Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

Eldad and Modad

This biblical expansion is only preserved in a single line of only four words at that in the Vision of Hermes 2.3.4, The line reads “’The Lord is near to those who turn to him’” as it is written (in the book of) Eldad and Modad who prophesied in the desert. James Charlesworth thinks that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan also quotes from this source (ABD 2:43)1. There are a number of other un-attributed statements in the writings of the earliest church which have been attributed to Eldad and Modad, but none of these can be proven to be from an actual book. The Stichometry of Nicephorus (ninth century) lists Eldad and Modad as having 400 lines.

In Numbers 11 Moses orders the seventy elders to the tent of meeting after the people complain about food in the desert. Eldad and Modad (Medad in the MT, NRSV and most literature on this apocryphal text) are two of the elders of Israel who did not go to the tent of Meeting (Numbers 11:26-27). When the spirit of God comes upon them and they begin to prophesy, Joshua tells Moses to stop them since they had been to the tent. Moses refuses since the Lord who put his spirit in these men and he would not stop it. Like Enoch, who generated significant apocryphal literature, there is nothing in Numbers to indicate what they prophesied. For Martin, the two were “were insignificant tribal prophets” E. G. Martin, “Eldad and Modad,” OTP 2:465).

The text from Targum Pseudo-Jonathan indicates the two prophets predicted Gog and Magog would attack on Jerusalem at “the end of days.” A “royal Messiah” would defeat these evil forces (Martin, OTP 2:464). The pair are mentioned a few times in the Talmud. For example, “Eldad and Medad said, ‘We are not worthy of that high position’” (b. Sanh. 1:1, XXX.3.A; cf. b. Ros. Has. 2:8b, III.1.D where they are simply mentioned as elders). But there is nothing on the content of their prophecy.

James Davila addressed the problem of “quotation fragments” in a lecture entitled “A Worst-Case Scenario (Eldad and Modad)” (29 April, 1997, University of St. Andrews). The purpose of the paper was to “propose some common-sense guidelines for dealing with quotation fragments.” The first of these proposals is to “know your author,” something of a problem of Eldad and Modad. Although the Shepherd of Hermas is a well-known text, “Visions 1-4 is a redactional unit that was probably written half a century or so earlier” and the text itself is not particularly well preserved.

The fragment represents a tantalizing glimpse into a short biblical expansion lost to modern scholarship.

History of the Rechabites

This short text is sometimes called the Apocalypse of Zosimus or the Story of Zosimus since it features the visionary travels of the virtuous monk Zosimus. Since a critical edition of the text has yet to be published, Charlesworth suggests it is unwise to state a probable date and provenance for the book. The book appears in Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic but it is possible the text goes back to a Semitic source. More recently, Chris Knights considers chapters 11-12 and 14-16 to be a Jewish Pseudepigrapha written before A.D. 850 originally composed in Greek (Knight, 1998, 92-3).

The book was preserved by Christians and has obvious Christian glosses. While the book has limited value for the study of the New Testament, it is an interesting parallel to the story of St. Brendan, the Irish monk who twice sailed to the Isle of the Blessed in the fifth century A.D. It is impossible to know if History of the Rechabites was influences by the tale of St. Brenden or vice versa. For details, see Witikowski, “Syriac Apocalyptic Literature,” in The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective: Essays Presented in Honor of Professor Robert W. Thomson on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday. eds. Kevork B. Bardakjian, Sergio La Porta (Brill, 2014), 670.

History of the Rechabites is an expansion of Jeremiah 35. Jeremiah encounters a nomadic tribe of people known as the Rechabites who drink no wine and live in tents because of a vow their forefather had made. In canonical Jeremiah, this tribe is a model of faithfulness in the last days of the kingdom of Judah. In this apocalypse the tribe now resides on the Island of the Blessed Ones. A holy man by the name of Zosimus spends forty years fasting in the desert asking to see the Island of the Blessed. His prayer is finally heard and an angel escorts him over a gigantic sea. An animal of some kind takes him the rest of the way onto an island where he meets a naked man who claims to be one of the Blessed.

The Blessed Ones take Zosimus in and teach him their background including a few stories about Jeremiah and Josiah’s sons in the last days of Judah. A wicked king attempts to force the Rechabites to break their vow by forcing them to drink wine, but God himself protected them and brought them to this island. The people living on the Blessed Island know all about people in Zosimus’ world. They are aware how wicked they are and they pray for them. The Lord announced to these Blessed Ones the coming of the Word Incarnate through the Holy Virgin.

The Island of the Blessed Ones is like the Garden of Eden. The people are naked, “covered with a stole of glory similar to Adam and Eve before they sinned” (12:3). They eat from the fruits of the trees drink from “the exceedingly good, sweet, and delightful water which comes out to us from the roots of the trees.” These people are aware of the fallen world because “the angels of God dwell with us and they announce to us those things which (happen) among you.” They pray for the “sinners and pagans who are in the world and petition God constantly to restrain his anger” (12:8).

On feast days the Lord rains manna on the Blessed Ones, and they never suffer from sickness or temptation. The Rechabites know when they are going to die, but there is no need to dig graves because the angels conduct them to heaven. The Blessed pray for Zosimus specifically that he could be a guide and refuge. While they pray, a white cloud delivers him back to his home. The text breaks off here, although OTP notes there is an additional four chapters in Greek by a Christian author concerning temptation.

 

Bibliography:

Bosman, H. L. “The Rechabites and ‘Sippenethos’ in Jeremiah 35.” ThEv 16 (1983): 83-86.

Demsky, Aaron. “The Scribal Families of Jabetz”, in M. Garsiel (ed.) Studies in Bible and Exegesis vol. 10 (Shmuel Vargon Vol) (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan Universty Press, 2011), pp. 253-261 (Hebrew).

Frick, Frank. “Rechab, Rechabites” in ABD 5:630-631; “The Rechabites Reconsidered,” JBL 90 (1991): 279-287. Frick suggests the Rechabites were a guild of chariot makers, based on the etymology of their tribal name.

Haelewyck, J-C. (Jean-Claude), et al. “Diverse Perspectives on the Manuscript Tradition of the Story of Zosimus,” Oriens Christianus 99 (2016): 1-44

Keown, G. L. “Excursus: The Identity of the Rechabites” in Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC 27; Dallas: Word, 2002) 194-96.

Knights, Chris “‘The Story of Zosimus’ or ‘The History Of The Rechabites’?” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period (1993): 235–245.

Knights, Chris. “Towards a Critical Introduction to ‘The History of the Rechabite,’” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 26 (1995): 324-342.

Knights, Chris. “The History of the Rechabites-an Initial Commentary,” Journal For The Study Of Judaism In The Persian, Hellenistic And Roman Period 28 (1997): 413-436.

Levenson, J. D. “On the Promise to the Rechabites.” CBQ 38 (1976) 508-514;

 

 

 

The Book of Jannes and Jambres

According to tradition, Jannes and Jambres were the two magicians who opposed Moses in Egypt. This tradition is based on an allusion to the two men in 2 Timothy 3:8, although they are only know from fragments of a text now named after them. These two men are the magicians who were able to change their staff to a snake as did Moses in Exodus 7:11. Although they are not mentioned by name in Exodus, the traditional use of these two names as prototypical magicians is well known. In Eusebius’ Praeparatio evangelica (9.8) the pagan Numenius may have alluded to this tradition, saying that Jannes and Jambres were able to undo, the plagues against Egypt. In the Decretum Gelasianum, a sixth-century Latin manuscript attributed to Pope Gelasius I (492–96), Jannes and Jambres is listed among the sixty-two “apocryphal” (rejected) works.

The text of Jannes and Jambres is fragmentary and lacks solid historical allusions making it difficult to date. Origen appears to refer to the book when commenting on 2 Timothy (Contra Celsus, IV. 51). The fragments in Chester Beatty papyri XVI date to the third century A.D. The book could be either Jewish or Christian since the Jannes and Jambres traditions are found in both streams of tradition.

The Damascus Document is the first reference to one of the magicians by the name, suggesting a tradition which predates 100 B.C.:

“For in earlier times Moses and Aaron arose with the help of the Prince of Lights, while Belial raised up Jannes and his brother in his cunning, when Israel was saved the first time” (CD–A Col. v:18, trans. Davies, 245).

In his commentary on Matthew, Origin indicated the reference to the Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy came from a non-canonical source (see commentary on 27:3-10). There are several rabbinic sources for the names (b.Men., 85a; Exodus rabba, 7 on 7:11) and in Targum. Ps.-Jonathan. on Exod 1:15, but these are also late and not useful for dating the document with any precision

It is possible Paul knew the tradition since 2 Timothy 3:8 refers to the men who opposed Moses as Jannes and Jambres. Paul’s point is his opponents stand in the tradition of these magicians, “corrupted in mind” and “disqualified in the faith.” From about the same time as 2 Timothy, Dibelius and Conzelmann quote Pliny, Hist. Nat. 30.2.11: “There is yet another branch of magic, derived from Moses, Jannes, Lotapes and the Jews, but living many thousand years after Zoroaster.” Dibelius and Conzelmann also mention a tradition in the Acts of Peter and Paul 34: “For just as the Egyptians Jannes and Jambres deceived Pharaoh and his army until they were drowned in the sea, so also etc.” (The Pastoral Epistles; Hermenia, 117).

The book makes for difficult reading since most lines are fragmentary and there are gaps in the text. When the two magicians are summoned to oppose Moses, Jambres ran back to the library to collect his “magical tools.”  A fragment in the British Library states that Jambres (also spelled Mambres) performed necromancy. When he died he went into the netherworld where there is a “great burning pit of perdition.”

Mambres opened the magical books of his brother Jannes; he performed necromancy and brought up from the netherworld his brother’s shade. The soul of Jannes said in response,

“I your brother did not die unjustly, but indeed justly, and the judgment will go against me, since I was more clever than all clever magicians, and opposed the two brothers, Moses and Aaron, who performed great signs and wonders. As a result I died and was brought from among (the living) to the netherworld where there is great burning and the pit of perdition, whence no ascent is possible” (Pietersma A. and R. T. Lutz, “Jannes and Jambres,” in OTP 2:440)

The use of the fragments for New Testament studies is extremely limited, perhaps only serving to illuminate the tradition standing behind 2 Tim 3:8.

 

Bibliography:

Davies, Philip R. The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the “Damascus Document” (Translation) (JSOTSupp 25; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1982), 245–247.

James, M. R. “A Fragment of the ‘Penitence of Jannes and Jambres.’ ” JTS 2 (1901): 572–77.

Klippenstein, Rachel “Jannes and Jambres, Text,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2016).

Pietersma A. and R. T. Lutz, “Jannes and Jambres,” in OTP 2:427; Pietersma, “Jannes and Jambres” in ABD, 3:368-369.

The Ladder of Jacob

Like many of the smaller books in the Pseudepigrapha, it is nearly impossible to guess a date the Ladder of Jacob. H. G. Lunt argues for a Jewish origin of the first six chapters based on the otherwise inexplicable reference to “lawless Falkon” as a Satan-figure in 6:13. Observing that Isaiah 27:1 Leviathan is called a crooked or twisted serpent (נָחָ֖שׁ עֲקַלָּת֑וֹן), Lunt suggests this can be taken as a proper name and speculates the Hebrew ʿqltwn was transliterated as καλθον, then through a transposition error, the word became θαλκον. When translated into east Slavonic, the word became φαλκον. Since the only extent copies of this work are Slavonic translations, it is not difficult to change a θ to a φ in the copying process. At best this thin piece of evidence indicates a Jewish origin.

The book expands on the details of the dream of Jacob only briefly described in Genesis 28. After his vision, Jacob worships (chapter 2) and the angel Sariel visits Jacob and explains this dream of the angels going up and down a ladder. This angel is identified as the “leader of the beguiled,” but this term can mean “sweetness, charm” or negatively, “deluded.” He is further described here as the angel who is in charge of dreams. The twelve steps of the ladder are the twelve ages of the earth, each with two kings who will oppress the people of God.

In Jacob’s vision the ladder going up to heaven had twelve steps on each step were two human faces which continually changed their appearance. Chapter five uses the twelve steps of the ladder from Jacob’s Vision as a kind of “timeline” of the future. Like other apocalyptic visions where heads on a beast refer to kings, each step on the ladder are the “kings of ungodly nations.” These wicked kings

“You have seen a ladder with twelve steps, each step having two human faces which kept changing their appearance. The ladder is this age, and the twelve steps are the periods of this age. But the twenty-four faces are the kings of the ungodly nations of this age. Under these kings the children of your children and the generations of your sons will be interrogated. These will rise up against the iniquity of your grandsons.”

In chapter 6 we are told a king will arise in judgment and Israel will go into slavery. This is such a general statement it cannot be used for dating the book since it could refer to 568 B.C., 67 B.C. or A.D. 70. The Mighty One will rise at that time and fight for his people when the land is swarmed by reptiles and all sorts of deadly things, killing the lawless Falkon by the sword. After this seed of Israel will sound a horn and the kingdoms of Edom and Moab will perish.

Chapter 7 is a Christian addition giving a few of the signs of the impending apocalypse. Lunt indicates the work is described as a first century A.D. work, but he does not argue in his introduction (OTP 2:404). Lunt states the source for the chapter is the Explanation of the Events in Persia (also known as the Tale of Aphroditanus, known from thirteenth to nineteenth century Russian and Serbian Slavonic texts). This book appears as The Legend of Aphroditanus in New Testament Apocrypha (Burke and Landau (Eerdmans, 2017, p. 3-18), although the translator Katharina Heyden does not reference the Ladder of Jacob. In two manuscripts one of the Magi describe their first encounter with Jesus. The first sees a child, the second sees a thirty year old man and the third as like an old man. This is similar to Ladder of Jacob 7:6-9, but it is far from a clear allusion and cannot be used to determine dependence. Other than the reference to wise men in 7:18, there is less connecting the two books than expected.

In the final chapter of the book, author of the Ladder of Jacob describes several signs the “expected one” will soon arrive: “Such will be the signs at the time of his coming: A tree cut with an ax will bleed; three-month-old babes will speak understanding; a baby in the womb of his mother will speak of his way; a youth will be like an old man” (7:4-8).

As with most of the short expansions of Scripture in the Pseudepigrapha it is difficult to assess the value of the Ladder of Jacob. The activity of the angels in the book certainly is consistent with other apocalyptic books and the series of kings who will oppress Israel until a messiah-like liberator appears is similar to Daniel or 2 Baruch.

The Lives of the Prophets

The Lives of the Prophets (Liv. Pro.) seems to have been written in the first century by a Jew, but because it was preserved by Christians there many interpolations with distinctive Christian theology. It is possible the legendary acts of the prophets included in the book date to the Maccabean period but it is almost impossible to date the various strata of the book (the legends, the Jewish text, the Christian editing.) The best hint is the description of Elijah as having come from “the land of the Arabs” (21:1), possibly connecting his birthplace to the Nabateans. Since the Nabateans virtually disappear after A.D. 106 when Trajan moves trade routes to avoid Petra, the book was written after this time.

This book lists prophets from the Hebrew Bible and gives details on their birth, city of residence, and death. As D. A. Hare notes, the reason the book is so rarely included in collections of Pseudepigrapha is that it is nearly devoid of theology: “Religious edification is not its prime purpose, and consequently theological themes are for the most part dealt with only indirectly” (OTP 2:382). However, expanding biblical narratives is a practice driven by theology. For many of the prophets in the collection were not associated with miracles in the canonical texts. By passing along traditions of miracles (or creating new miracle stories) the author validates the word of these particular prophets. No non-canonical prophet appears in the list, even if a few are obscure in the Hebrew Bible. There are a few Christian additions, such as Jeremiah’s prophecy of the virgin birth, including the detail that the child would be laid in a manger (2:8).

Image result for The Martyrdom of IsaiahThe book assumes the text of the Bible as a foundation and adds legendary miracle stories to the adventures of the prophets. For example, Jeremiah prays for asps and crocodiles to leave the Jewish refugees alone when then arrive in Egypt (2:3). When Nebuchadnezzar goes mad in Daniel 4, the prophet is asked to pray for Nebuchadnezzar when asked by his son Baltasar (4:4).  Daniel did “many other prodigies” for the Persian kings which were not written down (4:18). Habakkuk sees the glory of the Temple and predicts its destruction (12:10-12).

The stories pass along a few traditions about the prophets. The tradition Isaiah was sawn in two by Manasseh (1:1) appears in the Martyrdom of Isaiah and possibly Hebrews 11:37. According to the book, Daniel was born in Upper Beth-Horon and was thought to be a eunuch (4:2). When Elisha was born in Gilgal, the golden calf in Bethel bellowed shrilly, so loud that it was heard in Jerusalem (22:1-2).

The Lives also passes along the story that Jeremiah hid the Ark of the Covenant in a rock in the wilderness (2:11-19), a story with some parallels in 2 Maccabees 2:4-8 and 4 Baruch 3:8-12. Since D. R. A. Hare sees no evidence of borrowing he suggests the Lives of the Prophets is evidence for the currency of this tradition in the “folklore of Palestine” (384). There is a location near the Dead Sea some Israeli guides will point out as the location of the Ark, at least according to fringe archaeologist Vendyl Jones.

A major interest of the author of these prophetic lives is the burial place of the prophet. Isaiah was buried underneath the Oak of Rogel (1:1). Jeremiah died in Taphnai, Egypt “in the environs of Pharaoh’s palace” after being stoned by his own people (2:1). Ezekiel was buried in the “field of Maour” in the grave of Shem and Arpachshad (Gen 10:22, possibly the “Oaks of Mamre”). The tomb is described as a double tomb like Abraham’s tomb at Hebron (3:3-4). Catherine Hezser speculates in her Jewish Travel in Antiquity (WUNT/2; Mohr Seiberg, 2011) that it is possible the Lives of the Prophets was used as a kind of guidebook to the tombs of the prophets, but she concludes it is impossible to be certain (386).

 

Bibliography: D. R. A. Hare, “The Lives of the Prophets: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985)379-399.