Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:15:18.211Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflections on the SNTS Pseudepigrapha Seminar at Duke on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Jamesh H. Charlesworth
Jamesh H. Charlesworth
Affiliation:
Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Seminar Report
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , April 1977 , pp. 296 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 296 note * A journey to the first sessions of the SNTS in which one hears the motivations, as articulated by the Very Rev. G. S. Duncan, and feels the guiding spirit, as embodied in Prof. J. de Zwaan's presidential address, that launched the Society is provided in Davies, W. D.’ ‘Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas’ (The Duke Divinity School Review XLI [1976], 51–6).Google Scholar

page 296 note 1 Untersuchungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen (AGSU 8; Leiden: Brill, 1970)Google Scholar; idem, Die Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen (JSHRZ 3.1; Gütersloh: Mohn, , 1974).Google Scholar For an updated bibliography and Arbeitsbericht on the T12P see Charlesworth, J. H., The Pseudepigrapha and Modem Research (Missoula, Mont., 1976)Google Scholar, loc. cit.

page 296 note 2 Studien zu den Testamenten der zwölf Patriarchen (BZNW 36; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1969).Google Scholar Articles are by Chr. Burchard, J. Jervell and J. Thomas.

page 296 note 3 Studies on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (SVTP 3; Leiden: Brill, 1975).Google Scholar Seven chapters are by M. de Jonge, six by H. J. de Jonge, three by Th. Korteweg and one each by H. W. Hollander and H. E. Gaylord, Jr.

page 296 note 4 In attendance for at least one of the three sessions were the following: J. Priest, H. C. Kee, W. Harrelson, M. de Jonge, K. H. Rengstorf, R. A. Kraft, A. B. Kolenkow, G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jr., P. W. van der Horst, P. Dykers, E. G. Martin, J. Trafton, B. Kanael, R. Price, B. Sandays S. Robinson, C. Wilson, J. A. Mueller, and E. Stuckenbruck.

page 297 note 1 The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908).Google Scholar

page 297 note 2 Studies, p. 64.Google Scholar

page 297 note 3 The Greek Versions, pp. xii–xiv.Google Scholar

page 297 note 4 See Stone, M. E., ‘The Armenian Version of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Selection of Manuscripts’, Sion XLIX (1975), 207–14Google Scholar; idem ‘New Evidence for the Armenian Version of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’ (sent to the publisher); idem, The Armenian Version of the Testament of Joseph (T&T, Ps. Ser. 5; Missoula, Mont., 1975).Google Scholar Cf. Jonge, M. de, ‘The Greek Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Armenian Version’, Studies, pp. 120–39Google Scholar; and Chr. Burchard, , ‘Zur armenischen Überlieferung des Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen’, Studien, pp. 1–29.Google Scholar

page 297 note 5 Studien, p. 15.Google Scholar

page 297 note 6 J.B.L. LXXXIX (1970), 487.Google Scholar

page 297 note 7 Studies, pp. 144–60.Google Scholar

page 297 note 8 Studies pp. 63–86.Google Scholar

page 298 note 1 Studies, p. 64.Google Scholar

page 298 note 2 Kee cautions that this statement is not always representative. Often material missing from A is ‘explicitly Christian, and indeed, christological’.

page 298 note 3 β is no longer a family, only a remains from Charles' textual studies as a sub-family.

page 298 note 4 Becker perceives three distinct strata in the MP: an early second-century B.C. hellenistic-Jewish Crundschrift, hellenistic Jewish expansions to the core during the first centuries B.C. and A.D., and a Christian redaction. His method and suggestions are published in his Untersuchungen and demonstrated in the reconstruction of the Greek text underlying his translation.

page 298 note 5 The Greek is from Jonge's, M. deTestamenta XII Patriarcharum, second edition (PVTG 1; Leiden: Brill, 1970).Google Scholar English translations of the T12P are taken from H. C. Kee's contribution to the new Duke-Doubleday edition of the Pseudepigrapha.

page 298 note 6 Kee asks, ‘Why was the original writer or compiler more inconsistent?’

page 299 note 1 During the discussion I drew attention to the interesting parallels between Tlssachar ii. 3 (‘For He perceived that she wanted to lie with Jacob for the sake of children and not merely for sexual gratification. For on the morrow also she again gave up Jacob.’) and the so-called Apocalypse of Zosimus x (‘Neither are there among us any who take wives for themselves except until they produce two children and after they have produced two children they separate from each other and continue in chastity ).

page 299 note 2 АΠΛΟΤΗΣ Eine begriffsgeschichtliche Studie zum jüdisch-christlichen Griechisch (Theophaneia 19; Bonn: Hanstein, 1968).Google Scholar M. de Jonge stated that Amstutz correctly emphasizes the unifying nature of paraenesis in the T12P.

page 299 note 3 Kee responds by arguing that ‘there is no objective reason for excluding the possibility of redactions’.

page 299 note 4 Kee claims that the only clear instance where removal of a phrase affects the whole context is in TJos xix. 8. Nothing essential depends on the presence in TI2P of the brief christological phrases. Each tribe's disobedience and subsequent judgement remains fixed in the text after the interpolations are removed.

page 299 note 5 See Jonge, M. de, ‘Testament Issachar als “Typisches” Testament’, Studies, pp. 291–316.Google Scholar

page 300 note 1 Cf. Nickelsburg, G. W. E. Jr, Studies on the Testament ofJoseph (SCS 5; Missoula, Mont., 1975).Google Scholar

page 300 note 2 The language is mine not Nickelsburg's. The question has concerned me since we discussed it in a Duke graduate seminar in 1974.

page 300 note 3 Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea, trans. Strugnell, J. (SBT 26; London: SCM, 1959), p. 34.Google Scholar The French original appeared in 1957.

page 300 note 4 M. de Jonge has pursued his research and developed his position in an admirable fashion; yet I am impressed by the fact that Naphtali is not a significant figure in the Pentateuch and that in Genesis xlix he is no more blest than Zebulun, Dan, her and Benjamin and far less than Judah and Joseph. In Genesis xlix Naphtali is certainly presented a little more favourably than Issachar and Gad, and far more approvingly than Reuben, Simeon and Levi. It is not inconceivable that a Jewish author chose to dedicate a testament to Naphtali; however, is it probable? We must observe, however, that the author of a pseudepigraphon is often focusing upon a self-contained passage and composing a midrash upon it.

page 301 note 1 Kee wi11 publish his paper in this journal, hence the account above is greatly abbreviated.

page 301 note 2 Wisdom in Israel, trans. Martin, J. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972)Google Scholar, esp. see pp. 263–83.

page 301 note 3 Professor Rengstorf rejected the claim that άπλóτης in the T12P is influenced by Stoicism; he denied that there is any Stoic influence in the T12P. M. de Jonge emphasized that in hellenistic-Jewish paraenetic literature as well as in early Christian documents notions derived from or influenced by the ethics found in hellenistic philosophical writings occupied a prominent place.

page 301 note 4 See J. H. Charlesworth, ‘A critical comparison of the dualism in IQS 3: 13–4: 26 and the “dualism” contained in the Gospel of John’, John and Qumran (London: Chapman, 1972), pp. 76–106.Google Scholar

page 301 note 5 M. Hengel has drawn attention to affinities between Stoicism and several types of thought in late Judaism. Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols., trans. Bowden, J. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974).Google Scholar I note, however, that Hengel does not mention possible influences from Stoicism upon Qumran thought. He does, however, seek to show the influence of hellenistic philosophy on apocalypticism.

page 303 note 1 See Jonge's, de arguments in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Assen: van Gorcum, 1953,Google Scholar repr. 1975), pp. 123 f., and in Ned. Theol. Tydschrift XXI (1966/1967), 267–76.Google Scholar

page 303 note 2 Problèmes de la littérature hénochique à la lumière des fragments aramèens de Qumrân’ H.T.R. LXIV (1971), 333–78, esp. see p. 345.Google Scholar

page 303 note 3 I am indebted to de Jonge and Kee, who read this report and helped me correct it.

page 304 note 1 The members of the seminar admitted that they could think of Christian ethical lists, especially in the second century A.D., that were not peculiarly ‘Christian’. This confession raises a virtually unanswerable question: ‘then how do we know they are Christian?’. It is sobering to observe that James, v. to f., 17Google Scholar contains a paraenesis that points not to Jesus as the pious man but to the OT prophets.

page 304 note 2 Milik, J. T. with Black, M., The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).Google Scholar