, Isaac. Commenting on Isaac’s cue name, the narrative identifies Sarah’s ‘laughter’ as a laughter that God created and everyone will laugh with her (Gen. 21:6‒7; cf. Jub. 16:19‒20). The sickness that prepares the way for the birth of all the world’s laughter echoes the sack-clothed Hezekiah’s plea to Isaiah on the remnant Jerusalem’s day of distress: ‘Children have come to the birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth’ (Isa. 37:3): a plea which lays its trajectory beyond Hezekiah’s day of distress, towards Isaiah 40’s great song of reconciliation and return, when the potential of the child Shearyashub matures and the child Immanuel, having learned through suffering and exile, can finally reject evil and turn towards the good (Isa. 7:3; 40:1‒11). The child is the ransomed Israel of the return, Yahweh’s first

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born and suffering servant.44 Psalms 14 and 126 are appropriate texts for exposing the allegorical logic of the association of Gerar’s suffering and the birth of Isaac. Psalm 14, which defends the implicitly hidden nature of divine providence, closes on the theme of salvation from Zion and the reversal of Israel’s fortunes45 on themes of rejoicing and laughter, while Psalm 126, opening with these same themes of reversal and return, while filling the mouths of the singers with laughter and joy, closes on the all embracing principle: ‘Those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy; He that goes forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, comes home with shouts of joy, bearing his sheathes with him’ (Ps 126:5‒6). ON THE HISTORICITY OF THE ‘POST-EXILIC’ PERIOD: There is hardly room here to discuss in any adequate way at all the story in Genesis 22 of Yahweh’s testing of Abraham with the demand that he sacrifice his beloved son and only the briefest sketch of such a discussion can be offered here. While I believe that the understanding of the function of the story as a polemic against child sacrifice is an aspect of the story’s modern reception, reflecting as it does interests of the historian of religions, Jan Levenson, in his recent monograph, points out correctly the story’s intertextual relationship with the etiology for the vicarious sacrifice of the firstborn of the flock, illustrated in the Pentateuch’s dominant story of the first Passover (Ex. 12:1‒51; cf. 1 Sam. 24:25 and the commentary above).46 The first-born of Israel is presented as belonging to Yahweh, as the client’s tithe to his patron in gratitude for his own existence, supplying the story segment in the Abraham chain narrative with its central theological inspiration and raison d’etre, as well as a context far from the history of religions discussions about Phoenician child-sacrifice in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. From withOn this trope, see I. Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty, 142-147; Thompson, The Messiah Myth, 81-3. 45 On this trope, see Thompson, Messiah Myth, 113–15; 122–23. 46 J. D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 44

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in this theological perspective, one of the closest parallels to the story in Genesis 22 is rather the story of the testing of Job by Yahweh’s satan than the child-sacrifice motifs in the narrative of Jephthah’s daughter or in the scene of King Mesha’s desperation in a battle against a coalition of the kings of Edom, Judah and Israel (2 Kings 3:21–27), where themes dealing with the recklessness of giving oaths and the need for divine support in war are highlighted. Abraham’s story in Genesis 22, like Job’s, is rather a story dealing with trust in Yahweh as provider: one’s patron and the controller of one’s destiny.47 In considering the surface of the story of Abraham on Mount Moriah as illustrating the virtues of obedience and ‘fear of God’, one might also do well to reconsider the figure of the beloved son within the light of both Job and Isaiah’s suffering servant songs (Isa. 42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50: 4–11; 52:13– 53:12), as a potential allegory for Israel, the ‘beloved son’ which Yahweh gives to the sword that, through suffering and exile, he might return to the land. A common thread in the foregoing review of the Abraham narratives has been that the theme of ‘return’ is thoroughly idealistic and often eschatological. Allusions to a return from exile, ever implicit as they are in Abraham’s journey through the ‘promisedland’, seem concretely and specifically to reflect memories imbedded in the reading of texts, rather than memories of events which may or may not have occurred within the Persian or early Hellenistic periods.48 In a recent article summarizing the very problematic conclusions regarding our current knowledge of Persian and Hellenistic archaeological remains in Jerusalem,49 I came to the somewhat hesitant conclusion that the earlier understanding that I presented in my Early History of 1992,50 which had argued that the literary constructs of ‘exile’ and ‘return,’ so central to biblical tradi47 For an earlier discussion of this theological perspective, see Th. L. Thompson, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999), 301-322. See also now on the influence of patronage on the Bible’s theological world: E. Pfoh, The Emergence of Israel. 48 See my earlier discussion of the virtuality of these ‘memories’ in Thompson, ‘Reiterative Narrative’. 49 Th. L. Thompson, ‘What We Do and Do Not Know about PreHellenistic al-Quds’ (forthcoming). 50 Thompson, Early History, 339–51.

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tion, clearly related to the historical deportation and population transferences in Palestine’s past, was in need of serious revision. The visions of return expressed so variously in biblical traditions from Isaiah and Jeremiah to 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah seem to require a more thoroughgoing analysis than they have been given. Apart from the literary questions we have engaged in this article, the archaeological absence of evidence for significant rebuilding of the city on Ophel suggests that some four hundred years separate the destruction of Iron Age city of Urushalimmu and the deportation of its population from the restoration of the city through the construction of a Hellenistic city around the beginning of the 2nd century BCE. The need for a revision of our historical understanding seems very substantial, not least in regard to the assertion expressed in my earlier study that the origins of Judaism and the Bible’s intellectual matrix were rooted in the reflections of an historical remnant of returnees.51 As historical event and point of departure, any significant return from Babylon in the Persian period is simply not to be assumed without further evidence. Even less can such an historical return function as an historical explanation for Judaism’s origins, which rather needs to be sought apart from the historical Jerusalem. It is well recognized that the motif of the twelve gates of Ezekiel’s new Jerusalem has been reiterated in Revelation’s vision of a new Jerusalem, descended from heaven. In this revision, Revelation expanded the allegorical function of Ezekiel’s gates as representing the 12 tribes of Israel to also include allusion to the New Testament’s 12 apostles (Ezek. 48:30–35; Rev. 21:10–14). Such a reiterative allusion follows the pattern we have seen above regarding Genesis’ reiterations of themes of ‘return’ in the prophets. It is somewhat less recognized that the Book of Nehemiah’s account of the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall also holds a comparable memory of Ezekiel’s allegorically marked ‘new Jerusalem,’ implicit. This reiterative allusion can be understood as reflected in two different but related narrative references to the names of the gates of Nehemiah’s city wall, even as this memory is somewhat obscured by the lack of a specific allusion to Ezekiel’s text by Nehe51

Thompson, Early History, 415–23.

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miah’s author. In the account of the construction of the wall, Nehemiah 3 gives us the names for 10 of the gates, by itself raising a question of historical verisimilitude because of the unaccountably large number of gates in the wall of such a depopulated city. Clearly, Nehemiah’s projection is more idealistic than it is historical. Mentioned in Nehemiah 3 are the Sheep Gate, Fish Gate, Old Gate, Valley Gate, Dung Gate, Fountain Gate, Water Gate, Horse Gate, East Gate and Muster Gate. In the ensuing narrative of Nehemiah, however, and especially in the account of the dedication of the walls in Chapter 12, names of 8 gates are given in various contexts: Dung Gate; Fountain Gate; Water Gate; Gate of Ephraim; Old Gate; Fish Gate; Sheep Gate and Gate of the Guard, all together rendering a summary total of 12 named gates in Nehemiah’s wall. This clearly implies a background in the allegorical ‘new Jerusalem’ relevance of this wall and marks Nehemiah’s Jerusalem and his wall as a literary effort reiterating Ezekiel’s vision rather than as a historical memoire related to any realities of the Persian period. Although it is as yet too early to speak of a ‘convergence”52 between this analysis of texts and traditions with the historical questions raised by Israel Finkelstein53 concerning the historicity of a ‘post-exilic’ Jerusalem insofar as it assumes the historicity of a return of Judeans from exile in the Persian period, the evidence seems sufficient to consider a thorough revision of present reconstructions of the past.

52 The reference here to W. G. Dever’s methodological concept of ‘convergence’ is ironic in intent: see W. G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 97‒157. 53 I. Finkelstein, ‘Jerusalem in the Persian (and Early Hellenistic) Period and the Wall of Nehemiah,’ JSOT 32 (2008), 501‒520; idem, ‘Archaeology and the List of Returnees in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah,’ PEQ 140 (2008), 1‒10; idem, ‘The Territorial Extent and Demography of Yehud/ Judea in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods,’ RB 117/1 (2010), 39‒54; cf. also Th. L. Thompson, ‘Holy War at the Center of Biblical Theology: Shalom and the Cleansing of Jerusalem,’ in Th. L. Thompson (ed.), Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (London: T&T Clark Intl, 2003), 223–57.

INDEX OF AUTHORS Aharoni, Y., 25 Albertz., R., 21 Alt, A., 81 Alter, R., 32 Aristotle, 79 Assmann, J., 10, 103 Bar-Kochva, B., 21 Baldwin, J., 115 Baltzer, K., 78 , 79 Bautch, R.J., 19 Ben Zvi, E., 17, 27, 36, 39, 41, 45, 47, 52 Blenkinsopp, J., 3, 24, 31 Blum, E., 89, 92, 98 Briant, P., 13 Calvert-Koyzis, N., 62, 64 Carmichael, C., 125, 126 Clements, R.E., 33 Cohn, R.L., 31 Crüsemann, F., 88 Davies, P.R., 3, 8, 103 de Pury, A., 24, 89 Dever, W.G., 130 Descamp, M.T., 65 Dozeman, T. B., p. 91 Edelman, D.V., 23 Ego, B., 62, 63 Eissfeldt, O., 77 Elliger, K., 77 Emerton, J.A., 33, 95

Falk, D., 62 Feldman, L.H., 15, 56 Finkelstein, J.J., 51, 130 Fischer, I., 89 Fisk, B. N., 68 Fröhlich, I., 64, 69 Galter, H.D., 105 Gertz, J.C., 93, 95 Glissmann, V., 95 Goldingay, J., 48 Gosse, B., 98 Grabbe, L.L., 116 Gregory, B.C., 43 Greimas, A.J., 27 Guillaume, P., 109 Gunkel, H., 3 Hallo, W.W., 19, 112, 116 Handy, L.K., 35 Harrington, D.J., 63, 65 Harvey, J.E., 32 Hendel, R.S., 14 Hengel, M., 67 Herbert, T., 117, 118 Hieke, T., 84 Hjelm, I., 105, 110, 120, 127 Hurowitz, V.A., 31 Ishida, T., 100 Jacobson, H., 62, 64, 65, 69 Janzen, D., 33

131

132

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Janzen, J.G., 52 Japhet, S., 32 Kallai, Z., 25 Kalimi, I., 34 Kellermann, U., 67 Kienle, B. von, 62, 64, 67 Knauf, E.A., 4 Knierim, R.P., 87 Knoppers, G.N., 33 Kratz, R. G., 89 Kugel, J.L., 42, 44 Köckert, M., 90 Lemche, N.P., 25, 111 Lenzen, V., 67, 68 Levenson; J.D., 38, 43, 128 Levin, C., 89, 93 Liverani, M., 24 Luckenbill, D.D., 116 Maddox, D., 27 Masson, O., 93 McDonough, S., 32 McPherson Rudisil, P., 40 Mendels, D., 21 Millard, A.R., 52 Moberly, R.W.L., 87 Mor, M., 21 Müller, M., 62 Murphy, F., 64 Na’aman, N., 25 Niehr, H., 5, 122 Nihan, C., 98 Noegel, S.B., 94 Noth, M., 77, 78, 81 Oberhänsli-Widmer, G., 63, 68, 69 Palmquist, S.R., 40 Pfoh, E., 123, 128 Polak, F., 23

Porten, B., 51 Rad, G. von, 41, 77 Reinmuth, E., 69 Rendtorff, R., 88, 94 Roukema, R., 88 Römer, Thomas, 4, 21, 55, 57, 88, 89, 90, 95 Sandmel, S., 14 Schmid, K., 41, 89 Schmidt, L., 93 Schunk, M., 109 Schwartz, D.R., 21 Schwartz, J., 37 Schwartz, S., 10 Schäfer, P., 68 Sebass, H., 94 Ska, J.L., 24, 98 Snell, D.C., 47 Speiser, E.A., 107, 108, 111, 114 Staerk, W., 89 Stavrakopoulou, F., 23, 32 Sternberg, M., 31 Stern, M., 21 Strange, J., 103 Strong, J.T., 117, 118 Tausend, K., 81 Tengström, S., 106 Thompson, Th.L., 103, 106, 108, 109, 112, 118, 119, 120, 122, 127, 128, 129, 131 Thompson, S., 124 Tiemeyer, L.-S., 14 Tigay, J.H., 52 van der Hout, P.J., 112. Van Seters J., 14, 25, 48, 51, 89, 91, 95, 103, 126

INDEX OF AUTHORS van den Toorn, K., 105 Vermes, G., 64 Visotzky, B.L., 49 Wellhausen, J., 105, 106

Weimar, P., 88 Weinfeld, M., 37 Yardeni, A., 51 Zakovitch, Y., 32

133

Index of Biblical References Genesis 1-11 1:28 2:3 2:15 3:14-15 3:23-24 4 4:7 4:11-12 4:17 5 5:22 5:24 5:29 6:1-2 6:12 6-8 8:20-21 8:21-22 8:20-22 9 9:2 10 10:15-19 10:21 10:21-25 10:25

117n 107 106 105, 107 106 105, 106, 107 111 106 107 21, 117 108 56n 56n 107 108 109 108 108 114 110 126 108 7, 116, 117 24n 7 7 64n

11 11:1-9 11:3 11:4 11:4.9 11:14-17

7, 64n 117n 63 117, 118 117 7

11:16-26 11:26–12:3.6 11:27-32 11:28.31 11:31 11:31-12:3 11:31(?)12:5 11:32-12:1 11:27–25:10 11:27-25:11 11:27-32 12

7 119 57 92n 3, 51, 96 38 120 51 14 24n 57 4, 58, 91, 125, 126 51n, 69 40, 57, 59, 69 98 38, 119, 122, 123 40 32n, 57n 32n 120

12:1 12:1-3 12:1-4 12:3 12:4a 12:5-6 12:6 12:6.8

135

136

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

12:7 12:10–20

20 90, 91, 96, 125 49n 90 90 125 90 50 49 90 90 120, 121 50 120 121 20 9n, 34n, 55, 56n, 80, 95, 95n, 97n, 121, 122 122 120 8 53 122 33, 80 35 97 122 92n, 92, 93, 94, 95, 95n, 96, 97, 98n, 99, 100, 101 95 94 94, 94n 93

12:10-13:2 12:11 12:12 12:13a 12:16 12:16.20 12:17 12:19 12:20 13 13:1-2 13:2(?)12 13:14(?)17 13:15.17 14

14:1-12 14:1.24 14:13 14:14-15 14:17 14:18-20 14:18-22 14:20 14:22 15

15:1 15:1-6 15:2-3 15:2-6

15:4 15:5 15:6 15:7 15:7-18 15:7-19 15:11 15:12 15:13 15:13-16 15:14 15:16 15:17 15:18 15:18-19 15:19-21 16 16:6 16:11 17 17:8 17:5 17:10-11 17:12 17:19 18 18:17 18.18 18:22-33 18:22-19:38 18:23 18:23-32

98 93 82, 97, 100, 101 69, 95, 96, 100, 119 93 94 93 92, 94 91, 93, 96 92, 93 43 37, 96 93, 96 5, 20, 24n, 93, 97 37 94, 100 90, 91, 91n, 96 91 91 44, 69, 92, 97, 98, 98n 22, 24 18 44 44 98n 123 99 38 123 123 123 45, 46, 46n

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

19 19:15 19:24 19:36-38 20 20:1(?)18 20:3-7 20:7 20:7.17-18 20:11 20:14 20:16 20:17 20:17-18 20:18 21 21:4 21:6.7 21:22-34 22 22:2 22:1.3 22:12 22:14 22:16-18 22:16-19 22:17 22:18b 23 23:6 23:16 23:19 24 24:7 24:4.10 24:60

46, 121, 123, 124 113n 115n 122 4, 98, 99, 125 125 35 36, 98 50 35 50 126 98 126 126 96 44 127 35n 31, 33, 40, 80, 127, 128 33 120 40 119 42 19 29 42 31, 36 36, 55n 30n 33 3 20 51, 51n 55n

25 25:8 25:20 26 26:3 26:3-5 26:4 26:5 26:5a 26:7.11 26:24 28:1-5 28:13 28:14 28:22 32:13 33:18 33:18-19 34:14 34:30 35:27-29 36 50:24 Exodus 1:5 1:11-12 2 2:15 2:24 3-4 3:6.15 3:6.15.16 3:7 3:8 3:8.17 3:15

137

101 92 51 125 20 40 29 42, 43 42 125 41 3 20 38 122 43 32n, 33n, 57n 32n 44 28n 4 101 20 29 91 87 90 43 88n 19 43 58, 91 20, 22, 87, 100 22 5

138

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

3:17 3:17-22 4:5 4:22-23 4:24-26 5:21 6:3 6:8 7:1 11:27–12:5 12:1-4 12:1-(?)51 12:11 12:25-36 12:32 12:37-38 12:40 12:40-41 12:48 13:5 13:5.11 13:21-22 14:19 14:31 15:26 16:28 17:8-14 19:18 20:2 20:5 20:6 20:16 24:12 31-34 32 32:7 32:7-14 32:13

100 96 19 20 44n 90 99 20, 43 99 95 95 128 48 50 90 29 92n, 96 43 44n, 45 22 20 48 48 43n 43 43 56n 96 95 96 42 95n 43 48 99, 109, 110 109 109 19, 20, 29, 41

33:1 33:2 34:7 34:11

20 22 96 22

Leviticus 1:1-17 8:3 12:3 19:18 19:23 26:15 26:41 26:42

108 22 44 83 44n 43 45 19, 20

Numbers 1:46-47 2:32 11 11:3 11:21 12:7 12:6-8 13-14 14 14:12 14:17-19 14:18 14:20 14:23 14:21-35 14:36-38 20:12 21:21–35 21:21.35 26:51 32 32:11

29 29 109 65n 29 43n 99 115 96n, 99, 109, 112 110 112 112, 113 112 20 112 112, 115 100 21n, 55 22 29 121 20

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

32:12 34 34:1-12

100 5 24n

Deuteronomy 1:8 1:10 2:26–3:13 3:14 4:27 4:31 4:37 4:47 5:9 5:10 5:29 5:31 6:1-2 6:2 6:5 6:10 7:1 7:7 7:7-8.13 8:6 9:5 9:27 10:15 10:15-16 10:22 11:1 11:1.13.22 11:24 12:5 13:5 14:1 14:23-25 16:3

5, 18, 20 29 21n, 55 21 29 19 39 22 96 42 43n 43 43 43n 39n 5, 20 22 30n 39 43n 5, 20 19, 41 39 45n 29 42, 43 39n 97 80 43n 20 80 48

139

17:9 17:14 17:14-20 17:18-20 18 18:15 23:6 24 24:1.4 24:16 26:5 26:6 26:7 28:62 29:13 30:6 30:6-9 30:20 32:6 31:12 32:8 33:29 34 34:4 34:10 34:10-12

43n 54 54 54 98, 99 98 39 113, 125, 126 125 112 29, 51, 52 91 19 29 5 45 45 5, 20, 43 19n 43n 117 97 87 20 92 99

Joshua 1:2.7.13.15 1:4 1:8 3:10 5:2-8 13:1-13 13:2-6 14:6 14:14 23:2-3

43n 97 54, 54n 22 44n 24n 28n 100 100 57

140

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

24 24:2-3 24:2-4 24:3 24:15

95 57 51 96 57

Judges 1 1:16 3:1-5 14:3 15:18 17-21 19 19–21

28n 100 28n 44 44 100 123 8n

1 Samuel 3:20 8 12:14 14:6 15 15:9-11 15:16 17:26, 36 23:2-3 24:14 24:15 24:17 24:25 31:4

28n 121 40 44 110 110 100 44 57n 110 57n 110 110, 128 44

2 Samuel 3:10 5:9 6:11 7 7:12 17:11

28n 21 98n 98, 98n 98 28n

24 24:1-9 24:2 24:12-13 24:16 24:18 24:20-25

115 110 28n 50 22 22n 32

1 Kings 5:5 6:24 8 8:29 8:31-32 8:33-34 8:35-36 8:37-40 8:46 8:46-53 11:38 14:24 16:24 18:36 22:17

28n 22n 110, 113 80 115 115 115 116 113 113 43 22 22 19 117

2 Kings 3:21-27 9:21 12.20-21 13:23 14:5-6 16:3 17 17:6 17:8.11 17:13 18:11 21:2 24:7

128 22 113 19 113 22 8 105 22 43 105 22 97

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

25 25:25-26

105 101

1 Chronicles 1:1-2:2 5:26 12:18 16:15 16:15-18 16:21-22 16:15-22 21 21:22 21:21-22:1 27:23 29:18

33n 105 19 28 20 30, 36 29 110, 115 22n 32 29 19

2 Chronicles 3:1 7:19 8:7-8 20:7 24:25 25:1-5 26:22-23 30:6 36:21-23

22n, 32, 119 43 22 19, 39, 39n 113 113 35 19 116

Ezra 1:4 7:25-26 9:8-9 9-10 10:9

50 6 80 120 120

Nehemiah 3 9 9:7

130 14n 96

141

9:8 9-10 12 13:1.3 23-30

22, 42 82 130 120 120

Job 29:17 38 40

106 41n 41n

Proverbs 1:7

110

Psalms 1 1:3 14 47:5 47:10 72:8 72:9 74:14 76:3 105:6.42 105:8-15 105:9-11 105:11 105:12 105:14-15 105:42 105:44 110:2-4 110:4 115:16 126 126:5.6

117 117 127 39 19, 20 104 106 106 33 41 29 20 22 28 30, 36 19 22 33 123 106 127 127

142

Isaiah 1:1 1:2 2:2 2:2-4 2:3 5 5:1-7 6 7:3 7:9 13:9-13.19-20 13:1-14:23 14:1 14:11 14:14 14:21-22 14:32 27:1-6 27:12 29:17 29:22 29:23 31:9 32:15 37:3 40 40:1(?)11 40:9 41:8 42:1-4 44:1-6 44:28 45:1(?)13 46:1-4 48:2 49:1-6

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

78 20 78 38 78 124 106, 117 78 127 97 117 117 118 117 117 118 118 106 97 107 81 81 (?) 96n 107 126, 127 127 127 78, 82, 83 14n, 19, 39, 39n, 81, 82 128 107 35 35 117 83 128

49:6-7 50:4-11 51:2 51:1-3 51:2 51:3 51:4 52:1 52:11-12 52:12aa 52:12b 52:13-53:12 54:2 55 56:1-8 63:15 63:16 64:7 65 65:17–66:2 66:10.18-21 66:21

38n 128 30n 29 14n, 81, 82 82 38 44, 83 48 48 48 128 80 82 38, 38n 83 14n, 19n, 81, 83 19n 120 118 122 83

Jeremiah 1 2:21 3:6.13 4:4 5:1 9:25 11:5 12:7 24:5-7 24:10 25:8-14 27:22 29:10-14

99 117 126 45 123 44 19, 20 37 114 115 116 48n 116

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

31 31:1–40 31:2 31:9 31:9.20 31:27-30 33:26 41-43 50:4 50:4–5.17–19 50:1-51:58 50:17.20

120 118 39 19n 20 113 18 103, 105 118 118 (?) 117 119

Lamentations 4:15 5:7

48n 113

Ezekiel 1:3 5:17 6:11-12 11:15 11:17-21 16:1-43 16:3 16:46 16:51 16:53-58 16:1.63 17:1-10 18 18:1-4 18:5-9 18:9-13 18:14-17 18:21-23 18:29 18:30-32 19:10-14

99 115 115 14n 114 125 47 125 125 125 124 117 113, 115 113 113 113 114 114 114 114 117

143

23:1-49 25:1-11 32 33:23 33:24 34:5.11.12 36:26-32 37:25 44:3 44:7.9 47 47:1-12 47:13-20 48:1.28 48:30-35

124 124 44n 14n 29n, 30n 117 114 36 36 44 120 107 24n 24n 130

Daniel 3:6 3:22 12:2f

67n 65n 67n

Hosea 2:2 2:16-17 2:16.19 8:1 9:15 11:1 11:8-9 14:5

20 39 126 37 37 20, 39 31n 39

Joel 4:18

107

Amos 2:10 3:2 3:7 9:7

22 40n 99 48n

144

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Jonah 1:2 4:2

111 111

Micah 4:1-5

38

Haggai 2:6-9

38

Zechariah 8:20-23 9:8 14:8-11 14.20-21

38 37 107 83

Malachi 1:2 3:22-24

39 120

2 Esdras 13:39-45 13:47

Sirach 48:9-11

120

1 Maccabees 1:57f.60–64 2:(?)29–38

67n 67n

2 Maccabees 6:10–11 6:18-31 7:1-42

67n 67 67

Matthew 2:11

55n

Acta Acts 6:1

6

2 Corinthians 11:22

6

105 105

Philippians 3:5

6

Judith 5:6

58n

Ecclesiastes 1: 9

Revelation 9:14 21:10-14 22

105 130 107

119

Book of Jubilees 11:1.24 11:16-17 12:2-8 12:12-14 12 13:13 16:19.20 38

61 58n 58n 58n 96n 126 127 54n