Review

Author(s): James C. VanderKam

Review by: James C. VanderKam
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 98, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 434-436
Published by: Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3265782
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434 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

sons of Horus. The second group of scenes portrays the sending forth of three birds:a vulture, an
ibis and a falcon (or sometimes an owl), anointed and adorned with garlands. In one such reliefat
Karnak each bird representstwo deities, calling to mind a spell in the Pyramid Texts in which six
gods are dispatched to the four quarters of heaven to proclaim the accession of the king in the
afterworld. Some evidence for a similar practice in Syria-Palestine exists on cylinder seals from
Tell el-'Ajjul and an ivory plaque from Megiddo, the latter showing four birds, probably doves,
at a royal triumphal feast.
On the basis of such scenes Keel interprets the doves with gilded and silvered plumage in Ps
68:14bc as symbolic messengers of Yahweh's victory on behalf of Israel. If v 14a (an allusion to
Judg 5:16) is understood as concessive, the appearance of the winged heralds reveals that
Yahweh's victory has been accomplished without recourse to any help from Israel.
In chap. 2 Professor Keel's assistant, Urs Winter, deals with the heading of Ps 56:1. He
examines the various interpretations of the phrase and concludes that the original meaning was
"According to 'Dove of the distant gods,"' reading elimfor MT elem with support from LXX.
This catch-line of an early song finds its setting in the theme of the "goddess with the dove" known
from the iconography of Western Asia. Winter reviews the evidence for the motif, beginning with
terracotta figures of birds, including doves, some of which date back to the fourth millennium.
From the third millennium on, terracotta house models appear decorated with birds. More
significant are terracotta reliefs of a goddess with one or two doves from the Old Babylonian
period, and some cylinder seal depictions of deities with birds from Anatolia and Syria. Objects
from Kiiltepe and Alalakh bear representations of a naked goddess with two doves. As early as
the second millennium, then, goddesses are shown accompanied by doves in Mesopotamia and
especially Syria.
Winter concludes that the song mentioned in Ps 56:1 probably dealt with the dove as the
messenger of Syrian deities. He notes that Anat and Astarte are portrayed in the form of doves as
bearers of good tidings, and cites the description of Anat in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle (IV AB, ii, 10-
I1):
The virgin Anat lifted her wing,
Lifted her wing and sped in flight.
Consequently the dove in Ps 56:1 would refer to Anat or Astarte as this divine messenger.
The r6le of ravens and doves in Gen 8:6-12 is the subject of chap. 3. From Pali texts Keel
adduces instances of the use of birds as direction finders and discusses Mesopotamian cylinder
seals depicting ships with hovering birds. He regards the latter as an indication of birds as an aid
to navigation. Finally, in chap. 4, he deals with Eccl 10:20and quotes some interesting Greekand
Latin as well as rabbinic parallels to the first half of v 20.
The slim volume is attractively produced, well illustrated with good line drawings and some
photographs, and relatively free from misprints.

Ronald J. Williams

University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1Al

Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions, by Carey A. Moore. AB 44. Garden City:
Doubleday, 1977. Pp. xxx+374. $12.

Students of the Apocrypha will welcome with open arms a full-scale commentary on several of
the more neglected works within this corpus. Moore introduces, translates, and comments upon

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 BOOK REVIEWS 435

those works which in antiquity accumulated about Daniel (The Prayer of Azariah and the Hymn
of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Snake), Esther (six passages), and Jeremiah (1
Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah). Besides assembling a considerable amount of introductory and
exegetical material, Moore offers fresh, lively translations. One will want to keep a Greek text
nearby when using these translations but will find little in them with which to quarrel.
Moore dates the Additions to Daniel from the late Persian period (perhaps Susanna) to the
second century B.C.;ca. 100 B.C. marks the terminus ad quem because the LXX Daniel which
includes them existed by then. All of the Additions were written in a Semitic language, the Prayer
perhaps in Hebrew and the other two possibly in Aramaic. Nevertheless, all were added to an
original Semitic Daniel; only for the prose narrative of the prayer(3:46-51) is there a possibility
that it was in the original text.
He opted for the later Theodotionic text as the base for his translation and commentary
because the church used it, not the LXX, for centuries. His choice is highly surprising. If historical
considerations recommend inclusion of Theodotion, then a translation of it should have been
printed parallel to a rendering of the LXX. That would have increased the usefulness of the
commentary. As it stands, the LXX is translated but only in the notes and comments. Also
extraordinary is his suggestion that church officials preferred Theodotion to the LXX partly
because of the overt statement in the latter that the word of leaders was not to be accepted
uncritically (Sus 51), a sentiment lacking in Theodotion. Unlike most commentators on the
prayer, Moore finds four, not three, originally independent works: prayer (3:24-45), prose
narrative(3:46-51), ode (3:52-56), and psalm (3:57-90). Dividing the latter two is unusual. The two
certainly differ in their refrains, addressees, and possibly in meter, but whether that implies that
they were once independent is another question. I doubt, too, that he has argued convincingly for
the intrusiveness of the prose narrative between MT Dan 3:23 and 24. The abrupt transition
arouses suspicion that something has disappeared from the MT.
The author also considers secondary the six sections of Greek Esther that are lacking in the
MT, though four of them were written in a Semitic language. Only additions B and E are Greek
compositions. These six extra passages, the oldest of which were probably written in the second
century B.C., serve to bolster the fragile religious element in the original and to lend it greater
authenticity.
As anyone who has studied this Greek material knows, the colophon to Esther is crucial for
dating the book's translation into Greek. Though it specifies the reigning king (Ptolemy), queen
(Cleopatra), and regnal year (fourth), there are problems in identifying the monarchs because
several qualify. One expects that a commentary on Esther's additions would discuss such
difficulties, especially given the scholarly differences of opinion on them, but Moore fails to do so,
noting only his preferencefor Ptolemy VIII Soter II without defending it. The facts that the order
of the names is Ptolemy-Cleopatra and that the participle basileuontos is singular suggest that
Ptolemy Auletes (80-51) and Cleopatra V are meant and that the date is ca. 77 B.C.
The so-called Additions to Jeremiah relate to their biblical book differently than the
preceding two sets, but they appear in this volume nevertheless. Moore holds that the five sections
of I Baruch were written in Hebrew during the fourth-second centuries and that they were
compiled into a book in the second century B.C.The last five vv (5:5-9), which are probably based
on Pss. Sol. 11:3-8, are more likely a first-century B.C.addition. These five dissimilar sections are
unified only by their common fictitious setting-the exile.
Moore's dating of the psalm in I Bar 4:5-5:4 (i.e., without the first-century addition 5:5-9)
raises interesting problems regarding this type of literature. He recognizes that the internal
allusions are to events which occurred from 597 to 549 and admits that the poem could date from
any period between the fourth and second centuries. He chooses, without defending it, a date in
the first half of the second century. Yet does anything in the text require a date much later than
539 B.c.? One wonders, too, whether 5:5-9 is based on Pss. Sol. 11:3-8 and therefore from the first

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436 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

century. As Moore notes, the two could be reflexes of a common tradition of unknown date.
Finally, his suggestion that 5:5-9 were added to give the psalm seven stanzas in view of the
importance that this number assumes in the Bible makes one wish biblical scholars would leave
the number seven alone for a while.
Moore argues that the Epistle of Jeremiah is a homily or tirade against idols and idolatry; it
elaborates on Jer 10:11,as Tg. Neb. did. For the work's date he follows the common view that the
seven generations of v 3 provide the decisive clue. Since the exile with which v 1 is concerned is
that of 597 and seven generations of 40 years yield 280 years, 317 B.C. or slightly before would be
the book's date, assuming the author would not assign to the exile a duration that he already knew
to be incorrect. The book's original language was Hebrew. I was disappointed that the author
gave so little attention to the 7Q Greek fragment of v 44. Since a photograph of it appears
opposite p. 163, one could have expected a transliteration and translation.
I will conclude with two generalcomments. First, the arrangementof the commentary and the
decision to treat such disparate works in one volume produce needless repetition. A general
introduction to all the additions is followed by introductions to each of the three sets of additions
in which much of the information in the former is repeated. Some of these data then appear for the
third time in the introductions to the individual additions. I think the general introduction should
have been omitted. But the most egregious repetition surfaces in the section on the additions to
Esther. Moore rightly perceived that they must be examined in their literary context within
Esther, but this leads him to reprint from his AB Esther commentary not only his entire
translation of MT Esther but also an abbreviated form of his notes and comments. This rehashing
underscores the obvious fact that at least the additions to Esther and Daniel should be treated in
commentaries on Esther and Daniel.
Second, in discussions about the canonicity of the additions, Moore often intimates that "the
Council of Jamnia" rejected them from the Jewish canon of Scripture. As a matter of fact, though
they failed to qualify as canonical at some point in Judaism, there is no evidence that these
additions were even discussed, much less rejected, by a council of Jamnia.

James C. VanderKam

North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27607

Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity,by Gerd Theissen, tr. by John Bowden. Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1978. Pp. ix+131. $4.50 (paper).
Social Aspects of Early Christianity, by Abraham J. Malherbe. Baton Rouge/London:
Louisiana State University, 1977. Pp. xiii+98. $7.95.

These two recent contributions to the increasingly popular "sociological" study of early
Christianity illustrate the lack of consensus among scholars as to the definition, method, and
direction of such research and demonstrate both its difficulties and potential benefits. Of the two
works, by far the more creative is Theissen's attempt to "describe the typical attitudes and
behaviour within the Jesus movement and to analyze its interaction with Jewish society in
Palestine generally" (p. 1). Theissen divides his endeavor into three sections; the first concerned
with typical patterns of behavior in the Jesus movement ("roles"); the second with the way in
which these patterns of behavior are determined by society ("factors"); and the third with the
effects of such behavior on the larger society in which the Jesus movement operated
("functions"). His rather rigidly structured procedure extracts social information about early
Christian individuals and groups from direct textual references ("constructive conclusions"); by

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