Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Reference / Commentaries

Morton Smith and Gershom Scholem, Correspondence 1945-1982 edited by Guy G.

Stroumsa (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture: Brill) The American historian of
ancient religions Morton Smith (1915- 1991) studied with the great scholar of Jewish
mysticism Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), when he was in Jerusalem during the Second
World War. After the war, the two started a long, fascinating and at times intense
correspondence that ended only with Scholem's death. These letters, found in the
Scholem archive in the National Library in Jerusalem, provide a rare perspective on the
world and the approach of two leading historians of religion in the twentieth century.
They also shed important new light upon Smith's discovery of a letter attributed to
Clement of Alexandria referring to a secret Gospel of Mark.

Guy G. Stroumsa, PhD (Harvard, 1978), is the Martin Buber Profes-sor of Comparative
Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was the founding Director of
the Center for the Study of Christianity. He has published extensively on the history of
religions in late antiquity. Among his recent works: Lafin du sacrifice: les mutations
relisieuses de l'antiquite tardive (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005) and Le rire du Christ (Paris:
Bayard, 2006).
Excerpt: Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) stands among the towering historians of
religions in the twentieth century Although less prominent, Morton Smith (1915-1991)
was a leading student of ancient Mediterranean religions. They came from very different
religious, cultural and linguistic milieus: Scholem from the assimilated Jewish
bourgeoisie of Berlin, Smith from an affluent Episcopalian family from Philadelphia.
They met in 1940 in Jerusalem, while Smith was a research student at the Hebrew
University, where Scholem taught. Their correspondence, which starts with Smith's
return to the USA in 1945, ending only with Scholem's death in 1982, provides a rare
perspective on the growing friendship of these two remarkable scholars. It reflects their
shifting scholarly pursuits and their lasting intellectual interests. Both men show some
similar traits of character, in particular an abiding interest in religious phenomena,
grounded in youthful experiences, but always kept under the rigorous control of stringent
rational criticism. These 121 letters (72 written by Smith, and 49 by Scholem) are kept in
the Scholem archive at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem.' They
offer a rare glimpse into the odd and complex ways of translatio studii through continents
and across fields, following the vagaries of displaced scholars in turbulent times — the
Republique des Lettres in a dark century.
The main interest of the whole correspondence, to my mind, lies in the fact that while it
ended less than twenty-five years ago, it captures for us, in a way that can hardly be
followed today, a particularly vivid and sharp image of scholarship in the making.
Meetings, exchange of ideas, manuscripts, books, bibliographical references, gossip,
travels, translations, misunderstandings, letters of recommendation: all this, among
scholars not yet quite familiar with the telephone. Since the death of these two scholars,
the internet and email revolution has had a dramatic effect upon the daily lives of
scholars. But this effect can barely be captured, as it remains in the electronic, virtual
world.
While it may be true, as Steven Aschheim has written, that Scholem (Scholem the
intellectual) still awaits his biographer, the daily life of a scholar is hardly exciting stuff
for a biographer. Throughout his life, Scholem, like Smith, was mainly a scholar: day
after day, and often night after night, reading, interpreting, translating, annotating,
emending, thinking about texts and their significance, all this while struggling through
the thousand battles of life, in harsh times, when a life dedicated to scholarship is less
than evident for society at large. Scholem and Smith were both, in different ways, free
spirits, or rather spirits in search of freedom — a freedom probably harder to achieve in
the study of religion than in any other field."

Smith came to Jerusalem in 1940 and stayed there during the war years. He would return
to the United States only in 1945. During those years, he registered as a graduate student
at the Hebrew University and submitted a PhD thesis, in Hebrew, entitled "Tannaitic
Parallels to the Gospels" (Scholem refers to "the first Christian PhD of the Hebrew
University"). This thesis was supervised by Professor Moshe Schwabe, who was the
founder of the Department of Classics at the Hebrew University and had been a student
of Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. Dur-ing that period, Gershom Scholem was Smith's
mentor. Smith took his courses on the history of Jewish mysticism, and translated from
Hebrew to English the text of Scholem's lectures on the origins of Kabbalah.2 When he
went back to the United States, Smith began a correspondence with his Jerusalem mentor.
The correspondence as a whole highlights a peculiar chapter in the history of scholarship
(and in particular of Jewish scholarship) during almost the first four decades after the
Second World War, both in the USA and in Israel. Among the American scholars
mentioned in the letters, often time and again, are (in alphabetical order) Alexander Alt-
mann, Zvi Ankori, Salo W Baron, Elias Bickermann, William Braude, Millar Burrows,
Gerson Cohen, Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, Werner Jaeger, Helmut Koester, Saul
Lieberman, Jacob Neusner, Arthur Darby Nock, Shalom Spiegel, Harry Austryn
Wolfson. Among the scholars from the Hebrew University some of them former teachers
or friends of Smith during his Jerusalem years, one finds Martin Buber, David Flusser,
Amos Funkenstein, Hans Lewy, Hans Jonas, Hans Jacob Polotsky, Shmuel Sambursky,
Moshe Schwabe, Yeshayahu Tishby, Zvi Werblowsky and Haim Wirszubski.

The scholarly topics that recur time and again in these letters are all related to the study
of religion, in particular to Kabbalah, messianism, magic, Gnosticism, monasticism,
Patristics and Hekhalot literature (i.e., late antique Hebrew mystical texts dealing with
Ezekiel's Chariot). For years after his return to the USA, Smith worked on translating
Hekhalot texts. The letters also offer some sharp observations about the study of religion,
for instance when Smith rhetorically asks Scholem: "Why is it that the study of religion
attracts so many nitwits?" (Let-ter 84). Moreover, they reflect on academic politics, in
particular over the difficulties in Smith's career before his appointment as Professor of
Ancient History at Columbia, side by side with Elias Bickermann, whom he eventually
replaced after Bickermann's retirement.' In 1956, Scholem writes: "How American
Universities let a scholar like yourself sit around and wait for a good appointment is
above my understand-ing" (Letter 53). The letters also illuminate Scholem's various
teaching trips to the USA.
The letters also reflect, from time to time, on contemporary political conditions and
events. Smith tells Scholem about anti-Semitism in post-war USA; Scholem refers to a
distressing trip to Germany after the war, in order to save remaining books of Jewish
interest. The political situation in Palestine in 1948 is referred to: there are some vignettes
on the siege of Jerusalem. On 22 May 1967, Smith had these prophetic words: "Needless
to say, I have no fears for Israel — save that you may punch so hard you give yourselves
a black eye" (Letter 83).
Both show a clear and deep interest in the other's field of research: Scholem, whose long-
standing interest in Gnosticism (which he saw as the source of Jewish mysticism) is well
known, sees the Carpocratians) as "the Frankists of antiquity" (Letter 66). Scholem
indeed does not hide his deep interest in "religious nihilism" (Letter 27) and in
"comparative mysticism." The differences in age and status, as well as in culture, do not
prevent their friendship and the warmth in their relationship from growing. In 1956-1957
(Letters 54-55), since Scholem's stay in the USA, which Smith had a large part in
organizing, they start calling one another "Dear Morton," "Dear Gershom."
These letters, then, shed new light on these two great philologists, on their highly
complex personalities and ways of thinking, on their struggles with facts and ideas, on
their reactions to contemporary events. Scholem, whose deep friendship with Walter
Benjamin, exemplified by their correspondence and by Scholem's book on it, has been
widely acknowledged, much beyond scholarly circles, as a leading intellectual figure of
the twentieth century.' Almost single-handedly, Scholem established, over a long life of
relentless study of mostly Medieval texts, often available only in manuscripts, the field of
Kabbala and Jewish mysticism studies.'

Scholem's fame is strongly established upon two pillars: the one, his leading role in the
development of Jewish Studies in the contemporary scene, both in Israel and in the
world; the other, his connections with a small group of Jewish intellectual exiles from
Nazi Germany, which included, of course, Walter Benjamin, the close friend of his youth,
but also Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno and Max Bloch. We know Scholem's complex
personality rather well, thanks in particular to the three volumes of his published
correspondence, together with the two volumes of his youth journals and his
autobiographical work Von Berlin nach Jerusalem. But it is precisely the obvious nature
of these two pillars, the success of Jewish studies as well as the curiosity and respect
given to Adorno, Arendt, Benjamin and their likes, that might be misleading. One forgets
too often that Scholem intended to "redeem" the study of Judaism by rooting it into the
general history of religion (allgemeine Religionswissenschaft). This field was rather
distinguished in Weimar Germany, since the glorious days of the Religionsgeschichtliche
Schule at the end of the nineteenth century, when Wilhelm Bousset and his Got-tingen
colleagues were preaching through example of the comparative study of ancient Near
Eastern and Jewish material together with that of biblical material, both from the Old and
the New Testaments. Just as Scholem's deep Zionist convictions were meant to bring the
Jews back into history, so his scholarly approach searched for a way to re-integrate the
religious history of the Jews into the history of religions. While the importance of
Scholem's works for the phenomenological understanding of mystical phenomena is now
widely recognized, his deep interest in the religious upheaval in the first Christian
centuries seems to be hardly mentioned. Scholem, in particular, attached a very high
importance to the birth of Christianity and of Gnosticism. Together with the work of
Bousset, that of Rudolph Bultmann and Max Lidzbarski meant much for Scholem:
Gnosis, then perceived to have been a "world religion" of sorts, was a major
phenomenon, and Scholem never doubted its significance for a proper understanding of
the formation of Rabbinic Judaism and of the earliest stages of Jewish mysticism. The
Gnostic upheaval of religious traditions and rejection of canonical texts had a strong
appeal for Scholem's "religious anarchism." And his interest in the earliest stages of
Christianity never abated. Scholem worked hard over a long period to promote at the
Hebrew University the comparative study of religion and the study of Christianity.' While
some of these efforts bore fruit, the comparative study of religious phenomena has
retained a modest place in the mind of the Israeli public compared to that of Jewish
Studies. Scholem's long correspondence with Smith, which deals frequently with issues
of early Christianity, should help in restoring the proper balance. Another new emphasis
of these letters is the place of the United States in Scholem's career. Scholem is usually
and naturally understood through his German intellectual background and his major role
in the development of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University (which remained for
some critical decades the only institution of higher learning and research in the
Humanities in Jewish Palestine and early Israel), but this approach prevents a proper
appreciation of his major impact upon Jewish and religious studies in the USA. Here too,
the publication of the Scholem-Smith letters should permit a better understanding of his
pioneering role.
While Scholem's striking intellectual and scholarly legacy is clearly delineated in today's
study of Jewish mysticism, that of Morton Smith remains much less well known, and
much harder to define. Smith's research had mainly to do with antiquity. In his necrology,
W. M. Calder, III states: "Religionsgeschichte in the US has lost its most eru-dite and
controversial figure, an exponent of Böckh's totius antiquitatis cognitio."9 Smith's
interests brought him to fields as different as ancient Israel, early Christianity, Judaism in
late antiquity and magic in the Greco-Roman world. His scholarly interests intersected
with those of Scholem at the meeting point between Judaism and Christianity, between
magic and mysticism, between the ancient and the medieval worlds. Arguing against the
intellectually pernicious and heuristically dangerous segregation of knowledge into
sealed compartments, Smith was quite effective as a radical critic of traditionally held
views. Probably because he was working in areas more densely traveled and closer to the
heart of Christian believers, his work generated much more animosity than Scholem's.
Thus, he was usually considered to be much more convincing as a critic than when he
offered his own interpretation. Smith consistently shunned disclosure of his personal life
and, in striking contradistinction with Scholem, almost never showed an interest in
publicly expressing views outside scholarly circles." While Scholem, since his youth,
kept systematic care of his diaries and letters, Smith ordered his own personal
correspondence to be destroyed after his death (his archival papers donated to the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York contain considerable professional correspondence;
after Scholem's death, he must have returned all letters Scholem had sent him to his
widow Fania). While he was an intellectual iconoclast, Smith maintained all his life very
conservative political ideas. Scholem, on the other hand, who in his youth had been some
kind of an anarchist, remained very much on the left of the political spectrum to his late
years — although he very rarely expressed himself publicly on political matters.
The psychological differences between them, compounded by the difference in age and
status when the correspondence starts, explain why the letters as a whole are more
revealing about Smith than about Scholem. The letters shed light, in particular, on
Smith's intellectual evolution, on the deep impact his studies at the Hebrew University
had upon him, and on the genesis and development of some of his most important
insights and discoveries. Professor Shaye Cohen, Smith's literary executor, wrote that
Smith revived the old religionsgeschichtlisch approach to the New Testament. This is
certainly true, but one should add that Smith put Judaism at the core of his approach,
while too many contemporary scholars claiming to work within this methodological
school tend to ignore or downplay the crucial role of Judaism in Christian origins. On the
other hand, those scholars who approach early Christianity from the angle of its Jewish
background too often ignore or downplay the broader context of the Hellenistic and
Roman religious world. Smith, who was equally conversant in Greek and in Hebrew, and
felt at home among pagans, Jews and Christians, never sought to avoid or circumvent
difficult problems, always attacking them upfront — and always with panache. More than
anyone else, perhaps, Smith sought to work on the meeting-points between traditionally
defined religious identities. At the intersection between Judaism and Christianity, and in
the background of mysticism, he saw magic. Scholem's fascination with religious
antinomianism, from his youthful flirt with nihilism to the opus maximum of his
maturity, his biography of Sabbatai Zvi, left, as we shall see, a powerful imprint on the
mind of his young Christian student, who would serve, for a short while, as an
Episcopalian priest, before deciding, later in life, that Jesus had been a magician.
If Smith achieved notoriety in circles much broader than those of philological
scholarship, this is due to his discovery, in the Palestinian monastery of Mar Saba, of a
letter of Clement of Alexandria mention-ing a previously unknown secret Gospel of
Mark.' This discovery is of major significance for both New Testament studies and early
Church history. The passage of the Secret Gospel quoted in Clement's letter has usually
been interpreted, by Smith as by most of his detractors, as alluding to strange rituals, with
homoerotic intimations, practiced by Jesus and his disciples. The very fact that such a
Secret Gospel was kept by the Church authorities in late-second-century Alexandria is
note-worthy. The official "orthodox" Church thus appears to be dangerously close to
some of the Gnostic (and libertine) sects it was fighting, and in particular of the
Carpocratians, mentioned in Clement's letter.
Smith, obviously expecting strong resistance to accepting the new document, spent years
of careful research to demonstrate the authenticity of Clement's letter. His lengthy
argument, in Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, shows a philologist
fully mastering his craft. But Smith was not satisfied with simply providing a philological
demonstration of Clement's authorship. From the letter attributed to Clement, he also
subsequently developed his own view on the nature of Jesus' rituals. For him, the very
first Christian ritual, the Eucharist, needed to be understood as a case of erotic magic, a
view he first expresses to Scholem in 1974 (see Letter 97).
Smith's discovery and his interpretation aroused a particularly violent polemic in the
world of New Testament and early Christianity schol-arship, especially in the United
States.' The discovery itself seems to have deeply offended the religious sensibilities of
many scholars, who could not conceive of such a picture of the Lord emerging from a
cred-ible ancient text. Various attempts were made to show the inauthentic character of
the new text. Moreover, Smith himself was accused, in various quarters, directly or
through innunendo (as a homosexual, he would have had a personal interest in
representing Jesus' homosexual practice) of having forged the famous letter."
This polemic, which started more than thirty years ago, has been recently rekindled, at
least in America." Suspicion has been much aug- mented by the strange disappearance of
the manuscript of Clement's letter. The letter had been copied into the final blank pages
of a seventeenth-century edition of Patristic writings. That book is now kept in the
Library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, but the final pages, with
Clement's letter, have been cut out and are not to be found anywhere.
While no definitive proof will ever satisfy Smith's debunkers, his correspondence with
Scholem sheds some new light on Smith's Mar Saba discovery and on his state of mind
afterwards, while he was working on the presentation of his discovery to the scholarly
world. The correspondence should provide sufficient evidence of his intellectual honesty
to anyone armed with common sense and lacking malice."
The strange fate of Clement of Alexandria's letter to Theodore may be taken as the
philological equivalent of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle — that the very attempt to
observe a subatomic particles trajectory changes its course. In the spring of 1976, a party
of four, including the late David Flusser, Professor of New Testament, the late Shlomo
Pines, Professor of medieval Arabic and Jewish philosophy, both at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Archimandrite Meliton, from the Greek Patriarchate in
Jerusalem (at the time a research student at the Hebrew University) and Guy G. Stroumsa
(then a graduate student at Harvard University), drove (in Stroumsa’s car) from
Jerusalem to Mar Saba monastery, in the Judean wilderness, in the quest for Clement's
letter.
“Together with Flusser and Pines, I had been intrigued by Morton Smith's sensational
description of his find, and we wanted to see the text with our own eyes. When we
reached the monastery, with the help of one of the monks, whose name I have forgotten,
we began searching for Isaac Vossius' edition of the Letters of Ignatius on the very dusty
shelves of the library in the monastery's tower. The young monk and Archimandrite
Meliton explained to us that most books from the monastery's library had been moved to
the Patriarchate library in Jerusalem after too many thefts had occurred. We did come
with great expectations, and indeed the monk soon found the book, with "Smith 65"
inscribed on its front page. There, on the blank pages at the end of the book, were the
three manuscript pages of Clement's letter, exactly as described by Smith. The book had
clearly remained where Smith had found it, and where he had replaced it after having
made his photographs. It was obvious to all of us that the precious book should not be left
in place, but rather should be deposited in the library of the Patriarchate. So we took the
book with us back to Jerusalem, and Father Meliton brought it to the library We planned
to analyze the manuscript seriously and contemplated an ink analysis. At the National and
University Library, however, we were told that only at the Police Headquarters were
people equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools for such an analysis. Father
Meliton made it clear that he had no intention of putting the Vossius book in the hands of
the Israeli police. We gave up, I went back to Harvard, and when I returned to Jerusalem
to teach, more than two years later, I had other commitments. It was only recently, more
than a quarter of a century later, in talking to American colleagues, that I realized that I
am, as one of these colleagues put it, the "last living Western scholar" to have seen the
Clement manuscript, and that I had a duty to testify in front of a still puzzled or skeptical
scholarly world. What seems clear is that it was our journey of discovery that led to
someone's excision, and possibly destruction, of the Clementine manuscript."
Since I have been interested in early Christian esoteric traditions for many years, the idea
of a secret Gospel in the Alexandrian Church never really surprised me." Smith's analysis
of the Secret Gospel, though brilliant, may be ultimately unconvincing, but the
continuous skepticism about the very existence of Clement's letter, and accusations of
forgery — a forgery perhaps made by Smith himself — have always seemed to me to
stem from quite unscholarly grounds, usually implicit rather than explicitly stated. To my
mind, the new evidence strongly points to the total trustworthiness of Smith's account of
his important discovery (though not necessarily of his interpretation of the document).

Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy & the Holiness Legislation by
Jeffrey Stackert (Forschunmgen Zum Alten Testament: Mohr Siebeck) Jeffrey Stackert
explores literary correspondences among the penta¬teuchal legal corpora and especially
the relationships between similar laws in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (Lev
17-26).
Through an analysis of the pentateuchal laws on asylum, seventh-year release,
manumission, and tithes, he argues that the Holiness Legislation depends upon both the
Covenant Collection and Deuteronomy. The author also elucidates the compositional
logic of the Holiness legislators, showing that these authors employ a method of literary
revision in which they reconceptualize source material according to their own ideological
biases. In the end, the Holiness Legislation proves to be a "super law" that collects and
distills the Priestly and non-Priestly laws that precede it.
By accommodating, reformulating, and incorporating various viewpoints from these
sources, the Holiness authors create a work that is intended to supersede them all.
This study explores literary correspondences among the pentateuchal legal corpora and
especially the relationship between similar laws in Deuteronomy and the Holiness
Legislation (Lev 17-26, the so-called "Holiness Code," as well as significant parts of the
Priestly source elsewhere in the Pentateuch). Resemblances between these legislative
sources range from broad structure to fine detail, including the treatment of similar
topics, correlations with regard to sequence of laws, and precise grammatical and lexical
correspondences. Nevertheless, the nature and basis of their similarities persist as debated
points among biblical scholars, whose theories for explaining such issues range from
direct, literary dependence of one text upon another (with chronological priority afforded
to any of the respective sources) to the complete independence of the different legal
corpora.
Through a comparative examination of the legal topics of asylum, seventh-year release,
manumission for slavery, and tithes, this study argues that the Holiness Legislation
depends upon both the Covenant Collection and Deuteronomy. It also elucidates the
compositional logic of the Holiness legislators in their interaction with their source texts,
showing that these authors do not simply replicate pre-existing legal content. Rather, they
employ a method of literary revision in which they reconceptualize source material
according to their own ideological biases.
In the end, the Holiness Legislation proves to be a sort of "super law" that collects and
distills the several law collections that precede it. By accommodating, reformulating, and
incorporating various viewpoints of these sources, the Holiness authors create a work that
is intended to supersede them all.
The potential benefits of reconstructing a text's compositional logic are substantial.
Ideally, such an analysis provides a window on the intellectual world of the revisionary
author, thereby contributing to the larger pursuit of understanding what the Bible is and
what its contents meant in antiquity. Moreover, such an assessment provides a point for
comparison with other examples of ancient literary revision, both biblical and extra-
biblical, providing important data for understanding ancient literature. Finally, because
all of the evidence employed in such an argument is readily accessible, the narrative
created to describe the later author's exegetical composition can be easily evaluated.
The core of this analysis appears in Chapters Two through Four, where Stackert
addresses the topics of asylum, seventh-year release and manumission, and tithes in their
various appearances in the pentateuchal legal corpora. In these chapters, Stackert focuses
attention primarily upon the biblical texts themselves and argue for a direct literary
relationship between topically related laws. However, his concern goes beyond simply
demonstrating that a direct literary relationship exists among these texts. This study seeks
to make a larger statement concerning the biblical authors' method of revision. The final
chapter of this book brings together these various methodological observations in order to
offer a more comprehensive view of pentateuchal legal revision and especially the intent
of biblical legislators toward the source texts that they reconceptualize.
Beyond identifying examples of direct literary dependence and describing the extent of
the connections between the texts in question, Stackert attempts to reconstruct what
David P. Wright has termed the "compositional logic" of the revising authors — the
manner in which these legislators use their sources and the reasoning that undergirds their
legal reformulations. The compositional logic extends from an author's broad
reconceptualization of his source to the mechanical details of rewriting his literary
forebear. Thus to describe the compositional logic of a revisionary text is to attempt to
reconstruct its author's modes and progressions of thought as he creatively engaged his
source. As Wright notes, such a task involves a measure of conjecture, but the availability
of both source and receptor text compels at least an attempt at describing the process of
literary revision.
The exception to the mode of legal composition in the Bible seems to be the non-
Holiness Priestly legislation, which, unlike other pentateuchal law, does not exhibit a
direct literary relationship with other attested biblical and extra-biblical legislation. P is
strongly self-oriented and does not seem to employ a discernable revisionary method for
its legal composition. In this way, P can be viewed as unique among pentateuchal law
collections, although this observation does not necessarily support the view that P was
originally an esoteric or hidden document. What can be said is that the Holiness
Legislation, through its simultaneous revision of existing Priestly law on the one hand
and the Covenant Collection and Deuteronomy on the other, creates a thoroughly
"learned" composition, a sort of "super law" that collects and distills the several law
collections (CC, D, P) that precede it. By accommodating, reformulating, and
incorporating various viewpoints from these sources, the Holiness authors create a work
that is intended to supersede them all.
The discussion leads to the conclusion that reconciliation of topically related laws, and
the supplementary view of their composition, are inextricably linked to and are the effects
of redaction and canonization. In the pre-redactional/ pre-canonical setting of
Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation, these issues are foreign and even illogical.
Thus, while providing important clues for under¬standing biblical texts, post-biblical
material cannot be an absolute lens through which earlier material is to be understood.
The Covenant Collection and its reuse of the Laws of Hammurabi serves as evidence of
this view, as do the examples of revision from Deuteronomy and the Holiness Collection
examined in this study.
While it is not clear that the Deuteronomic legislators knew or recognized that the
Covenant Collection was itself a revision of pre-existing ancient Near Eastern law, it is
clear that Deuteronomy did not introduce its method of inter¬pretive revision in ancient
Israel. Rather, Deuteronomy stands as the inheritor of both the content and the
compositional method of its legal patrimony, the Covenant Collection. The Holiness
legislators, then, who reconceptualize the Covenant Collection and Deuteronomy, exploit
the precedent of their sources to introduce further revisions aimed at undermining the
existing legal tradition. The production of legislation in ancient Israel is thus shown from
its inception to be an exercise in bringing forth "treasures both new and old" (Matt 13:52;
cf. Song 7:14), a practice continued and developed further in the post-biblical interpretive
tradition.

Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon by Thomas

Aquinas, translated by Chrysostom Baer (St. Augustine’s Press) The mid-1260s found St.
Thomas Aquinas in Rome commenting on the epistles of the Apostle Paul. His overall
schema of the Pauline corpus reveals a synoptic vision of the letters unified by the grace
of Christ. This grace is present first and foremost in the Head of the Mystical Body,
Christ Himself, and to this examination Pauline minor letters is dedicated. It also informs
the whole Mystical Body: in that Body itself, in its sacraments, and in its power of
effecting ecclesial unity. This accounts for Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. Third, and most apposite here, this grace is
found in the principal members of this Mystical Body, both ecclesiastics and lay.
Regarding the first we have I and II Timothy and Titus; for the second we have
Philemon.
The commentaries on this last set of epistles, Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to
Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, are all literal expositions, only rarely if ever concerned
with allegorical meaning. They come down to us in the form of the reportatio, effectively
lecture notes taken by a student of St. Thomas. Rather than try to make the rhetoric of the
text more interesting and less staccato, this translation has opted for fidelity to the
original, realizing that doctrine shines more clearly when translators remove themselves
from the foreground. The importance is to show the central structure of Pauline theology
as integral to the theological architecture of St. Thomas. His devout, theological reading
of the texts offers light on the deep and prayerful exegesis of these reasonably
straightforward letters that often raise serious doubts and questions in the modern
faithful.
Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon also contains an
outline of Sacred Scripture based on St. Thomas's own thought in the matter, outlines of
the individual commentaries, and endnotes marking those places in the works of St.
Thomas where he discusses the same topic he treats in particular places in these
commentaries. The time-honored Douay-Rheims version of the Bible was the staple
source for Scriptural passages, being closer to the Latin used by the saintly commentator.
Without a doubt, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) ranks among the greatest, if not the first,
of philosopher-theologians in service to holy church. A scriptural commentator, one
might say by way of hobby only, but most especially, Aquinas laid the foundation for
thought and theological discourse in the Catholic Church. A large man with a great mind,
Thomas squeezed holiness out of early Greek thought as a ratio for a philosophy centered
in the Christian mysteries. Not just brilliant, Thomas also possessed innate spiritual
qualities in the Dominican style. As a friar he conjoined humility and a quiet demeanor
uncharacteristic, perhaps, of those who tower intellectually over rank and file.
Under Thomas, theology became an astute science, henceforth to be known as
‘Thomism.’ So enlightening were his offerings and enduring his legacy that scholasticism
in the Thomistic school, by decree of Pope Leo XIII, was universally enjoined upon the
education of clerics in the church.
We have in the lectures on the pastoral epistles of the New Testament samples of
Thomas's pedagogy. These letters are called pastoral, for they express the concerns of the
writer to those being addressed and because they demonstrate a concern for the orderly
pastoral care of the Christian communities where these individuals are engaged, always
arguing to the new Christian mindset incumbent upon all because of the Christ event,
while urging a new order of relationships intra-church and a new courage in the midst of
the onslaughts by the powers that be.
According to the translator of Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and
Philemon, Chrysostom Baer, ordered priest of the Norbertine Order at St. Michael’s
Abbey in Orange County, California, the Angelic Doctor laid out his schema for the
Pauline epistles in the prologue to the lectures on Romans. Their principle of formal unity
is found in the grace of Christ, which admits of a threefold division. First, in the Mystical
Body, which can be considered in itself, and then we have the letter to the Romans; in the
sacraments, I and II Corinthians and Galatians; then in its unifying power within the
Church. This last can be divided according to the institution of ecclesial unity, as is found
in Ephesians; the strengthening of that unity, in Philippians; and the defense of that unity,
as in Colossians, I and II Thessalonians.
Second, grace in the Mystical Body may be considered in the principal members of this
Body, first inasmuch as they are concerned with spiritual matters, and so we have I and II
Timothy, and Titus. For three things are fitting to a prelate: ruling over the people,
suffering for them, and defending them against evil. But the principal members of the
Mystical Body are also concerned with temporal matters, and so we have Philemon,
wherein the Apostle shows how masters ought to relate to their servants, and vice versa.
Third, this grace in the Mystical Body may be considered in the Head of the Mystical
Body, i.e. Christ Himself; thus, the epistle to the Hebrews. The necessity of protecting the
Church from heretics constitutes the third of the pastoral epistles, this time to Titus: why
it is necessary and how to resist evil teachers efficaciously.
Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon seemed incomplete,
however, without including the commentary on the small epistle to Philemon, which
certainly would not merit publication on its own otherwise. And although the treatment is
directly about masters and slaves, who might seem not to have much practical application
nowadays, yet is it an undeniable facet of human nature that some are in authority while
others are subject to that authority. If there is to be peaceable concord between these two
so often opposed parties, we must draw our paradigm of behavior from this epistle – a
pattern of love, mutual respect, and subordination in all things to the mission of the
Gospel.
Interest in the Angelic Doctor is unabated even in these times of modem philosophies and
a certain anti-Aristotelianism, for which reasons we applaud the young cleric translators
and their eagerness to engage Thomas in the Latin langauge from which he lectured.
Indeed, these exercises afford them and the student-reader of this book a glimpse into
Aquinas' classroom. – Most Reverend Joseph N. Perry Titular Bishop of Lead Auxiliary
Bishop of Chicago
It serves the greater Christian good to have these Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles to
Timothy, Titus, and Philemon available for ready consultation in critical English editions.

The Literature of the Sages, Second Part: Midrash, and Targum; Liturgy, Poetry,
Mysticism; Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science and the Languages of Rabbinic
Literature edited by Shmuel Safrai, Zeev Safrai, Joshua Schwarz, Peter J. Tomson
(Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum Ad Novum Testamentum: Fortress Press & Royal Van
Gorcum) This long-awaited companion volume to The Literature of the Sages, First Part
(Fortress Press, 1987) brings to completion Section II of the renowned Compendia series,
published cooperatively with Van Gorcum of Amsterdam. Part is an important reference
work for all students of ancient Judaism, as well as for those interested in the origins of
Jewish tradition and the Jewish background of Christianity.
The Literature of the Sages, Second Part, explores the literary creation of thousands of
ancient Jewish teachers, the often- anonymous Sages of late antiquity and the Middle
Ages. Essays by premier scholars provide a careful and succinct analysis of the content
and character of various documents, their textual and literary forms, with particular
attention to the ongoing discovery and publication of new textual material.
Incorporating groundbreaking developments in research, these essays give a
comprehensive presentation published here for the first time. This volume will prove an
important reference work for all students of ancient Judaism, the origins of Jewish
tradition, and the Jewish background of Christianity.
The literary creation of the ancient Jewish teachers or Sages also called rabbinic literature
consists of the teachings of thousands of Sages many of them anonymous. For a long
period their teachings existed orally, which implied a great deal of flexibility in
arrangement and Corm. Only gradually, as parts of this amorphous oral tradition became
fixed was the literature written down, a process that began in the third century CE. and
continued into the Middle Ages. Thus the documents of rabbinic literature are the result
of a remarkably long and complex process of creation and editing.
This long-awaited companion volume to the The Literature of the Sages, First Part (1987)
gives a careful and succinct analysis both of the content and specific nature of the various
documents, and of their textual and literary forms, paying special attention to the
continuing discovery and publication of new textual material. Incorporating ground-
breaking developments in research, these essays give a comprehensive representation.

In 1974 the editors of the first Compendia volume opened their General Introduction with
the statement that "The Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum is
designed as a historical work on the relationship of Judaism and Christianity." Within this
design, the ideological overtones of which were never muted, the present volume is a —
long awaited — tailpiece of considerable importance. After the two introductory volumes
of Section One (1974 and 1976), with their orientation on the history and social culture of
Judaism in the period of the formation of the New Testament, Section Two set out to
explore the fundamental texts of that period with a volume on the Hebrew Bible in
Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (1988), and another on the Jewish writings of the
Second Temple Period which did not find a place in the canon of the Hebrew Bible nor in
the corpus of later rabbinic Judaism (1984). The third volume of Section Two, devoted to
the literature of the Sages of classical rabbinic Judaism, began to appear in 1987 (vol. 3a).
Now, in the year 2006, this beginning is completed with the present volume (vol. 3b).
Instead of deploring the delay, the Foundation chooses to express its great satisfaction
with the fact that this point is now reached in such an impressive way, and that so much
profit could be gained from the progress in the many areas of the study of rabbinic
literature made within the past years.
Section two of the Compendia, entitled The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period
of the Second Temple and the Talmud, is based on three pillars: Mikra, or the Hebrew
Bible as understood in ancient Judaism and early Christianity; Jewish Writings of the
Second Temple Period; and The Literature of the Sages. Prof. Shmuel Safrai, who was
among the founding editors of the Compendia, took on the responsibility for the third
project and was appointed editor of the volume to appear on rabbinic literature.
Much thought was given to the content of the planned volume and to the order of the
chapters. The guiding principle was based on the known or approximate date of 'final'
editing of the various corpora as well as on the division of the literature of the sages into
such categories as Oral Tora, halakha, aggada, midrash, targum, prayer and much more.
A number of general and methodological chapters were also planned to set the tone for
the work. It was soon found that the scope of the project was enormous, and expediency
dictated that the work be divided into two volumes. The first one, which appeared in
1987, contains chapters on Oral Tora and halakha, as well as Mishna, Tosefta, the
Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and external tractates. The second volume was to
deal with midrash, aggada, targum, liturgical texts, and a number of auxiliary subjects.
The overall idea was to give a scholarly and imaginative presentation of the range of texts
preserved by rabbinic Judaism or in its vicinity — texts that at the same time were
thought to reflect the great variety of Jewish life both within the ambit of rabbinic
tradition and beyond it. As to such sources, Safrai never tired of underlining the
importance of 'real life' documents such as inscriptions, contracts, and archaeological
finds. Not only does this approach carry the reader well beyond the accepted time limits
of ancient Judaism — being a primary context for the New Testament writings — but
also into little studied and sometimes obscure corners of rabbinic literature. The last item
to be added to the list of documents discussed in the book certainly did not belong in the
latter category, but had simply been all the time overlooked by the editors. It was during
the last editorial meeting with Prof. Safrai, conducted in his home a month before he
died, that he brought up the idea and exclaimed: 'The Passover Haggada, of course! How
could we forget it!'
The second part of the project, which we present now to the reader, was, unfortunately
and for many reasons, a long time in the making. Prof. Safrai passed away in July 2003
and did not live to see its completion. The present editors, who were privileged to have
been among his students, have made every effort to continue the project in keeping with
his academic and research guidelines, although obviously each and every author had total
and complete methodological autonomy and at times may not agree with other authors or
with Shmuel Safrai himself of its wealth of detail and descriptions, reflects phenomena
that were not common to other literatures, thus making rabbinic literature, being unique
in this point, more suspect in the view of those who tended to limit its historicity and
relevance for the study of the history of ancient Judaism. The unique nature of rabbinic
literature also highlighted the continued need for caution. Ultimately, however, both for
Safrai and for the editors of this volume, it was never claimed that it is necessary to prove
a connection between this or that literature or tradition in rabbinic literature and Second
Temple times or the New Testament, but rather to show the probability of such and to
show that a certain 'proximity' existed between the literatures and traditions, all the while
bearing in mind the unique aspects of both literatures and traditions. Beyond that, each
author and reader could draw his or her own conclusions. This is both the strong point as
well as the weakness of the methodologies described above. Establishing just the realm of
probability made it difficult to arrive at clear-cut conclusions regarding many of the
seemingly similar issues or to establish clear-cut comparisons. In the view of many
scholars, much remained overly dependent on subjective academic proclivities of
scholars. But perhaps a more adequate way of saying this is that we are dealing with an
inescapable margin of uncertainty, and the share of scholarly wisdom is soberly and
honestly to delineate this uncertainty while avoiding to fall in the trap of historical
scepticism.
These matters are especially poignant for the present volume which deals with midrash
and aggada as well as with a number of fields tangential or auxiliary to rabbinic literature
and its study. Firstly, very often there has not yet been a systematic presentation of
textual work on this literature; much still remains to be done at the basic level of
establishing a critical text. To what extent are midrash and aggada, and their tradition
histories, able to aid the scholar of history or of ancient Judaism at all, and this is meant
in the widest sense of the word? Is there history in the legend or is there legend in the
legend? And are the texts usable in any form for the study of ancient society or the New
Testament? It is impossible to even begin to reach any conclusions on the use of these
literatures in general and for the New Testament in particular before one understands
their nature, their texts and their traditions, and furthering this is indeed one of the prime
motives and goals of the present volume, as it was of the first one. Needless to say,
dealing with the above, in any form or fashion, made manifold demands on any scholar
who would attempt to tie it all together in terms of a clear and coherent historical
presentation. Few are the scholars capable of dealing with rabbinic literature from all
standpoints, from literature, to history, to religion and to everyday life, and Shmuel Safrai
was one of those few. Here lies the legacy that Shmuel Safrai has bequeathed to the
readers of the Compendia as well as to scholarship in general.
Let us now proceed to a general overview of the volume. The 20 chapters of the book are
divided into four sections which reflect the wide array of literature and literary
phenomena not dealt with in the first volume. The first section deals with Midrash and
Targum. Two studies, that of Menahem I. Kahana and of Myron B. Lerner, on the
Halakhic Midrashim and on the works of Aggadic Midrash and the Esther Midrashim,
respectively, are almost book-length and represent outstanding original contributions to
Talmudics which will probably remain reference studies for a good many years to come.
They are especially important regarding textual history and literary criticism, the sine qua
non for any use of this material for any purposes of a historical nature. Both Kahana and
Lerner take the reader through detailed tours of the 'state of the art', describing previous
studies in their fields, the history of textual criticism on their relative topics as well as
provide detailed descriptions and studies of the works included in the fields under
discussion. Marc Hirshman provides an overview of aggadic midrash, dealing with
terminology and especially with midrash as creative exegesis within its social setting.
Chaim Milikowsky provides a neat scholarly description on Seder Olam Rabba. Zeev
Safrai discusses the terminology of targumic literature and describes the extant Targums
and their relationship to the Tora.
This opening section represents a direct continuation of the first volume, presenting
studies on central documents of rabbinic Judaism. It also complements the `midrashic
genre' of the New Testament. The following sections of the volume reflect the
willingness of the editors to see influence in genres of rabbinic literature of a seemingly
more peripheral nature or of parallel non-rabbinic literary traditions. Thus, the next
section deals with liturgy, poetry and mysticism, all literary genres of importance in the
world of the New Testament. Joseph Tabory deals with Jewish prayer in general as well
as with the Passover Haggada, both topics that connect quite clearly to the reality of the
New Testament. He describes Second Temple period liturgies as well as post-70 CE
liturgies and blessings. While the subject of Vered Noam's contribution may only be
tangentially connected to the section, her study of Megillat Taanit presents a first
translation of this text and its scholion into English together with an important
commentary on its history and structure, proving once again the importance of textual
study independent of historical research. Ezra Fleischer and Joseph Yahalom study
additional expressions of liturgy, with the first study devoted to piyyut and the second to
Aramaic and Hebrew mourning poems and eulogies. These sensitive expressions of
liturgical emotion are found in large part outside of the corpus of rabbinic literature, but
are contemporary to a number of genres and literatures of the of rabbis. Finally, Michael
Swartz shows the power of mystical esoteric texts describing visionary experiences and
magic ritual. He discusses seminal works or genre including Merkava literature, Hekhalot
literature and Sefer Yetsira.
The third section deals with contracts, inscriptions and ancient science, documents more
than others reflective of 'real life'. Mordechai A. Friedman studies contracts in rabbinic
literature as well as in other literatures. In addition to providing examples and discussions
of 'talmudic contracts', Friedman also deals with parallel material in the Elephantine
Papyri, the documents of the Judean Desert, and last but not least the Cairo Geniza.
Jonathan Price and Haggai Misgav discuss Greek and Jewish inscriptions both in terms of
their historical contribution as well as regarding their relationship to rabbinic literature.
While inscriptions obviously lack the complexity and sophistication of rabbinic literature,
they often provide a bird's eye view of real life of real people. 'Science' is dealt with by
Samuel Kottek in his article on medicine, by Zeev Safrai in regard of geography and
cosmography and by Avraham Ofir Shemesh studying both real and folkloristic elements
of biology as they appear in rabbinic literature. Yuval Harari deals with the world
Safrai believed that the background to the New Testament was to be found in ancient r:
Judaism and that this Jewish background existed in a wide array of sources, and
especially in the literature of the sages, extending throughout a rather long period and far
beyond the first century. In this Safrai was not unique, but rather he continued a scholarly
tradition that had begun to search out the roots of early Christianity in Judaism rather
than in the Greco-Roman world. While this trend had its ups and downs in terms of
academic popularity, it became increasingly popular in Jewish circles with the advent of
Wissenschaft des Judentums. While Christian academic circles were notably slower to
adopt this point of view and often kept disagreeing over its attendant methodologies, the
rich subject matter of rabbinic literature and its evident parallels with the New Testament
and other early Christian writings eventually increased the popularity of this literature
also in these circles. In more recent decades, the discovery and scholarly exploitation of
the Dead Sea scrolls was particularly helpful in this respect, a fact Safrai fully recognized
although he left the study of these documents largely to his long-time friend, colleague,
and co-founder of the Compendia, David Flusser.
The use of rabbinic literature for the understanding of the New Testament was not
without its problems, especially as strides were made in the methodologies associated
with rabbinic literature as well as with the New Testament. It became clear that historical
traditions in the literature of the sages could not be accepted at face value and that
attestations were problematic. For Safrai, however, the literary formulation of a rabbinic
work or the conclusion of its editorial process did not belie the fact that many traditions
in such literature might have been early, even with direct influence on the New
Testament world or at least representing a common tradition, thus providing scholars of
the New Testament with many additional sources.
Identifying such traditions was not a simple matter, however, and it became increasingly
unpopular to even attempt to do so among scholars of rabbinic literature, talmudists and
historians, whether they doubted the historicity of texts and the relevance of 'late' texts for
'earlier' times or not, and especially in the case of midrash and aggada, main topics of the
present volume. Matters were not helped by the sometime simplistic use of rabbinic
literature by New Testament scholars. Nor did exaggerated statements of the non-
historical and 'ideological' character of the rabbinic documents by scholars reacting to
this historical naivety assist in advancing the sober approach that is needed here. Safrai at
times found himself standing almost alone in withstanding the pressure to sever any
unambiguous ties between rabbinic literature and the New Testament. However, during
the course of time it has become clear that certain parts of the New Testament can be
understood only in relation to rabbinic thought, that 'background' is relative, and that la
longue durée might apply to religious and literary phenomena. Indeed, it has become
increasingly accepted to see some type of 'chain of tradition' which allows for the use of
'later' material or at least provides better methodologies for interpreting 'earlier' material.
The present editors, following Shmuel Safrai's lead, refrained from restricting the
chronological time frame and leave it for the reader of the individual chapters to judge
the relevance of some of the later material for the New Testament and its world. As the
reader will note, the present articles represent 'state of the art' in terms of methodological
and literary issues, providing the reader — scholar and layman — with the understanding
necessary to examine the relevance, or lack of such, of the literature of the sages for the
world of the New Testament.
If, however, when all is said and done, the literature of the sages is problematical for the
purpose at hand as defined by the Compendia and usage depends on methodologies
concerning which there is still disagreement, sometimes still strident, then why bother?
Why should the scholar of the New Testament just not make do with the literature that is
clearly contemporaneous with the New Testament? Why not concentrate on the
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha and on Qumran, or on Josephus and Philo? These
questions and subsequently the answers to them, helped form Shmuel Safrai's
methodological modus vivendi. Thus, while there might be a good deal of Second
Temple literature closer in time to the New Testament, the literature of the sages provides
information that these other types of literature do not. It is the literature of the sages
which provides, for instance, detailed information on the family, agriculture, education,
and everyday life, and Safrai wrote a series of chapters on such matters in the first section
of the Compendia, using for the most part rabbinic literature as his primary source
material. Furthermore it is possible to point out an important popular phenomenon in both
literatures, i.e. in the parable, a genre unique to the New Testament and to the literature of
the sages which does not appear in other Second Temple literature.
Relevant information or material for comparison with the New Testament might be found
both in halakhic literature as well as in midrash and aggada. Regarding halakha, it should
of course be pointed out that the fact that the concomitant topics of everyday life are
discussed in rabbinic literature in no way relates to the question of whether rabbinic
halakha was normative in New Testament times or not. Rather, the question is whether
the halakhic descriptions of everyday life, custom and practice represent actual or
'common' behaviour of some sort — and Safrai felt that they did and thus might reflect
such life among Jesus and his disciples as well as in early Christianity of the Land of
Israel. This was also the case regarding realia mentioned or dealt with in aggadic
literature, which was usually much later than halakhic literature. Safrai felt that even in
this case, the descriptions or traditions might reflect life during the time of Jesus and
whether this was normative behaviour or not was not the central issue, although this issue
should not be ignored.
Indeed, just as life in the Second Temple period was far from being monolithic in nature
and homogenous in practice, the social realities described in rabbinic literature were
manifold and reflect different and sometimes even competing and contradictory social
realities. This led Safrai to understand that while Jesus and his disciples may have been
closest in outlook to the Pharisees, they were particularly similar to the personalities
described in rabbinic literature as the 'early hasidim' and Safrai saw Jesus and his
movement as reflections in the mirror of ancient hasidism, a group close to the world of
the sages, but not identical to it.' This, ironically, again showed the importance of
rabbinic literature for understanding the socio-religious world of Jesus. The ancient
hasidic movement is described only in that literature, but it also shows that this literature,
in spite of the occult and the relationship of the sages to it. While this may not be
considered `science' in terms of the modern usage of the word, it was very much so in the
ancient world for both Jew and non-Jew. Sorcery, demons, divination, astrology and the
like were not just concepts in the world of the New Testament, but were integral parts of
everyday life and belief for many.
The last section of the book deals with the languages of rabbinic literature. Moshe Bar-
Asher offers a concise but rich description of Mishnaic Hebrew, and Yohanan Breuer of
Talmudic Aramaic, while Daniel Sperber deals with Greek in rabbinic literature. Not only
do these technical studies illuminate important and interesting aspects of rabbinic
literature, but they also relate to the critical question of languages in relation to Jesus, the
first century CE and the New Testament. Understanding the languages of rabbinic
literature may often provide the key to further understanding of the New Testament and
its linguistic milieu, whether in terms of 'official' languages such as Hebrew, 'vernaculars'
such as Aramaic, or 'foreign' languages such as Greek or Latin. The use of languages and
borrowings can often serve as a cultural barometer.

Alternative review by Jan-Wim Wesselius, Protestant Theological University, Kampen,

The Netherlands: Shortly after the reprint of the Mikra volume of the series Compendia
Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, the second and last part of the subdivision,
The Literature of the Sages, has appeared, nearly twenty years after the first. Thus section
2, The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the
Talmud, of the Compendia is now complete: (1) Mikra (1988); (2) Jewish Writings of the
Second Temple Period (1984); (3a) The Literature of the Sages 1: Oral Torah, Halakha…
(1987); (3b) The Literature of the Sages 2: Midrash and Targum… (2006). The waiting
has certainly not been in vain, for this voluminous book contains a considerable number
of fine essays by older and younger experts in the fields represented here. Unlike Mikra,
which was and is also quite suitable as a first introduction into various fields, many of the
articles in this book are of a more specialist nature.
The table of contents gives a good impression of the many and variegated treasures
contained in this volume. Section 1, “Midrash and Targum,” offers: (1) Menahem I.
Kahana, “The Halakhic Midrashim” (3–105); (2) Marc Hirshman, “Aggadic Midrash”
(107–32); (3) Myron B. Lerner, “The Works of Aggadic Midrash and the Esther
Midrashim” (133–229); (4) Chaim Milikowsky, “Seder Olam” (231–37), with an
appendix by Zeev Safrai, “The Scroll of Antiochos and the Scroll of Fasts” (238–41); and
(5) Zeev Safrai, “The Targums as Part of Rabbinic Literature” (243–78). Section 2,
“Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism,” includes: (6) Joseph Tabory, “Prayers and Berakhot” (281–
326); (7) Joseph Tabory, “The Passover Haggada” (327–38); (8) Vered Noam, “Megillat
Taanit— The Scroll of Fasting” (339–62); (9) Ezra Fleischer, “Piyyut” (363–74); (10)
Joseph Yahalom, “Syriac for Dirges, Hebrew for Speech—Ancient Jewish Poetry in
Aramaic and Hebrew” (375–91); and (11) Michael D. Swartz, “Mystical Texts” (393–
420). Section 3, “Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science,” comprises (12) Mordechai A.
Friedman, “Contracts: Rabbinic Literature and Ancient Jewish Documents” (423–60);
(13) Jonathan
J. Price and Haggai Misgav, “Jewish Inscriptions and Their Use” (461–83); (14) Samuel
S. Kottek, “Medical Interest in Ancient Rabbinic Literature” (485–96); (15) Zeev Safrai,
“Geography and Cosmography in Talmudic Literature” (497–508); (16) Abraham Ofir
Shemesh, “Biology in Rabbinic Literature: Fact and Folklore” (509–19); and (17) Yuval
Harari, “The Sages and the Occult” (521–64). Finally, section 4, “The Languages of
Rabbinic Literature,” includes: (18) Moshe Bar-Asher, “Mishnaic Hebrew: An
Introductory Survey” (567–95); (19) Yohanan Breuer, “The Aramaic of the Talmudic
Period” (597–625); and (20) Daniel Sperber, “Rabbinic Knowledge of Greek” (627–40).
The volume concludes with a list of abbreviations (641–44), a cumulative bibliography
(645–710), and indices of sources and personal names (711–72).
Each chapter starts with a detailed table of contents, which greatly assists the reader in
navigating through some of the long chapters, and concludes with recommendations for
further reading. On the whole, I found the bibliography complete enough for the purpose.
I read the articles with considerable pleasure and interest, only experiencing some very
minor disappointments while perusing the book. The scholarship evinced in the volume,
although sound and solid enough, tends somewhat towards the conservative side. Thus in
Menahem Kahana’s article about the halakhic midrashim there is great attention to the
classical question of the distinction between the schools of R. Akiba and R. Ishmael and
to the occurrence of various rabbis in these midrashim, but little information about the
formal literary structure of the texts. The old problem of the provenance of the targums of
Onkelos and Jonathan is discussed by Yohanan Breuer in terms of eastern and western
provenance in the traditional way (605–6), whereas scholars such as E. M. Cook and Chr.
Müller-Kessler have proposed entirely new ways of looking at this issue; neither of the
two is mentioned in this connection. I also missed the latter’s name in the brief section
about the language of the incantation texts (616–17). The question of the long diphthong
-e- in Aramaic is still treated in the same way as the late E. Y. Kutscher did in the 1960s,
with the demonstrative pronoun (ha)’ellayin in Galilean Aramaic supposedly not
exhibiting a diphthongization of this vowel, a position that many linguists nowadays
would not be ready to defend (621). Finally, the well-known controversy between Peter
Schäfer and Chaim Milikowsky about what is in effect the right way to edit the fluid texts
of rabbinical literature I would have liked to see discussed with some more attention to
the very real and novel observations made by Schäfer and others than Myron Lerner is
willing to impart on the reader (162–63), irrespective of questions of right or wrong.
Lerner’s conjecture about the history of Schäfer’s first article in this discussion, by the
way, is quite amusing, though of course rather speculative (163 n. 156).
Although a cumulative bibliography will usually save space, which is especially desirable
in a volume that is already very sizeable, the problems of such a type of bibliography, if it
is not checked in every detail, are apparent, such as in the entries for Umberto (Moshe
David) Cassuto, whose name is listed in three different forms without any cross-
reference, and for R. Ulmer, who is of course identical with Rivka Kern-Ulmer.
The original Hebrew is somewhat too visible behind the English style of some articles
(although there is not much wrong with the translation itself), which is not a very great
obstacle, apart from the fact that some non-Anglophone students tend to imitate this style.
In general, it would have been preferable to let a native speaker of English correct
somewhat awkward sentences such as “Further examples of this phenomenon are easily
multiplied” (595). But all these are issues of minor importance.
There were very few things in the subject area of the book that I missed. As noted above,
I would have liked to see some more discussion of the literary structure of various
midrashim, perhaps in a separate article. To mention only one example, W. S. Towner’s
seminal study of the enumeration of scriptural examples in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael
is mentioned only very briefly at the end of Hirshman’s article and not at all in Kahana’s
otherwise very thorough study of the halakhic midrashim, which is especially regrettable
since comparable numerical patterns seem to underlie the structure of large parts of the
Mekhilta (and, it can be added, also other Jewish and Christian Bible commentaries).
With regard to poetical texts, Joseph Yahalom discussed the genre of the eulogy and Ezra
Fleischer treated the piyyut, but the interesting corpus of the Aramaic piyyutim from the
Byzantine era is almost entirely absent, apart from a brief mention of Yahalom’s and
Sokoloff’s edition of these texts (364 n. 9).

Summarizing we can say that the second volume of The Literature of the Sages presents
advanced students and specialists in the various disciplines of rabbinic studies with a
wonderful set of new tools and that the authors and editors are to be congratulated with
the result of their work.

Disputing Christianity: The 400-Year-Old Debate over Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham Troki's
Classic Arguments by Richard H. Popkin, edited by Jeremy D. Popkins (Humanity
Books) What would make a nineteenth-century Harvard Divinity School graduate turn
his back on his deeply held religious beliefs and write an incisive attack on Christianity?
An obscure sixteenth-century polemic called the Chizzuk Emunah, written by a scholar
from a heretical Jewish group, forever changed George Bethune English's life. Formerly
a Congregationalist minister, Bethune English became converted to an extreme form of
unbelief, while at Harvard University, during the Unitarian-Congregationalist
controversies that shook early 19th century New England Church polity. English resisted
challenges to his faith until he discovered Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham of Troki's book,
which led him to write: "Either the Old Testament contains a Revelation from God, or it
does not." From this he concluded that if the Old Testament were true, Christians were
distorting the divine revelation. If it were false, then there could be no basis for their
faith.
The result of his newfound beliefs was The Grounds of Christianity Examined, a widely
circulated critique of Christianity addressed to an extremely religious America. (The text
reprinted here with Popkin’s introductions and annotations. Aware of the hostile response
that he could expect from a country wholly under one God, Bethune English not only
argued his case against Christianity, but also his right to argue his case. One reader
commented that his work would "pass like wild-fire through the country," yet an
accessible and informative version of Bethune English's groundbreaking critique has not
been available until now.
Historian and philosopher Richard H. Popkin provides a fascinating commentary that
notes many points of historical interest and demonstrates the significance of Bethune
English's analysis of the Chizzuk Emunah.
For example, Voltaire on a visit to England in 1724 learned of the work from an associate
of the Reverend Anthony Collins, an English deist. The work was also used in debates
about the merits of Christianity between Unitarian minister Joseph Priestly and Anglo-
Jewish theologian David Levi. German scholars Hermann Samuel Reimarus and Ephraim
Gotthold Lessing referred to the work in their early publications initiating the Higher
Criticism movement examining the historical origins of Christianity. And the work also
had an influence on Abraham Geiger, the founder of Reform Judaism; on David Deutsch,
the defender of Orthodox Judaism; and on Evangelical Christian leader Hermann Strack
of Berlin, whose use of excerpts from Rabbi Isaac's work can still be found in
Evangelical Christian literature today.
Anyone interested in philosophy of religion or the history of dialogue between Christians
and Jews will find this work to be of great value.

Excerpt from Introduction: Originally published in 1813, George Bethune English's The
Grounds of Christianity Examined was one of the strongest critiques of the truth claims
of Christianity to be circulated in the early United States. In explaining why he had given
up his post as a minister, its author, a former divinity student at Harvard College,
understood that he was testing the limits of the young republic's toleration of freedom of
speech. "Our country is the only one which has not been guilty of the folly of establishing
the ascendancy of one set of religious opinions," he wrote. Echoing the famous defense
of press freedom made by the poet John Milton in the 1640s and anticipating the
arguments that the British philosopher John Stuart Mill would make fifty years later in
his classic essay On Liberty, Bethune English insisted on the importance of allowing
radical opinions to be heard. "As it is every man's natural right, and duty to think and
judge for himself in matters of opinion; so he should be allowed freely to bring forward,
and defend his opinions, and to endeavour, when he judges proper, to convince others
also of their truth."
Bethune English needed to make a strong argument for freedom of speech because The
Grounds of Christianity Examined challenged the religious beliefs held by almost all
Americans of his day. His critics blamed him for endangering the very basis of society.
"Does it prove that a man ought to speak what he thinks, if he perceives that the moral
consequences of thus speaking are infinitely pernicious?" one of them asked. Although
earlier rationalist and Unitarian writers had questioned some aspects of Christianity,
Bethune English was the first to introduce American readers to the ideas of an obscure
Jewish rabbi whose writings had already been affecting European thinkers for more than
two centuries and whose attack on the New Testament continues to exert an influence
even today. "I do not claim to have originated all the arguments advanced in this Book,"
Bethune English told his readers. "A very considerable portion of them were selected and
derived from ancient and curious Jewish Tracts, translated from Chaldee into Latin, very
little known even in Europe."3 In fact, Bethune English took most of his ideas from a
work written in Hebrew, not "Chaldee." That work was the Chizzuk Emunah, "The
Strengthening of the Faith," written in Lithuania in 1593 by Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham of
Troki.
George Bethune English had encountered Rabbi Isaac's tract in the Harvard College
Library, which possessed a copy of a Latin translation first published in Germany in
1681. Reading the Chizzuk Emunah was a transforming experience for him. He had
previously put his Christian faith to the test by examining the deist and rationalist
critiques and concluded that "their objections were not insurmountable," but Rabbi Isaac's
work convinced him, "by proofs he could neither refute nor evade, that how easily soever
Christians might answer the Deists, so called, the Jews were clearly too hard for them."
As he explained to his readers, "Either the Old Testament contains a Revelation from
God, or it does not." In either case, the basis of Christianity collapsed: if the Old
Testament was true, Christians were wrong to change its dispensations, and if it was
false, the very foundation of Christian claims disappeared.
The Chizzuk Emunah, the book that changed George Bethune English's life, had been
written in 1593 in the small Lithuanian town of Troki. Throughout the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance, there had been few explicit Jewish critiques of Christianity. Jewish
authors had to fear that the Christian authorities would suppress such works and possibly
also their authors. Occasionally in the Middle Ages, Christian authorities would force a
disputation between Jewish leaders and Christian leaders, but these rituals were held
under ground rules that more or less foreclosed the possibility of a real debate. The
Jewish participants were fearful for their lives and tried to be extremely cautious and
evasive.
But a new situation had developed in the sixteenth century in Poland and Lithuania,
which were then parts of the same kingdom. The political authorities there had invited a
wide spectrum of religious groups to help develop modern Poland. By the middle of the
sixteenth century, this area was probably the most tolerant on the planet at the time. At
the same time that Jews were forbidden to reside in England and France, in Spain and
Portugal, and in many parts of Italy and Germany, they could freely practice their religion
in Poland and Lithuania. They were flourishing in a world in which many kinds of
Christian belief were being practiced, and in which radical Christians were challenging
the dogmas of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, in which forms of Socinianism were
being set forth and even forms of Judaized Christianity. The breakup of the Byzantine
Empire to the south, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, and the
conflicts between the Protestants and Catholics and between different kinds of Catholics
(Greek and Russian Orthodox) and Uniates, meant that there were groups with many
divergent views about the nature of religion, the Godhead, and the religious organization
of society living in the region. The interaction of these many cultures, belief systems, and
ways of life produced a very exciting intellectual and cultural world. There were also
Turco-Calvinists, that is, Calvinists living in the Ottoman Turkish areas, as well as the
reverse, Muslims living in Christian territory, and Jewish groups who had escaped perse-
cutions in Germany and elsewhere.
Rabbi Isaac came from a small heretical group within Judaism called the Karaites. This
group had been expelled from the mainstream Jewish community in the eighth and ninth
centuries because they refused to accept any religious teachings other than what was in
the Bible. They rejected the authority of the Talmud and other rabbinical commentaries.
After their expulsion from the Jewish community, they had survived on the fringes of
Muslim territory and later began moving into Poland and neighboring lands. During the
late Middle Ages, Karaites existed in enclaves in the Crimea, Turkey, Lithuania, and
Egypt. In the sixteenth century, the Lithuanian town of Troki became their main center.
When they learned about the Karaites, Protestants, who were calling on Christians to
make the Bible their sole authority, seemed to have hoped that this dissident Jewish
group would prove to be proto-Protestants who could be won over to the whole Scripture
as soon as they learned of it. The Karaites found themselves in tune with some of the
attitudes of the Protestant reformers and the anti-trinitarians and Socinians, a varied
group of thinkers who had come to the conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity was not
part of Christian religion. This may have eased Rabbi Isaac's entry into the theological
disputes of the time.
In this fairly wild scene in which many different religious groups were interacting, Rabbi
Isaac ben Abraham of Troki, which is a suburb of Vilnius, himself a Karaite and
grandson of a medical doctor from the Crimea, came into contact with a wide range of
religious ideas. He obviously discussed the differences between his own beliefs and those
of some others in the area in person and also studied texts from different groups. Rabbi
Isaac seems to have consulted some of the leading antitrinitarians of the time and to have
discussed their arguments with them. One who is mentioned most is Syzmon Budny, a
close associate of Faustus Socinus, the leader of the anti-trinitarians who had fled from
Italy to Geneva to Poland. It was the burning of Michael Servetus, an early Socinian
leader, in Geneva in 1553 that made the antitrinitarians move east to one area where they
were tolerated, namely, Poland and Lithuania.
We do not know how learned Rabbi Isaac was or how many languages he knew; we
know some of the people he talked to because he mentions his discussions with them.
One of his aims was probably to prevent young Jews from being attracted to some form
of antitrinitarianism or some of the new forms of Protestantism that were emerging.6 His
work is set forth as a defense of the Jewish faith but is, by and large, an attack on
Christianity, drawing on all sorts of materials available to him. Unlike any other criticism
of Christianity written by a Jewish author up to the end of the sixteenth century, Rabbi
Isaac does not appeal to any special Jewish reading of texts but just plunges into an attack
on the historical statements made in the Gospels and whether they make any coherent
sense or provide any basis for messianic religion. The result is probably the strongest
critique of Christianity written by a Jewish thinker in the last four hundred years. The
Chizzuk Emunah is based almost entirely on examination of passages from the New
Testament, the inconsistencies among them, and the contradictions between Christian
claims about the Old Testament and the actual text of the Jewish scriptures. The fact that
Rabbi Isaac based his arguments strictly on the same biblical texts that Christians read,
rather than appealing to any other sources of authority, such as the Talmud, made his
tract especially challenging for Christians.
The rabbi does not seem to have been interested in looking for textual variants that might
undermine the credibility of the New Testament. He accepted the Greek text as it was
used in the Poland of his day and then sought to show that it was full of inconsistencies,
errors, and absurdities. In any event, he argued, the authors of the Gospels had written
long after the events they described, and the New Testament was therefore of no
historical value, since "they testify about things, that they didn't see with their own eyes."'
Rabbi Isaac laid out his objections to Christianity clearly in the first chapter of the
Chizzuk Emunah. That Jesus was not the Messiah predicted in the Jewish scriptures "is
evident:—lst, from his pedigree; 2ndly, from his acts; 3rdly, from the period in which he
lived; and 4thly, from the fact that, during his existence, the promises were not fulfilled
which are to be realised on the advent of the expected Messiah, whereas the fulfilment of
the conditions alone can warrant a belief in the identity of the Messiah."8 The initial
attack on the conclusions to be drawn from the genealogy of Joseph at the beginning of
Matthew is that Joseph rather than Jesus is from the Davidic line. A couple of earlier
Jewish writings against Christianity had challenged Jesus's credentials of coming from
the messianic House of David, and the early medieval Sefer Toldot Yeshu went further,
giving Jesus an illegitimate lineage from a Roman soldier.9 Rabbi Isaac is not interested
in pursuing in what may have actually been the case, just in disputing the New Testament
claim that it is basing its story on that of the Old Testament. Rabbi Isaac argued that not
only was Joseph not the father if Jesus was born of a virgin, but the inconsistencies
between the lineages presented in Matthew and in Luke proved that neither source could
be considered valid or reliable. If Joseph was from a Davidic family, and Joseph is not
the father of Jesus, then what difference does the whole story make?
Subsequent sections of the Chizzuk Emunah argued that Jesus's actions, as reported in the
Gospels, had not fulfilled the Biblical prophecies. He had not, for instance, restored the
Jewish kingdom, as the Jewish prophets had explicitly said the Messiah would do. He had
not meant to abrogate the laws of Moses; those Christians who had done so, abolishing
the custom of circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath, had acted "on their own
accord and responsibility, for they have no authority whatever for doing so from Jesus
and his Apostles." In a passage of his work omitted from the abridged translation that is
still the most extensive version of the work available in English, the rabbi asked himself
how Christians could believe "their articles of faith, which contradict human reason." The
answer, he suggested, could only be that they were still under the influence of their pagan
ancestors, who had been able to believe not only that a god might have been born of a
virgin, but even that a deity might spring from the head of a virgin.
Even if almost everything that is in Rabbi Isaac's Chizzuk Emunah had appeared in one
form or another in a previous writing against Christianity, his text packaged the material
in a way that was much more suitable for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century readers.
Since the rabbi was a Karaite and used no rabbinical arguments, the text was much more
accessible to non-Jews and Marranos, the descendants of the Spanish Jews who had been
forcibly converted to Christianity but still retained some loyalty to their ancestors' faith.
The Chizzuk Emunah reads somewhat like a lawyer's brief against Christianity, and the
reader can easily follow the points being made and the arguments offered without having
to know about Jewish medieval theology and argumentation.
Rabbi Isaac began writing his polemic some time before his death in 1593. His student,
Josef Malinowski, finished the table of contents and put the manuscript into circulation in
1594. The history of its impact, which has been going on for the last four centuries,
shows the curious ways in which the same text can be used both for and against different
religious traditions. Starting out as a polemical curiosity addressed essentially to Jews, it
has gone through revival after revival, surfacing in different languages besides its original
Hebrew: in Spanish, German, Latin, Yiddish, Ladino, and English, among others.
George Bethune English paraphrased many of its arguments in 1813. The first American
English use of Rabbi Isaac's ideas, is reproduced in this volume. George Bethune English
graduated from Harvard in 1807. He first studied law but then entered Harvard's Divinity
School and was "approbated" as a minister by the Boston Association of the Unitarian
Church in 1811. He obtained a position as an assistant librarian at Harvard, where he
came across the text of Rabbi Isaac's work. As one of his critics wrote, "The effect of this
discovery upon his own mind was a firm conviction that the Christian system was not
only without foundation, but was a mean and despicable system, hostile to the best
interests of individuals and of society, and loaded with the monstrous guilt of oppressing
and destroying millions of innocent people." Startled by the points raised by the rabbi,
Bethune English tried to find some knowledgeable person, acquainted with Hebrew, with
whom to discuss them. Bethune English then wrote his small book, published in 1813. It
apparently caused a great stir when it came out. "You seem not to have heard of the book
which engages all the attention here at the present:—Mr. English's apology for leaving
his profession," one Unitarian reader, Henry Ware Jr., wrote to his father. "You will have
heard of it, however, before you receive this—for it will pass like wild-fire through the
country; and like that, too, it will flash, and crackle, and sparkle, and dazzle, and amaze
for a moment."
In this case, the use to which the rabbi's arguments were put took place in the context of a
dispute between the Unitarians and the Congregationalists in Massachusetts. At the time,
the Unitarians were declaring their independence from orthodox Christianity, but still
wanted to be counted as Christian. Among other things, they were still involved in mis-
sionary work to convert heathens, especially in Asia.
A prize student at the Harvard Divinity School and former classmate of Bethune English,
Edward Everett was enlisted to write the official answer to Bethune English's work. He
composed a five-hundred-page reply, which was supervised by the leaders of the
Unitarian Church in Boston. As the controversy about his work spread, Bethune English
wrote to Rabbi Gershom Seixas, a leading figure in the small American Jewish
community and, at that time, one of the trustees of Columbia University. Seixas was wary
of endorsing Bethune English's anti-Christian position.
He judged the young man to be "a strict disciple of the late Dr. Priestley" and told his
daughter that "I mean not to be concerned in the business." Nevertheless, he met with
Bethune English in 1814 and later wrote to his daughter that the author had told him "that
he had gained more knowledge of yr. Father, in the short conversation he had with him,
than from all the Books which he has read."
Bethune English was forced to give up his duties in the Unitarian Church. He answered
his critics and stressed, both in the original book and in the answers, that Christianity had
done grave misdeeds to its opponents: first and continuously to the Jews and second to
every other group with whom it came into contact. He felt that Christianity should stop
persecuting and make some sort of retribution for all the damage it had caused over the
many centuries. His own religious views are difficult to define with precision. In a
defense of his work published in 1813, he seemed to take a deist position, writing that
"Whether the Old Testament contains a revelation from God, or not, its moral precepts
are, as far as I know, unexceptionable; there is not, I believe, anything extravagant or
impracticable in them, they are such as promote the good order of society. Its religion is
in fact merely Theism garnished, and guarded by a splendid ritual, and gorgeous
ceremonies; the belief of it can produce no oppression and wretchedness to any portion of
mankind, and for these reasons I for one will never attempt to weaken its credit, whatever
may be my own opinion with regard to its supernatural claims."
Although The Grounds of Christianity Examined drew heavily on the Chizzuk Emunah
and even offered readers some lengthy quotations from it, apparently the first time any of
Rabbi Isaac's arguments had been translated into English, Bethune English had also
borrowed from other sources. His assertion that Christianity was a dualistic faith similar
to Zoroastrianism, for example, and his discussion of the late-eighteenthcentury Shaker
sect were not taken from Rabbi Isaac's work. In a later explanation of his position, written
after he had lived in the Middle East for some time, Bethune English made a stronger
statement of faith in the Old Testament: "What I have learned and seen in Europe, Asia
and Africa, while it has confirmed my reasons for rejecting the New Testament, has
rooted in my mind the conviction that the ancient Bible does contain a Revelation from
the God of Nature, as firmly as my belief in the first proposition of Euclid." He was
convinced, he wrote, "that this world was made and is governed by just such a Being as
the Jehovah of the Old Testament; while the palpable fulfilment of predictions contained
in that book, and which is so strikingly manifest in the Old World, leaves in my mind no
doubt whatever, of the ultimate fulfilment of all that it promises, and all that it
threatens."54 English later lived in Egypt, and it was rumored that he had become a
Muslim, but Samuel Knapp, author of the most extended account of English's life, says
that English "constantly denied" this charge. Knapp had no doubt that English's true
sympathies lay with the Jews. "It was truly an intellectual feast to hear him read the Old
Testament in the original, and translate and commentate as he went along. He threw into
the shade other translations and commentaries by the minuteness of his knowledge of the
Hebrew language, as well as of the habits and manners of the Jewish nation in every age
of their history. When on this subject, his whole air and character seemed to change, and
he grew as enthusiastic as a Rabinical master, chaunting the pages of prophecy."
It does not appear that Bethune English's critique of Christianity won many supporters.
According to Knapp's biographical sketch, written after Bethune English's death, the ex-
minister joined the Marine Corps and was sent to the Middle East, where he exchanged
his American commission for a position in the Egyptian army. He peppered his new
employers with imaginative suggestions, including a modernized version of the "chariot
armed with scythes, after the manner of the ancients." Bethune English's war machine
"was to be propelled with horses, under bulletproof cover, in the rear." In other words,
the first American disciple of Rabbi Isaac also invented what could be considered a
prototype of the armored tank. Alas, Knapp reports, "in trying the machine it was dashed
against a stone house in Grand Cairo, and destroyed, but he constantly maintained, that if
he could have commanded an American stage driver, it would have gone well, and would
have been a most destructive engine of war."56 Bethune English subsequently published
an account of the Egyptian campaign along the Upper Nile in which he had participated.
During the 1820s, the US government employed him as a secret agent in the Ottoman
Empire. President John Quincy Adams apparently liked him, "notwithstanding his
eccentricities, approaching to insanity." He died in Washington, DC, in 1828.58 Everett,
his first opponent, went on to an illustrious career as an educator and statesman. He
became the president of Harvard, a cabinet member, a senator, and a great orator who
gave the two-hour-long address at Gettysburg that overshadowed Abraham Lincoln's
brief words in 1863. In his later years, however, Everett never returned to the subject of
his dispute with Bethune English.
Bethune English's critique of Christianity, inspired by his reading of Rabbi Isaac, was
reprinted in 1839 in an edition whose title page said that it was "for the subscribers." We
do not know who organized this reprinting, which is identical in content to the original
1813 edition but far more common in American libraries, or why they decided to revive
the work. English-speaking readers still did not have access to a direct translation of the
Chizzuk Emunah for some years afterward. A toned-down and truncated edition of
Chizzuk Emunah, translated by Moses Mocatta and titled Faith Strengthened, appeared in
London in 1851, with the strange news on the cover that it was "printed, but not
published," an indication that Jews were still fearful of being identified with such an out-
spoken critique of the Christian scriptures. Instructions stated that it was for Jewish
students only. If non-Jews came across it, they were to return it to the Jewish community
immediately. Mocatta's translation is still being issued in various forms, into the present
century. To date, no more accurate or complete English translation has been undertaken.
The arguments still hold together and the volume deserves to have a more acknowledged
place in the history of skeptical readings of the bible.

Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird
(Oxford University Press) Sitting in stillness, the practice of meditation, and the
cultivation of awareness are commonly thought to be the preserves of Hindus and
Buddhists. Martin Laird shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own
refined teachings on using a prayer word to focus the mind, working with the breath to
cultivate stillness, and the practice of inner vigilance or awareness. But this book is not a
mere historical survey of these teachings. In Into the Silent Land, we see the ancient
wisdom of both the Christian East and West brought sharply to bear on the modern-day
longing for radical openness to God in the depths of the heart.
Laird's book is not like the many presentations for beginners. While useful for those just
starting out, this book serves especially as a guide for those who desire to journey yet
deeper into the silence of God. The heart of the book focuses on negotiating key moments
of struggle on the contemplative path, when the whirlwind of distractions or the brick
wall of boredom makes it difficult to continue. Laird shows that these inner struggles,
even wounds, that any person of prayer must face, are like riddles, trying to draw out of
us our own inner silence. Ultimately Laird shows how the wounds we loathe become
vehicles of the healing silence we seek, beyond technique and achievement. Throughout
the language is fresh, direct, and focused on real-life examples of people whose lives are
incomparably enriched by the practice of contemplation.
Intro

NT

Ethics

INTERPRETATION
A Bible Commentary
for Teaching and Preaching
James L. Mays, Series Editor
Patrick D. Miller, Old Testament Editor Paul J. Achtemeier, New Testament Editor
INTERPRETATION: A BIBLE COMMENTARY FOR TEACHING AND
PREACHING is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church.
Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this outstanding
biblical commentary is a major contribution to the general ministry of the Word in
today's world.
This series offers a full interpretation of the biblical text, combining historical scholarship
and theological purpose. It brings an understanding of what the text says into dialogue
with the critical questions and problems of contemporary life and faith.
INTERPRETATION revives the neglected art of expository writing that explains the
books of the Bible as the Holy Scripture of a church active at worship and work.
Teachers, preachers, and all serious students of the Bible will find here an interpretation
that takes serious hermeneutical responsibility for the contemporary meaning and
significance of the biblical text.
The comments deal with whole portions or sections of text that are used in teaching and
preaching rather than with individual verses and words. Exegetical study and
hermeneutical reflection are integrated into one readable expository essay. Each volume
of this series clarifies the sense of the text's language in its literary-historical context and
reflects on the meaning of the text in light of its use in the liturgy and the theology of the
church. Each suggests ways in which the text addresses faith and life today.
Each biblical book is presented for its most effective use by teacher or preacher, taking
into consideration its central purpose, its use in the liturgical and confessional tradition
and in lectionaries, and its special significance for Christian ethics and theology.
This series of commentaries offers an interpretation of the books of the Bible. It is
designed to meet the need of students, teachers, ministers, and priests for a contemporary
expository commentary. These volumes will not replace the historical critical
commentary or homiletical aids to preaching. The purpose of this series is rather to
provide a third kind of resource, a commentary which presents the integrated result of
historical and theological work with the biblical text.
An interpretation in the full sense of the term involves a text, an interpreter, and someone
for whom the interpretation is made. Here, the text is what stands written in the Bible in
its full identity as literature from the time of "the prophets and apostles," the literature
which is read to inform, inspire, and guide the life of faith. The interpreters are scholars
who seek to create an interpretation which is both faithful to the text and useful to the
church. The series is written for those who teach, preach, and study the Bible in the
community of faith.
The comment generally takes the form of expository essays. It is planned and written in
the light of the needs and questions which arise in the use of the Bible as Holy Scripture.
The insights and results of contemporary scholarly research are used for the sake of the
exposition. The commentators write as exegetes and theologians. The task which they
undertake is both to deal with what the texts say and to discern their meaning for faith
and life. The exposition is the unified work of one interpreter.
The text on which the comment is based is the Revised Standard Version of the Bible
and, since its appearance, the New Revised Standard Version. The general availability of
these translations makes the printing of a text in the commentary unnecessary. The
commentators have also had other current versions in view as they worked and refer to
their readings where it is helpful. The text is divided into sections appropriate to the
particular book; comment deals with passages as a whole, rather than proceeding word by
word, or verse by verse.
Writers have planned their volumes in light of the requirements set by the exposition of
the book assigned to them. Biblical books differ in character, content, and arrangement.
They also differ in the way they have been and are used in the liturgy, thought, and
devotion of the church. The distinctiveness and use of particular books have been taken
into account in decisions about the approach, emphasis, and use of space in the
commentaries. The goal has been to allow writers to develop the format which provides
for the best presentation of their interpretation.
The result, writers and editors hope, is a commentary which both explains and applies, an
interpretation which deals with both the meaning and the significance of biblical texts.
Each commentary reflects, of course, the writer's own approach and perception of the
church and world. It could and should not be otherwise. Every interpretation of any kind
is individual in that sense; it is one reading of the text. But all who work at the
interpretation of Scripture in the church need the help and stimulation of a colleague's
reading and understanding of the text. If these volumes serve and encourage
interpretation in that way, their preparation and publication will realize their purpose.
The Editors: James L. Mays, Series Editor
Patrick D. Miller, Old Testament Editor Paul J. Achtemeier, New Testament Editor
INTERPRETATION: A BIBLE COMMENTARY FOR TEACHING AND
PREACHING is a set of full-length commentaries written specifically for those who
interpret the Bible through teaching and preaching in the church.
The writers were chosen for their proven abilities as biblical scholars and their experience
as teachers and/or preachers. Each has an outstanding record of publication
demonstrating a keen sense for biblical interpretation and expository writing.
Old Testament:
Genesis by Walter Brueggemann (3101-X)
Exodus by Terence E. Fretheim (3102-8)
Leviticus by Samuel E. Balentine (3103-6)
Numbers by Dennis T. Olson (3104-4)
Deuteronomy by Patrick D. Miller (3105-2)
Judges by J. Clinton McCann (3107-9)
Ruth by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld (3149-4)
First and Second Samuel by Walter Brueggemann (3108-7)
First and Second Kings by Richard D. Nelson (3109-5)
First and Second Chronicles by Steven S. Tuell (3110-9)
Ezra–Nehemiah by Mark A. Throntveit (3111-7)
Esther by Carol M. Bechtel (3113-3)
Job by J. Gerald Janzen (3114-1)
Psalms by James L. Mays (3115-X)
Proverbs by Leo G. Perdue (3116-8)
Ecclesiastes by William P. Brown (3146-X)
Isaiah 1—39 by Christopher R. Seitz (3131-1)
Isaiah 40—66 by Paul D. Hanson (3132-X)
Jeremiah by R. E. Clements (3127-3)
Lamentations by F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp (3141-9)
Ezekiel by Joseph Blenkinsopp (3118-4)
Daniel by W. Sibley Towner (3122-2)
Hosea—Micah by James Limburg (3128-1)
Nahum—Malachi by Elizabeth Achtemeier (3129-X)
New Testament:
Matthew by Douglas R. A. Hare (3126-5)
Mark by Lamar Williamson, Jr. (3121-4)
Luke by Fred B. Craddock (3123-0)
John by Gerard S. Sloyan (3125-7)
Acts by William H. Willimon (3119-2)
Romans by Paul J. Achtemeier (3137-0)
First Corinthians by Richard B. Hays (3144-3)
Second Corinthians by Ernest Best (3135-4)
Galatians by Charles Cousar (3138-9)
Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon by Ralph P. Martin (3139-7)
Philippians by Fred B. Craddock (3140-0)
First and Second Thessalonians by Beverly Roberts Gaventa (3142-7)
First and Second Timothy and Titus by Thomas C. Oden (3143-5)
Hebrews by Thomas G. Long (3133-8)
First and Second Peter, James, and Jude by Pheme Perkins (3145-1)
First, Second, and Third John by D. Moody Smith (3147-8)
Revelation by M. Eugene Boring (3150-8)

Die Biographie der "Hure Babylon": Studien zur Intertextualität der Babylon-Texte in der
Bibel by Ulrike Sals (Mohr Siebeck)
2004. 540 pages (est.). (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe).
ISBN 3161484312 paper ca. € 70.00 (August)

'Babylon' is a subject which has been dealt with explicity in many biblical texts and has
always been more than just a geographical entity. All the levels of 'Babylon' have been
dealt with differently in the various texts and do often blend together, in particular in Jer
50-51 and Rev 17-19, and then completely in the dominant European histories of
reception. In detailed analyses of the various texts, Ulrike Sals shows how 'Babylon' is
depicted textually immanent and intertextual, since the biblical texts answer each other to
such an extent that they provide a kind of biography of Babylon as a city or kingdom,
woman and principle, as portrayed in Rev 17-19. In this work, the author makes an
important contribution to the intertextuality debate on Old and New Testament texts as
well as to the research on gender and the portrayal of cities.

Moses, God, and the Dynamics of Intercessory Prayer: A Study of Exodus 32-34 and
Numbers 13-14 by Michael WIDMER (Mohr Siebeck)

2004. 420 pages (est.). (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe).

ISBN 3161484231
Michael Widmer reconsiders the significance of the canonical portrayal of Moses as
intercessor in the aftermath of "documentary" pentateuchal criticism. Paying careful
attention to both the diachronic and synchronic dimensions of the text, at the heart of this
study is a close reading of Exodus 32-34 and Numbers 13-14 in their final form with
particular focus on the nature and theological function of Moses' prayers. These
intercessions evoke important theological questions, especially with regard to divine
reputation, covenant loyalty, visitation, and mutability.
The author's investigation makes evident not only that Moses' prayers embody an
important hermeneutical key to biblical theology, but also that Moses sets an important
biblical paradigm for authentic prayer. Moreover, Michael Widmer argues that YHWH's
fullest revelation of His name is enacted in a specific and concrete situation in the scout
narrative (Nu. 13-14). Thus the latter stands as a kind of commentary on Exodus 34:6-7.

Augustine’s Trinitarian Thought by Roland Kany (Mohr Siebeck)

2004. 420 pages (est.). (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe).

ISBN 3161484231

Augustine's "De Trinitate" is one of the most significant Christian works of antiquity.
Roland Kany does a critical reassessment of international research carried out during the
last 160 years on all aspects of this work. In modern systematic theology, Augustine's
doctrine of the Trinity has for the most part been understood in a traditional manner and
rejected. Current patristic research has given the work a new interpretation, has however
neglected its philosophical implications. Philosophers are presently rediscovering
Augustine's theory of self-consciousness in "De Trinitate", but paying no attention to its
theological context. Kany suggests a new interpretation, contending that Augustine's
concept of self-consciousness solves a fundamental problem of ancient philosophy.
Augustine uses the solution of this problem as a basis for a completely new theology of
the Trinity.

The Principle of “Unity” in the Early Works of Augustine by Jörg Trelenberg (Mohr
Siebeck)
2004. 260 pages (est.). (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 125).
ISBN 3161483847 cloth ca. € 74.00 (August)

Using Augustine's basic approach, the concept of 'unity', Jörg Trelenberg interprets the
highly complex philosophy and theology in the early works of Augustine. He shows that
this concept played a key role in the conflict with dualistic Manicheism, pagan
polytheism, subordinating Arianism and sectarian Donatism, to which Augustine on
principle always answered in the same manner, giving the 'one' absolute priority over the
'many'.
Wisdom

OT Ethics

Biblical theology

Coptic Studies

Wesleyan