LXXI

“The dead don’t talk. I don’t know why.”

So says Odd Thomas, the hero of my favorite cotton candy novel. It’s a book about a twenty year old short-order cook who sees dead people. (No, it is not like The Sixth Sense). I was so caught up in Odd Thomas a few semesters ago that I chose to write an exegetical paper on Isaiah 8:11-22 primarily because it has the word אוב in it. The translation of this word is difficult. It is not always easy to determine whether it means “ghost” or “medium,” one who conjures spirits. In a recently published article Andrés Piquer Otero describes the Hebrew word אוב as “a mystifying puzzle.” One thing is for sure: whether directly or indirectly, in the Hebrew Bible the dead do talk.

I’ve mulled over אוב for quite a while, and this is my conclusion:

Though the etymology of II.אוב is uncertain, a rubric for understanding the word can be constructed based on its usage in the Hebrew Bible. אוב should be understood to refer to a ghost in contexts (A) where an אוב is described doing things that no living, human medium could do, (B) where אוב is parallel to chirping sounds, (C) where אוב stands parallel with other spiritual entities or things, and (D) where there is a clear agent-object distinction and אוב is the object. A potential fifth category would include contexts where אוב is the object of verbs of seeking.

אוב should be understood to refer to one who conjures the spirit of a dead person, a medium, in contexts (A) where a living, human being is described as אוב and (B) where a person increases or decreases אובות in a measurable way.

For an explanation click here.

For a limited time you can order an electronic edition of all three volumes of James Charlesworth’s (ed.) The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls in Logos Bible Software for $99.95. Baylor University Press sells the hardcover edition of volume 3 for the same price. The Logos electronic edition is a great deal on a massive, high-quality collection of essays. These three volumes include over 1,200 pages of articles and almost 300 pages of bibliography and indices.

I’m frequently asked about how the Dead Sea Scrolls affect our understanding of the Bible, and this three volume set is one of the first places to which I point people. I’ll note just a couple articles from each volume. Volume 1 is subtitled “Scripture and the Scrolls.” If you are interested in the relationship between the DSS and the text of the OT, this volume will be helpful.  Frank Moore Cross writes on “The Biblical Scrolls from Qumran and the Canonical Text,” Sidnie White Crawford on “The Rewritten Bible at Qumran,” and J. J. M. Roberts has a very helpful article on “The Importance of Isaiah at Qumran.”

Volume 2, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community,” focuses on the content of the Scrolls themselves and ways in which the Scrolls contribute to our understanding of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. These articles cover important themes in the Scrolls such as the “two spirits” (John R. Levinson), dualism (Elisha Qimron), the Qumran understanding of “messiah” (John J. Collins), “covenant” (Moshe Weinfeld), the liturgical calendar (Shemaryahu Talmon), etc.

Volume 3 moves to “The Scrolls and Christian Origins.” Charlesworth discusses the thorny issues of the relationship between the DSS and John the Baptist. He concludes, somewhat provocatively,

There seems no reason to doubt that the Baptizer adopted at least some of the teachings of the Qumranites. He probably inherited at least the interpretation of Isa 40:3, the concept of the Holy Spirit, a belief in the impending doom of the end of time, and the concept of the lost as a brood of vipers. (35)

Adela Yarbro Collins writes about “The Dream of a New Jerusalem at Qumran,” and Craig A. Evans surveys issues related to “The Synoptic Gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” This highlights just a fraction of the contents, but as you can see the contributors are major players in their respective fields.

I do not prefer to read monographs in a digital format, (unless the price is too good to pass up). Reference works and collections of articles are a different story. It is not too difficult to read 20 pages at a time on a computer screen, and the benefit of having easy access to your books far outweighs the disadvantages of reading e-books. The key factor determining how often I use a book is accessibility. In the Logos version of The Bible and Dead Sea Scroll the references to Scripture and the Scrolls will be hyperlinked and the full text of each volume will be easily searchable.

FYI: Logos also sells the handy two volume Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Martínez and Tigchelaar), which includes both transcriptions and translations of the non-biblical texts.

In chapter 2, Collins provides a clear summary of the arguments for and against understanding the community behind the Dead Sea Scrolls as the Essenes.

He notes prominent scholars who have held to the Essene hypothesis: Millar Burrows, Yigael Yadin, Geza Vermes, J. T. Milik, Frank Moore Cross, and Roland de Vaux (56).

In short, Collins believes the Essene hypothesis “remains probable” because no alternative proposal has been found plausible. He maintains that this is an issue “on which reasonable people can disagree” (63).

Cross with a Left Hook!

So, the Essenes are described in the ancient sources (Josephus, Philo, et al.). What Jewish group do these descriptions most resemble? Collins includes a quote from Frank Moore Cross that is worth quoting in full:

The task, therefore, is to identify a major sect in Judaism. To suppose that a major group in Judaism in this period went unnoticed in our sources is simply incredible. The scholar who would “exercise caution” in identifying the sect of Qumran with the Essenes places himself in an astonishing position: he must suggest seriously that two major parties formed communistic religious communities in the same district of the desert of the Dead Sea and lived together in effect for two centuries, holding similar bizzare views, performing similar or rather identical lustrations, ritual meals and ceremonies. He must suppose that one, carefully described by classical authors, disappeared without leaving building remains or even potsherds behind; the other, systematically ignored by the classical sources, left extensive ruins, and indeed a great library. I prefer to be reckless and flatly identify the men of Qumran with their perennial houseguests, the Essenes. (58-59)

Unsettled Issues

Collins notes that Cross’s position assumes that the DSS were the library of the community that lived at Khirbet Qumran, an idea that is now contested. Collins briefly discusses a few issues that remain troubling for the Essene hypothesis: minor differences in the ancient accounts of the Essene admission process, the issue of celibacy and the community’s relations with women, and the fact that the ancient accounts of the Essenes’ beliefs do not mention the apocalyptic and messianic ideas found in the Scrolls.

At the end of the chapter Collins points readers to further reading, including a more nuanced statement of his understanding of the people and circumstances behind the DSS in Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010).

Related Posts: Collins’ Biography of the DSS, Chapter 1 and Reading to Beau for the First Time

OK, so the silky smooth prose mentioned in my previous post didn’t carry over into the the body of the work, but that is not to say that the first couple chapters (what I’ve read so far) are poorly written. I agree with Geza Vermes’s blurb, which describes the book as “marvelously readable…”

Chapter 1 recounts the high points of the discovery of the Scrolls –as Collins terms it, the “birth” of the Scrolls, or perhaps re-birth. He tells the story in 32 small pages. If you have read fuller accounts, Collins’ presentation might seem a little choppy. It did to me, but I think that is because of how complex and multifaceted the story is; it’s not necessarily a knock on Collins’ writing. Collins points readers to Weston Fields’ history of the Scrolls for more details. Fields spends almost 600 pages telling only a portion of the story Collins tells in 32. Though it’s quite lengthy, Fields’ Full History is not boring in the least.

Related Posts: Collins on the Essene Hypothesis and Reading to Beau for the First Time

On February 5, my wife gave birth to our firstborn, a boy named Beau. Tonight, as he lay in his bassinet wrapped in swaddling clothes, I thought I would try my hand at a little father-son reading time. Earlier today a generous co-worker gave me a copy of John J. Collins’ new book The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography.

I can’t imagine a Dr. Seuss book being any easier to read aloud. We’ll have to wait and see if the rest of the book is written with such silky smooth prose. A few examples:

The “biography” of these Scrolls is somewhat like that of Rip van
Winkle. While other texts from antiquity influenced the Renaissance or the Reformation, the Scrolls just slept. What we have witnessed in the last sixty-five years or so is not so much a biography as a post-resurrection after-life, separated from the original environment of the Scrolls by an interval of two millenia. (vii)

The Scrolls are fodder for the popular demand for “mysteries”–exotic, dimly understood lore that is paraded to stimulate curiosity in tabloid newspapers and television shows such as “Mysteries of the Bible.” (ix)

The scholarly community is generally collegial and mutually supportive, but the Scrolls have brought to light some glaring exceptions that remind us that this community is no more free of original  sin than any other segment of the human race. (xiii-xiv)

The purpose of Collins’ book is a little different than the standard introduction.

Our purpose is to ask what difference the Scrolls have made to the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity, and to probe what has been at stake in the debates that have often been so acrimonious.

Thanks for the book, Ivan. And, Beau, thanks for listening so well.

Related Posts: Collins’ Biography of the DSS, Chapter 1 and Collins on the Essene Hypothesis

It is hard to break the habit of reading the Greek Old Testament merely as a witness to a Hebrew Vorlage. Tessa Rajak puts it poignantly,

Because of the complexity of its relationship with a range of Hebrew precursors, because of the sheer number of recensions which the Greek text underwent, and because of our lack of grip on the scope and purpose of these, the textual history is one of mind-bending difficulty. Naturally, then, the Septuagint has been a hunting ground for textual critics, and at times in the past it was virtually abandoned by scholars with other kinds of interests, to remain the exclusive preserve of the textual critics–probably without too much regret. (19)

Several weeks back, Ken Penner pushed the LXX-Isaiah-in-a-year Facebook group to try to do a little more, to make observations about the Greek text itself. This encouragement has lingered in the back of my mind ever since. I picked up Rajak’s book in hopes that it might serve as a model. She writes,

Suffice it to say that here I do not foreground the issues which have dominated, at a guess, 90 per cent of Septuagint scholarship for the past century-and-a-half, and that have deterred even the more adventurous from entering wholeheartedly into other important and interesting questions. One needs to be aware of the instability of the text and to understand how to handle it. But I contend that it is possible to write about the history of the translations without engaging in continual text-critical study–and without waiting another hundred and fifty years… In many places there are no variants. Broad tranches of wording stay constant across textual diversity. Another point on which I lean is that at any one place and time people had their own conception of the original work of the Alexandrian translators, whether or not they could be sure that the text in front of them was that text; and that conception is eminently worth discussing. (20)

Tessa Rajak. Translation and Survival : The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

This sale is quite a deal. On Friday, 2/8/13, International Septuagint Day, Logos’s electronic Göttingen LXX will be available for $369. Use the coupon code LXXDay2013 at checkout. Every published volume is included. Even if you do not have a Logos base package, this is the sort of resource that would be worth purchasing as a stand alone product. Abram has the scoop. See his blog for a very nice review of the electronic version of the Göttingen LXX  in Logos and Accordance.

My Göttingen Logos Layout

Here is a screen shot illustrating how the Göttingen text and apparatuses can be displayed alongside BHS (click the images to zoom in):

In this layout, the Göttingen text is linked to both the apparatuses and the BHS text (notice the little orange and white “A” in the top left corner of each window). If I type in a verse reference (e.g. Gen 1:1) and hit enter, each window automatically jumps to that passage, even if it is in different Göttingen volume. For example in the screen shot above, I am in Isaiah 1:1. When I type in Genesis 1:1 and hit enter, this is what I see:

The Göttingen text and apparatuses immediately moved from Ziegler’s Isaiah volume to Wevers’ Genesis volume.  This is one of the many advantages of the electronic edition–seamless navigation through the entire series.

Sometimes a different description, new terminology, is all it takes for understanding to click. This is one reason I find it helpful to turn to the Lexham Discourse Hebrew Bible (LDHB) as a reference tool. As I read Genesis 41:39 recently, I was puzzled by the use of אחרי. After looking over the entries in BDB and HALOT, it still wasn’t clear how the phrase introduced by this word was functioning in the sentence. Here is Genesis 41:39 in BHS and in the LDHB:

וַיֹּאמֶר פַּרְעֹה אֶל־יוֹסֵף אַחֲרֵי הוֹדִיעַ אֱלֹהִים אוֹתְךָ אֶת־כָּל־זֹאת אֵין־נָבוֹן וְחָכָם כָּמוֹךָ

This is the way a typical verse looks in the LDHB. Runge and Westbury have marked the discourse features of the text with symbols, as described in the introductory volume.  Note that the entire second line is surrounded with the symbols [TM ... TM]. This marks אחרי הודיע אלהים אותך את־כל־זאת as a “temporal frame.” Hovering your mouse over one of the TM symbols displays the name and a concise definition of this discourse feature:

[^TM Temporal frames ^TM]: the fronting of time-related information to establish a specific time frame for the clause that follows.

This description helps me understand why אחרי is commonly translated “since.” The term “temporal frame” clicks. The prepositional phrase introduced by אחרי (usually rendered as a dependent clause in English) describes the circumstances that led Pharaoh to draw his conclusion concerning Joseph: “there is no one as discerning and wise as you.” The flow of thought could be paraphrased like this: “After God made known to you all this, surely we must conclude that there is no one as discerning and wise as you.” The statement in the last half of the verse is inferred from what has just taken place.

This is one example of how you might integrate the LDHB into your workflow. After reading the Introduction included in the Lexham Discourse Hebrew Bible Bundle, you will be able to use the LDHB as a complement to your other secondary sources–grammars, commentaries, etc. Many thanks to Logos for sending me a gratis copy for review.

Related Post: Redundant Quotative Frames in Jonah

Steve Runge and Josh Westbury recently released the electronic Lexham Discourse Hebrew Bible (6 vols). One of the 6 volumes is an introduction to their function-based approach to Hebrew grammar. For Hebrew grammar this is the best complement to Runge’s Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament, available electronically or in print. The introduction included in the Discourse Hebrew Bible bundle is very clearly written. If you have no prior experience with “discourse grammar” this is a great place to start. The following is one attempt to put this type of analysis into practice.

Redundant Quotative Frame (RQF)

In the Introduction, Runge and Westbury define “redundant quotative frame” (RQF) as follows:

The use of extra speaking verbs to frame or introduce a speech, drawing attention to a surprising or important element of the speech that follows.

For example, they note that “the most commonly used redundant quotative frame is וַיַּעַן וַיֹּאמֶר, where וַיֹּאמֶר is unneeded” (sec. 1.5).

RQF’s in Jonah

It seems to me there are two RQF’s in the book of Jonah, one in 3:4 (וַיִּקְרָא וַיֹּאמַר)and one in 3:7 (וַיַּזְעֵק וַיּאֹמֶר). There are plenty other speeches in Jonah, but these two are marked by the way they are introduced with RQF’s. The question is why?

I propose that, taken together, these two speeches highlight the primary conflict in the narrative. Finally, after fleeing and being supernaturally put back on track, Jonah arrives at Nineveh and proclaims (וַיִּקְרָא וַיֹּאמַר 3:4) that in forty days the city will be overthrown. Then comes the real bummer for Jonah: Nineveh repents (3:5). Nineveh’s surprising response is not just stated by the narrator, the king of Nineveh himself  issues a decree (וַיַּזְעֵק וַיּאֹמֶר  3:7) that the whole city repent and cry for mercy. Jonah did what Yahweh told him and the response was exactly opposite of was expected.

Highlighting these two speeches sets up chapter 4, where the narrative tension will reach its climax. There’s no resolution. The book ends with the tension high. It is commonly thought that the key to the book of Jonah is chapter 4. Does this application of Runge and Westbury’s approach provide linguistic support for reading the story this way? How do you understand the function of the RQF’s in Jonah? What do they do? This question is for anyone, but I especially wonder what CJ Fresch, the Parks, and the HBU crew think of this analysis.

Related Post: Lexham Discourse Hebrew Bible as a Reference Work

I’ve posted three reflections on Jonah as a character in the book of Jonah:

•  Echoes of Cain in the Story of Jonah
• Jonah the Pharisee
• Jonah as Disciple

But there is certainly more to say. For example, I’ve said nothing about how “the sign of Jonah” in Matthew might color one’s reading. How do you think of Jonah? To whom can we compare him? What other text or character, whether biblical or not, helps you understand the portrayal of Jonah in the book bearing his name? Hopefully someone else will take this up.

I’m officially tagging Brian LePort, Brian Renshaw, the Parks, Abram K-J, Andrew King, Patrick Schreiner, and John Meade because I know these people read the Bible theologically and as literature and/or because I know they have been working in Jonah recently. Of course, comment from Jim West is always welcome. If I can pull Joseph away from his dissertation long enough to write a post, I would love to hear from him as well, but I’m not getting my hopes up. I hope to inspire a little horizontal blogging, but comments are welcome from any and all. If you don’t want to write a full post, comment here.

Related Post: Redundant Quotative Frames in Jonah