BIBLE
REVIEW
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2 Readers Reply Inspired The Bold Apostle Pharaoh’s Daughter
8 Columnist Ronald S. Hendel Eve Ate the Apple 1 0 Jo ts & Tittles Two-Faced Shroud What America Believes BR Grows Up The Bible in the News L e o n a r d J. G r e e n s p o o n 4 1 Rible Books The Passion o f the Christ review by Stephen J. Patterson 4 5 Authors 48
Gallery The Beast from the Sea
12 Samson et Datila DAN W. C L A N T O N , J R . The popular image of Delilah as evil temptress may have more in common with a 19th-century French opera than the Bible.
20 D ealing with the Devil DAVI D R. C A R T L I D G E What happened after the Fall? A collection of ancient apocryphal tales supplements the brief biblical account of what happened to Adam, Eve and Satan east of Eden.
27 Pilate in the Dock For the Defense P AUL L. MA I E R
For the Prosecution S T E P HE N J. P ATTERS ON Was Pilate reluctant to condemn Jesus? An historian and a Bible scholar debate the evidence.
34 Acting Like Apes
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ON THE COVER: Jesus stands on the gates of Hell (marked with a skull) in this Japanese ink and gouache painting of the Anastasis (Resurrection), by contemporary New York artist Stefan Arteni. With his right hand, Jesus pulls Adam up; in his left hand, he holds a scroll. According to early Christian tradition, after Jesus died, he descended into Hell, where he raised the Old Testament heroes from the dead and invited them to join him in heaven. The scroll Jesus holds in images of the descent (also called the Harrowing of Hell) may stem from a medieval tradition that remains alive today in Eastern European folk tales. According to these legends (described by David R. Cartlidge in “Dealing with the Devil,” p. 20), Jesus not only saved Adam, he also tore up the scrolled contract the first man had signed with Satan after the Fall. Photo by Robert D. Rubic, courtesy o f Stefan Arteni.
W I L L I A M H. C. P R O P P Human beings share 98 percent of their genes with the great apes. Is it any surprise, then, diat so many biblical heroes act like primates, using sex and violence to dominate their rivals?
R eaders R eply BR
■ Inspired I want to thank you for being a part of my spiritual growth. Your magazine has had a large inspirational effcct on me. Krishna O’Connell Surrey, British Columbia Canada
■ Informed As a leader of a Bible study group of 80 to 100 people at my local church, 1 want to commend you on the combination of scholarship and readability in your publi cation. 1 plan to share the February 2004 issue with the group and to encourage them to subscribe. Your article on Peter (by Pheme Perkins) represents a wonder ful example of scholarship for lay people, and your discussion of The DaVinci Code (in Jots & Tittles) will answer many questions that have arisen over the past few months. Pat Doyle Church of the Nativity Leawood, Kansas
■ Indexed? Your magazine is just about the only one I have continued to read for several years, and 1 would like to have an annual index so 1 can quickly find articles when 1 need to reference them. This would be extra helpful in preparing homilies.
handling) and is available by calling 1-800221-4644, ext. 3. Before the end o f the year, BR will also b e available to preachers, pro fessors and students in a fully searchable online archive (fo r institutions only). The online archive will include all editoiial con tent and all images (everything but the ads!) from every issue o f BR, BAR and Odyssey. It can be searched by index term, author name, biblical citation or any word or phrase. Contact Matt Weinbaum at 1-800221-4644, ext. 204, fo r more information.
T en C o m m a n d m en ts
Fr. Robert J. Palladino Church of St. John Welches, Oregon
■ No No-Brainer
Our most recent print index covers every issue o f BR (as well as Biblical Archaeology Review and Archaeology Odyssey) through 2001. It costs $29.95 (+$6.95 shipping and
While I enjoy your magazine and always look forward to the next edition, Ronald S. Hendel’s latest column, “The Ten Commandments and the Courthouse”
2 B IBLE R E V IE W « |U N E 2 0 0 4
(February 2004), was infuriating to say the least. I am sure that Professor Hendel is a very knowledgeable man when he stays in his field. His discussion of an Alabama court’s decision to remove Judge Roy Moore, however, was completely off base. Judge Moore was removed because he refused to take down a statue of the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse. Hendel writes: “The principle of the sepa ration of church and state is so central to our democracy that the court’s action in this case was a no-brainer.” The decision may have been a nobrainer but not the way Flendel suggested. Most people think that the phrase “sep aration of church and slate” is somewhere in the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. In truth, this phrase appears in neither document. The phrase originated in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, Connecticut, Baptist Association on January 1, 1802. The Baptist congregation was alarmed by a widespread rumor that another denom ination, the Congregationalists, was to become a national religion. Thomas Jefferson was trying to assure the Baptists that this could not happen in the United States under our Constitution. He wrote: “1 contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an estab lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Congress [is] thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorized only to execute their acts.” Jefferson is here quoting and comment ing on the First Amendment of the Con stitution, which reads in part: “Congress
BR VOL. XX NO. 3
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Bible’s support for their battles. Patricia M. as part of a canon from Genesis to Revelation,
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in the Middle East, warriors have long claimed the
McDonald argues that many biblical stories, read
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From the medieval crusades to the latest violence
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upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ... according to the Ten Commandments.” Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court has stated: “The sec ular application of the Ten Command ments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States.” An image of the Ten Commandments
shall make no law respecting an estab lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The First Amendment’s straightfor ward admonition simply prohibits Con gress from passing laws that would estab lish a national religion or that prevents the free exercise of religion. Jam es Madison, the principal author of our Constitution, said, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization ...
JONATHAN
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MASTERS OF THE TALMUD: Their Lives and Views
Stanton O. Berg Minneapolis, Minnesota Ronald S. Hendel responds: I was relying on the consensus view o f legal experts that the court’s ruling on this issue (which was upheld by the Supreme Court) was in accord with previous rulings on the intention and scope o f the First Amendment. It would take, as Mr. Berg notes, a legal expert to explain this fully, which I'm not competent to do.
■ Thanks
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1 am thankful that at least a few scholarly voices are willing to speak up on the vari ous attempts to “legalize” the Decalogue. It seems clear to me that the real intent of many of the Decalogue legalizers is not to legitimize the biblical text but to blur the church-state distinction. George Wetzel Houston, Texas
■ Core Values JUDAISM: A Religion of Reason Je h u d a M elber F orew ord by E m an u el S. G old sm ith
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1 do believe Ronald Hendel missed the point. Obviously, as he well says, we can not legislate the Decalogue. We Christians can’t even decide among ourselves how to properly observe the Sabbath, and there is no way we are going to reinstitute the old Blue Laws. We want to uphold the sanctity of marriage, but we don’t want anyone snooping around our bed rooms trying to enforce the command ment on adultery. But that is not what this is all about. Rather, the Alabama judge’s actions should be seen as part of a desperate search for core values. In a day when all societal values are being questioned, people need to know what core values, such as the Ten Commandments, are holding us together. The challenge before us this day is how- to appeal to the divine outside of society while being mindful of the diver sity and pluralism within that society.
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Ronald S. Hendel responds: I agree with Mr. Peterson on the challenge that our society faces and the need fo r thoughtful and inclusive solutions. But the Alabam a ju dge’s actions seemed to many ( myself included) to be a divisive move, and his disrespect fo r the law certainly enhanced this impression.
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FO U N D : G LAD IATOR’S O RIG IN A L PAYCHECK HOLD THE GLORY OF ROME IN TH E PALM OF YOUR HANDS he old saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” is more than just idle advice. It also led to a truly amazing treasure discovery that can put the glory and splendor of ancient Rom e into the palm of your hands! During a recent construction project in north ern Turkey, a dirt-encrusted earthen jar was uncovered. T h e curious worker was about to throw the filthy thing away as nothing more than trash. But then something made him tug on the old cloth visible through the cracks. To his surprise, a pile of coins spilled out. His discovery is now your opportunity because these weren’t just any coins— they were scarce historic Rom an Commemorative coins that had been buried 1,670 years ago!
Sh e is surrounded in Rom an letters V R B S R O M A to signify the tribute to the City of Rom e. T h e co in ’s reverse vividly depicts the origin of Rom e— a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. In Rom an legend, Romulus and Remus, the twin sons o f the war god Mars, laid the foundation of Rom e in the Seven Hills near the Tiber River. Romulus built his own city wall, killed his jealous brother and assumed dominion over the settlement. Rom an historians tradi tionally set the date of Rom e’s founding at 753 BC. T h e image o f the she-wolf and the twins became the symbol of the city o f Rom e. In addition to the scene, two stars appear above the she-wolf, which refer to Rom e’s perpetualness.
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■ Please Help Hendel
W ill
GOD
S p a r e It?
An E x h au stiv e S tu d y o f Tem porary P u n ish m en t for U nfaithful C h ristian s a t th e J u d g m e n t.S e at and D uring t h e M illennial Kingdom
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I ju st received your subscription renewal form with the apocalyptic headline “TIME IS RUNNING OUT!” Having subscribed for some 17 years, I find myself vacillat ing between letting it lapse versus extend ing it for another year ju st to see what new outrage will be foisted on readers by your enfant terrible, Ronald Hendel. Let me think awhile about subscribing. In the meantime, may the readers of your journal take pity on the poor fellow and, in a spirit of love and patience, help him to the light. Mike Paripovich Buffalo, Minnesota
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■ The Bold Apostle Thanks for the excellent article “Peter” by Pheme Perkins in the February issue. 1 do take issue, however, with her opinion that “the most striking character istic of Simon Peter” may be his “hesitance.” It seems to me Peter’s inclinations were quite the opposite. He reacted quickly when Jesus called him to be a fisher of men; he was so eager he even tried walking on water. He was the first disciple to answer when Jesus asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” He did not hesitate to confront Jesus when he learned about the necessity of Jesus’ suffering. He was quick to whip out his sword at Gethsemane. And even though John beat him to Jesus’ tomb, Peter was first to enter. Peter was hardly slow to act; he was ju st slow to develop a theology that saw the necessity of a suf fering Messiah. Once he did, he was hardly hesitant in proclaiming it. Pastor Donald F. Riechers Diamond City, Arkansas
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BIBLE R E V IE W * |U N E 2 0 0 4
In a letter in the February 200 4 issue, the sixth-grade class of Karin Eason requested the name of Pharaoh’s daughter in Exodus 2:5. According to The Legends o f the Jews, by Louis Ginzberg, Pharaoh’s daughter is named Thermutis in Josephus’s Antiquities and in the extrabiblical Book of Jubilees. However, in rabbinic tradition her name co n tin u es o n p a g e 46
Can We Prove that God Does or Does Not Exist? And What Counts as Proof? find out with this thought-provoking 36-lecture series on audio or video from The Teaching Company A bout Y our T each er
oes God exist? W ho or what made this world? Was it made at all? And i f it wasn’t made, how did it get here? How did I get here? W hat do these answers mean to me as I decide how to live?
D
Ja m e s
H a ll
is
th e
Ja m e s
Thom as
P ro fe s s o r a n d C h a ir o f th e D e p a r tm e n t o f P h ilo s o p h y a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f R ic h m o n d . H e is t h e r e c i p i e n t o f h i s u n iv e r s it y ’s 2 0 0 1 D is tin g u is h e d E d u c a to r A w ard . H e has a s t r o n g b a c k g r o u n d in t h e h u m a n i t i e s , t h e
Questions such as this have tantalized and perplexed our species since the first moment we were capable o f asking them. It’s hard to imagine anyone— no matter what they ultimately conclude or how long they ponder the issues— who hasn’t asked these same questions. And the answers we have formulated have produced hope and serenity, anguish and war.
o lo g y ,
T h e C reation o f M a n , d e ta il, b y M ic h e l a n g c io , 1 5 0 8 - 1 2 , T h e S is t i n c C h a p e l, R o m e .
Philosophy o f Religion invites you on an intellectual journey to explore the ques tions of divine existence, not from the standpoint o f theology, but as an issue of epistemology, the classic branch of philoso phy that concerns itself with knowledge theory— how we can know things, and how we can know we know them. This course offers benefits you can take far beyond the issue o f God’s existence or the broader subject o f religion. Tools of knowing and logic included are ones you can use to dissect and analyze arguments in virtually any arena.
a lo n g w ith
m ore
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Knowledge,
a u th o r o f
Terms like ontology, cosmology, and teleology—-along with the rationale for a divine presence that grew out of these three forms o f argument— are presented with clarity and context, using examples rang ing from Descartes to William Paley’s 18thcentury presentation o f a clock on a rockstrewn beach.
W h a t is Philosophy? ... W h at is Religion? ... W h at is Philosophy o f Religion? ... How is the W ord “G od ” Generally Used? ... How D o Various T heists Use the Word ‘G od’? ... W h at is Knowledge? ... W h at Kinds o f Evidence C ount? ... W h at C onstitutes Good Evidence? ... W h y A rgue for the Existence o f God? ... How O n to log ical A rgum ent W orks ... W hy O n to log ical A rgum ent is Said to Fail ... How C osm ological A rgum ent W orks ... W hy Cosm ological Argum ent is Said to Fail ... How Teleological Argum ent W orks ... H ow Teleological Argum ent W orks (continued) ... W h y Teleological Argument is Said to Fail ... Divine Encounters Make A rgu m ent U nnecessary ... D iv ine Encounters Require Interpretation ... W h y is Evil a Problem? ... Taking Evil Seriously ... N on-Justificatory Theodicies ... Justifying Evil ... Justifying N atural Evil ... Justifying Hum an Evil ... Evidence is Irrelevant to Faith ... Groundless Faith is Irrelevant to Life ... God is Beyond Hum an Grasp, Bu t T h a t’s O .K . Transcendental T alk is “Sound and Fury” ... Discourse in an Intentionalist Paradigm ... Evaluating Paradigms ... Choosing and Changing Paradigms ... Language G am es and T h e istic D iscourse ... Fabulation— T heism as Story ... T h eistic Stories, Morality, and Culture ... Stories, M oral Progress, and Culture Reform ... Conclusions and Signposts
and
L e c tu r e T itle s
This course encompasses far more than just positive arguments for the central question: “Can humans know that God exists?” Professor Hall also considers the reverse side: “Can humans know that God does not exist?” He introduces a new, equally vital, area o f argument centering on the existence o f evil. Just as there are rebuttals available for all of the arguments put forth in favor of a divine existence so, too, are there rebuttals for arguments that attempt to prove God does not exist, and Professor Hall examines each in detail.
The focus of these lectures is on apply ing these tools to the question o f the exis tence of a god or gods. Professor Hall has crafted a course that is both intellectually challenging and superbly clear, and fits well with his friendly, engaging style of lec turing. If you especially enjoy wrapping your mind around questions for which every potential answer triggers new ques-
p h ilo s o p h y
tions and issues, you should find this course enjoyable no matter what your beliefs.
Professor Hall examines the definition o f the term “god” and explores each argu ment in turn, using the analytical tools taught earlier in the course to show why such arguments are said to fail and to introduce challenges other thinkers offered.
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Ro n a ld S. H endel E ve A te th e A p p le O r did she?
1 recently heard a Yiddish folksong about what Eve ate in the Garden of Eden: “Cham hot dos E pfel gegessen " the song goes— “Eve ate the apple.” Tempting, delicious and potentially dangerous, the apple is an appropriate fruit for this dramatic biblical scene: Its red color says “danger” (hence red is the color for “stop”), yet it is sweet inside. The problem is that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden isn’t an apple at all. It’s a knowledge-of-good-and-evil fruit, which, according to the end of the story, none of us has ever seen. In Genesis 2:16, God commands Adam: “You may eat from every tree of the Garden, but you may not eat from the tree of the knowl edge of good and evil.” In the course of the story, Adam and Eve eat the fruit of this tree, whereupon “the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed together fig leaves, which served them as loincloths” (Genesis 3:7). This fruit gives some kind of special knowledge, which includes a consciousness of sex, so that the two are embarrassed to be naked in front of each other and try to cover up. Somehow this type of knowledge makes them “like gods, knowing good and evil” (compare Genesis 3:5 and 3:22). This is an amazing and mysterious kind of fruit. It is a standard rule of biblical interpre tation that where the Bible is reticent or obscure, later interpreters will expand the story with explanatory details. The earliest interpretive description of this tree is in the extrabiblical Book of Enoch. In 1 Enoch 32:4, a passage probably from the third century B.C.E., Enoch is taking a tour of heaven, where he sees the “paradise of righteousness,” in
which grows the “tree of wisdom.” He reports: “That tree is in height like the fir, and its leaves, like (those of) the carob, and its fruit like the clusters of the vine—very cheerful; and its fragrance penetrates far beyond the tree.” 1 The tree and its fruit are still mysteri ous, but they are now imaginable in com parison with other known species. Later interpreters were more explicit. In the Midrash Rabbah (c. fourth century C.E.) and other rabbinic writings, the major pro posals are the fig, grape, wheat, carob, etrog and nut.2 The fig is a candidate because Adam and Eve used the leaves of a fig tree to cover themselves. The reason for grapes is that wine was regarded as a drink of the gods (see Judges 9:13) and because of a thematic link with Deuteronomy 32:32: “Their grapes are poisonous grapes, their grape-clusters are bitter for them.” Wheat, carob and etrog are proposed because their names are similar to Hebrew' or Aramaic words for “sin ,” “d estru ction” and “he d esired,” respectively. The nut tree is advanced because nuts were believed to produce sexual desire. In each of these opinions, something obscure in Scripture is aligned with something knowoi elsew'here, either from Scripture, popular lore or lan guage. The principle is straightforward: One explains the unknown by connecting it with the known. A different rabbinic opin ion is that God chose not to reveal the name of the tree. It is a mystery that cannot be solved, perhaps because God does not wish the tree’s name to be known, lest people be cruel to it. In early Christian interpretation, the tree and its fruit are most commonly identified 8 B IBLE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 2 0 0 4
as the fig, grape or nut, as in the early Jewish interpretations. The earliest known identification of the fruit as an apple is by the Christian Latin poet Commodianus, who lived sometime between the third and fifth century C.E. He w'asn’t much of a poet—accord in g to the E n cy clop aed ia Britannica, “his verse has no poetic value”— but he may have preserved for us a bit of popular lore. Why is the forbidden fruit an apple? Probably for the same reason that in Hebrew it was identified as wheat, carob or etrog: the power of words, the nexus between sound and meaning. In Latin, the word for “apple” is the same as the w'ord for “evil”—both are malus. The forbidden fruit, from the “tree of the knowl edge of good and evil” ( lignumque scientiae honi et mali, in the Latin translation of Genesis) was naturally identified, by the inner magic of wwds, as the apple (malus). This identification became the dominant interpretation in C h ristian trad ition, whence it entered into Jewish tradition too. Although almost no one speaks Latin today, this wordplay in Latin still has its hold over us. Eve ate the apple. Ronald S. Hendel is the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor o j Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies in the Department o j N ear Eastern Studies at the University o f California, Berkeley. 1 T r a n s . G e o rg e W .E . N ic k e ls b u r g ,
1 E n och
1
(M in n eap o lis: F o rtre ss P ress, 2 0 0 1 ) , p. 3 2 0 . 2 G en esis R a b b a h 15.7. O n the fo llow in g Je w is h and C hristian interpretations, see L ou is G inzberg, T he Legends o f t h e J e w s , v o l. 5 (P h ila d e lp h ia : J e w is h P u b lica tio n Society, 1 9 6 8 ) , pp. 9 7 - 9 8 ; a n d G in zb erg, D ie H ag g a d a b ei d en K irch en \ atem und in d e r ap oh ry p h isch en Litteratur (B erlin : Calvary, 1 9 0 0 ), pp. 3 8 -4 2 .
0
BIBLICAL A R C H A E O L O G Y SOCI ETY
S T U D Y T O U R S & S E MI N A R S Summer Vacation Seminars 20 f a s c i n a t i n g lectures in 6 days! W A K E F O R E S T U N IV E R S IT Y W IN S T O N - S A L E M , N C
ST. O L A F C O L L E G E N O R T H F IE L D , M N
Ju n e 1 3 -1 9 , 2 004
J u ly 2 5 - 3 1 , 2 0 0 4
W hat Has Archaeology Taught Us About the World o f Jesus? • Tombs, Scrolls and Jesus
Egypt & the Hebrew Bible • Early Christianity and the Early Christians
REED CO LLEG E PO R TLA N D , OR A u g u st 8 -1 4 , 2004
C raig Evans (Acadia Divinity C ollege) and Ja m es Strange (Univ. o f Sou th Florida)
Jam es K . H offm eier (Trinity In ternation al University) and Ja m es D . T a b o r (Univ. o f N orth C arolina, C h arlotte)
Scrolls and Papyri from Late Antiquity; The Most Important Tombs and Ossuaries f o r Jesus Research; Simon ben Kosiba: Israel’s Last M ajor Messianic Figure; Galilee: Its Archaeological and Historical Context fo r the Emergence o f Christianity and Jewish Mysticism; Excavating Sepphoris o f Galilee; The Synagogue as Metaphor: An Interpretation o f Architecture.
Egypt Before the Time o f Moses; The Challenges o f Identifying Exodus Sites; Egypt in the Empire Age; Joseph in Egypt; Where Is Mt. Sinai?; The Covenant and the Tabernacle; Egypt and Israel in the Monarchy; Locating the Site o f the Crucifixion o f Jesus; Sorting Out Ja m es and the Jam es Ossuary; Is There an Ancient Hebrew Matthew?; When Did Jesus Become God?
r V
NEW EM IN A R SITE ' in Portlanc J, sam e date 5- A
The Everyday World in Which Jesu s Lived • Archaeology, Geography and Faith R o b e rt Alullins (Univ. o f C alifornia, LA) and Richard R ohrbau gh (Lewis & C lark C ollege) Archaeology and Faith in Conversa tion; The Impact o f Geography on the Bible; The Impact o f Archaeology on Biblical Interpretation; Tel Beth Shean: From Canaanite Settlement to Egyptian Garrison; Honor and Shame: Core Values o f the M edi terranean World; The E vil Eye: Core B elief in the Biblical World; The Social/Cultural Context o f Jesus' Parables.
ALSO COMING
Study Tours F R O M M A L T A T O R O M E W IT H P A U L ( w ith e xte n sio n to Naples, Capri, A m a lfi Coast, June 16-20) Ju n e 6 -1 6 , 2004
W ith Jim Flem in g Follow Paul’s journey from Malta to Rome with the director o f the Biblical Resources Study Center.
BAS SEMINAR AT O X F O R D S t . E d m u n d H all O x f o r d , E n g lan d Au g u st 8 -2 0 , 2 0 0 4 W it h S u sa n A c k e r m a n
EASTERN T U R K EY F ro m t h e L a n d o f A b r a h a m t o M t A r a r a t a n d th e B la c k Sea O c t o b e r 4 - 2 1 , 2 00 4
W ith Avner G oren Much-loved g'uide Avner Goren turns his passion for eastern Turkey into an unforgettable 17-day tour created especially for us. D IS C O V E R E G Y P T ! N o v e m b e r 3 -1 9 , 2 004
W ith Avner G oren Visit the world’s most spectacular ancient sites. Begin and end in Cairo; enjoy two luxurious cruises on the N ile and Lake Nasser.
W
il l ia m
D
ev er
Stories the Bible D id n ’t Tell Us: Womens Religion, Folk Religion a n d Everyday Life in Ancient Israel
3-Day Seminars b o sto n , m a S e p te m b e r 9 -1 1 , 2004 T he S a cre d a n d th e P ro fa n e in th e A n c ie n t M e d ite r r a n e a n W o r ld
Alan L . Boegehold (Brown), K athleen M . Colem an (Harvard), Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow (Brandeis), M ary R. Lefkow itz (W ellesley C ollege) Learn from the experts about life in the ancient Mediterranean world. U N IV E R S IT Y O F O K L A H O M A N o rm a n , O K O cto b e r 1 4 -1 6 , 2004 A r c h a e o lo g y a n d th e B ib le : C u r re n t Issues a n d D e b a te s
Ram i Arav (Univ. o f Nebraska), W illiam D ever (Univ. o f Arizona), R ichard Freund (Univ. o f H a rt ford), Joseph Ginat (Univ. o f Haifa), Jodi M agness (Univ. o f N orth Carolina, Chapel Hill), R Kyle M cC arter (Johns Hopkins Univ.) B IB LE F E S T VII S a n A n t o n io , T X N o v e m b e r 1 9 -2 1 , 2 004
W ith m ore than 24 scholars
B iblical A rc h a e o lo g y S ociety: 8 0 0 -2 2 I-4 6 4 4 x22l • tra v e l@ b ib -a rc h .o rg • w w w .b ib lica la rcha e o lo g y.o rg
A
S&TITTLES
A FAINT IMAGE (right) on the back side of the Shroud of Turin, when digitally “cleaned,” has revealed a face similar to the famous face (left) on the front side of the relic that many believe is the face of Jesus.
T w o-Faced S h ro u d Christianity’s most famous and controver sial relic, the Shroud of Turin, is divulging more secrets. Two physicists from the University of Padua, Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, have discovered a second face on the shroud’s reverse side. The face is nearly— but not exactly—identical to the famous face that appears on the front side, which some believe to be the face of Jesus. The reverse side of the shroud was con cealed by a layer of cloth that had been sewn on for protection in the 16th cen tury, after a fire slightly damaged the relic. During restoration work in 2002, this pro tective layer was removed, however, and photographs were taken of the underside before a new backing w'as attached. The second face is not visible to the naked eye but was discovered by analyzing those photographs.
B R G row s U p February 2005 will mark Bible Review’s 20th anniversary. We’re planning a year’s worth of special features to celebrate, and we’d like to hear from you. Have you subscribed to BR since the beginning? Has BR changed your life? Write and tell us how: BR’s Anniversary 4710 41st St., NW Washington, DC 20016
[email protected] We’ll print the best responses in our February 2005 issue.
The discovery is detailed in the April issue of Journal o f Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, a publication of London’s Institute of Physics. The scientists used a process called digital optical image processing, in which a computer is used to “clean” the background noise from a fuzzy or low-detail image to produce a sharper one. The process revealed a face corresponding almost pre cisely to the one on the front of the shroud, but with some differences in the nostrils. The hands were also visible on the back of the shroud, but the scientists could not detect the rest of the body image that appears clearly on the front of the cloth. The obvious explanation—that whatever produced the image on the front just seeped through to the back—is rejected by the sci entists. Fanti told the BBC: “On both sides, the face image is superficial, involving only the outermost linen fibers.” Many believe the shroud, and its famous ghostly image of a naked man laid out for burial, to be a medieval forgery. Carbon-14 tests performed on the shroud by three inde pendent labs in 1988 all agreed that the flax used in the shroud’s linen dated to the 13th or 14th century—not the first century A.D. But the validity of those tests has always been disputed, both by shroud believers and some scientists. Some sindonologists— scholars of the relic (from sindon, meaning “shroud”)—have claimed to have found other evidence supporting the authenticity of the shroud. In 1999, for instance, a team of scientists reported traces of pollen from Jerusalem on the cloth.* *See Vaughn M. Bryant, Jr., “Does Pollen Prove the Shroud Authentic?” Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2000. 10 BIBLE R E V IE W « |U N E 2 0 0 4
The physicists have no explanation yet for the shroud’s second face, but Fanti does not see it as evidence of a forgery: “It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features,” he told the BBC.
W h at A m e ric a B elieves A growing minority of Americans believe the Jew's were responsible for the crucifix ion of Jesus, according to a national sur vey conducted in March by the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. Overall, 26 per cent of Americans currendy hold that belief, up from 19 percent as reported by a simi lar poll conducted by ABC New's in 1997— a significant increase. The Pew survey, which polled 1,703 Americans of all ages on a range of ques tions related to the Bible and Christianity, found that the belief in the Jews’ culpabil ity in the death of Jesus had increased most dram atically among young people and African Americans. Thirty-four percent of people under 30 now' say Jews were respon sible for Jesus’ death—up from ju st 10 per cent in 1997—and 4 2 percent of African Americans now' hold that belief—up from 21 percent in 1997. The majority of Americans, of all ages and ethnicities, however, still believe the Jews weren’t responsible. With its emphasis on the question of Jesu s’ death, the new survey comes at a time w'hen scholars and religious groups are worried over the impact of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion o f the Christ, which crit ics say offers an anti-Semitic depiction of Jew s as “Christ killers” (see for example Stephen J. Patterson on p. 41 of this issue). The Pew survey did not measure what
I t w as apparently the author of the
New Testa
THE BIBLE
ment Letter of James w ho coined the phrase "the patience of Jo b " (James 5:11) to describe
southeast Queensland ski paddling m eet on the Gold Coast." Redistricters: "Redistricting takes the patience
what is required of those who aw ait the coming
of Job and the wisdom of Solomon. Any shift
of the messiah. And although the Job of the
poses a potential threat to a political stronghold,
Hebrew Bible w a s anything but patient, the
and w hat politician in his right mind w ill let you
expression has endured, making frequent appear ances in the daily press. As astute readers of
cut into his turf?"
W
m
this column, assuredly among those blessed with Job's reputed patience, w ill soon observe, there
COMPILED BY
LEONARD J. GREENSPOON
Santa Claus: "It's not all ho, ho, ho fo r Santa as Christmas approaches. But it's lucky he has the patience of Job as hundreds of excited
is hardly a profession, from A to Z, that doesn't
children line up fo r a fe w m om ents w ith a
require patience:
jolly old man."
Athletic trainers: "It's a job that often requires
Journalists: "N o journalist who's w orth the
Teachers: "They not only teach our children
the patience of Job, the analytical qualities of
ink that runs in his veins can pass up a cheap
h o w to read and w rite, but they also wipe runny
Sherlock Holmes and the diplomatic skills of
biblical simile. (And Lord knows how I, w ith the
noses, lend a shoulder or an ear and generally
Colin Powell."
patience of Job, have tried.)"
display the patience of Job."
Bass fishers: "Tabbed as one of the sport's
Knoxville judges: "Theirs is not an easy lot.
Umpires: "The perfect umpire w ould have
fastest rising stars, David Dudley had the cast
M ost, I believe, at least th e good ones, are
the vision of Ted W illiams, the patience of Job,
ing skills of a veteran, an encyclopedic knowl
descendants of King Solomon. And while we're
th e w isd o m of Solom on, and th e a b ility of
edge of lures and the patience of Job."
throw ing Bible terms around, they m ust have
Thurgood Marshall fo r interpreting rules."
Cigar rollers: " 'If smoking cigars is not per
Viewers: "Viewers w ill need the patience of
the patience of Job."
mitted in Heaven, I w o n 't go’— M ark Twain. The
Librarians: "Like the little train th a t could,
Job to sit through 'Reluctant Saint: Francis of
creation of a cigar demands the patience of Job,
[Delray's 50-year-old library] keeps chugging
the perfectionism of the purist, an eagle eye for
along toward its goal: a brand-new building with
Whiskey bottlers: "Richard Patterson is a man
detail, a refusal to be rushed."
lots and lots of rooms. It's predicted to have a
of passion. Coupled w ith the kind of patience
Assisi,' airing tonight."
D rivers: "Trying to navigate Vero Beach's
happy ending. After all, the characters in this
that w ould have had Job chewing his finger
barricade-lined M iracle M ile at lunchtime Friday
tale have the determination of an ox and the
nails, this enables him to create whiskies that
did not require an act of God. Ju st the patience
patience of Job."
are not only excellent, but unique."
o f Job."
M usic directors: "W ith the patience of Job,
Xmas-tree hunters: "M y uncle w ould hitch
choir conductor Sue Bohlin excuses one little
our faithful horse, Bill, to the sleigh and off we
of Pollyanna and the patience of Job to find
girl a fte r another to use the bathroom . She
would go in search of w h a t w ould most cer
much good business news in Texas during 2002."
then giggles as she tells the girls the rules of
tainly be the 'perfect' Christmas tree. This dear
Footballers (Soccer players): "The patience
break tim e, and one student asks her to add
man seemed to have the patience of Job as he
of Job earns its reward as Boro [Middlesbrough] hits the heights: Cameroon striker [Joseph-Desire
another rule: no playing w ith spiders."
spent hours walking the woods w ith me look ing fo r this elusive tree."
Job, by name] happy to be back in the team."
needs the patience of Job."
Gam e-show fans: "V iew ers of the world's firs t in te rn e t re a lity game sh o w fin a lly lost
Open winners: "Tiger W oods holed a suc cession of sizeable putts, many to save par, as
patience w ith Job last night— and told him to
he displayed w hat Open winners have to— -the
rampages from the farm s of Sicily to the piaz
w a lk the plank. Job is the first Bible hero to be voted off The Ark."
patience of Job."
zas of Rome in the 1957 science-fiction favorite
Entrepreneurs: " It w ould take the optimism
N e t su rfe rs: "Finding reliable inform ation
Perch anglers: "B ut anglers who would stalk
Y m ir-m akers:
"T h e
m aking
of
Ray
H arryhausen's 'Y m ir'— th e fo rk-ta ile d , fa stgrowing, upright lizard-thing from Venus that
'20 M illion Miles to Earth'— took the patience
High school sen/ors; "Selecting a college can
jungle perch must be prepared to hunt their prey
of Job."
challenge the bravery of a pioneer, the patience of Job."
in often d iffic u lt jungle te rra in , possess the
Zingers: "A re you talking to me? Language th a t could make a sailor blush. Attitude that
Italian developers: "The complexity, bureau
patience of Job, accept failure readily and pos sess a pair of bionic legs."
cracy and parochialism in Italian planning law
Queensland ski p addlers:" Having displayed
means that fo r a successful retail scheme to be developed, the patience of Job is a pre
the patience of Job, Townsville paddler M ick de Rooy w ill take his firs t steps to expelling
Leonard J. Greenspoon holds the Klutznick Chair
requisite."
'a fe w d e m o n s' w h e n he c o m p e te s in a
in Jewish Civilization at Creighton Univ., in Omaha.
impact, if any, The Passion of the Christ had on the views of those who had seen it. It did however show that those who either had already seen or had plans to see Gibson’s film were about twice as likely to consider Jews culpable for Jesus’ death than those who did not intend to see the film—sug gesting that the film appeals to the minor ity of Am ericans who already share its
interpretation of the events surrounding Jesu s’ trial and execution. However, on other issues, the religious views of Americans seem to be holding fairly steady. According to the new poll, 92 per cent of Americans believe Jesus did die on the cross, as the Gospels say, and 83 per cent think he rose from the dead—numbers that were almost exactly the same in 1997. 11 B IB LE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 2 0 0 4
could te st the patience of Job. It's called back talk and teens have it down pat."
The belief that the Bible should be taken as the literal word of God is up slighdy from 1997: 40 percent now hold that belief (up from 35 percent in 1997); 42 percent say it is God’s word but that it is not meant to be taken literally (down from 47 percent); and a steady minority, 13 percent (14 per cent in 1997), say the Bible is a book writ ten by men.
D A N , VV.
CLANTON,
J R.
FEW BIBLICAL WOMEN SEEM MORE SCANDALOUS than Delilah. A harlot and a temptress, she uses her beauty and her wiles to ensnare the mighty Samson. A great deceiver, she tricks her lover into revealing the secret source of his strength. For selling that secret to Samson’s Philistine enemies, she is thought of as a betrayer or even a mercenary. And in the pages of BR, she was even portrayed as a master spy.1 It may be exciting to think of Delilah as some kind of Iron Age fem m e fatale, and Samson as the powerful hero she brings down. But as is so often the case when interpreting a biblical story or ascribing motives to its characters, there is surprisingly little in the Bible itself to go on. Much of our modern picture of Delilah and Samson, in fact, comes instead from later art, literature
SAMSON
&r D A L 1 L A
PREVIOUS PAGES: The wicked temptress Delilah (right) points triumphantly at the shorn head of her now-helpless lover Samson, in this dramatic 1886 work by the British painter Solomon J. Solomon. As the Philistines bind the mighty Israelite warrior, whose strength had been hidden in his hair, he seems to plead to Delilah: “How could you betray me like this!” Delilah seems as wicked and false-hearted as they come. But as Dan W. Clanton, Jr., shows in the accom panying article, the biblical story (in Judges 16) actually tells us very little about her. Most of our modem impres sions of this woman and the biblical judge she toppled come from the art, literature and music it inspired. One of the most influential interpretations is the 1876 opera Samson et Dalila. by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens (below).
performances o f the work until 1892, when it finally played at the Paris Opera. Since then, Sam son et D alila has established itself in the com m on repertoire and as one of Saint-Saens’s m ost beloved w orks .4 As with other musical adaptations of the Bible, the characters and situations in Saint-Saens’s three-act opera have been expanded and changed dramatically from their com pact biblical source.* In the Bible, Samson is a ladies’ man, a bumbling oaf and a brute. Sam son’s story begins in Judges 14, when he spies an attractive Philistine woman and tells his parents, “Get her for me, because she pleases me” (Judges 14:3). His parents comply. The couple marries and Samson promises his wife’s townsfolk that he will shower them with gifts if they answer a riddle. The townsmen secretly urge the wife to ferret out the answer.
and music inspired by the tragic but terse account of Israel’s am orous twelfth ju d g e .2 O ne o f the m ost com plex and intriguing modern
She weeps and nags, and Samson gives in. But when he returns to her town and finds that the townsmen have “solved” the riddle, he accuses them of using his
adaptations is Camille Saint-Saens’s opera Sam son et D alila, w hich removes certain ambiguities of the bib lical text while complicating the compact story sketched
wife to trick/deceive him: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle” (Judges 14:18). He then kills 3 0 Philistines and leaves
in Judges 16. Like other reinterpretations of the tale, the opera depicts Delilah as alluring and exotic and evil, and Sam son as the tragic hero. But the opera also recasts the biblical narrative as a story of rival religions and a conflict betw een faith and passion. A careful
his wife, w'ho meets a gruesome end in 15:6. After his famous escapade with a donkey’s jaw bone in chapter 15, Sam son visits a prostitute in Gaza (Judges 16:1). T h ree verses later, he falls “in love” w ith D elilah
com parison of the operatic and biblical tales helps us see ju st how Sam son and Delilah’s story was adapted
*For another example of how a composer and librettist altered a biblical text, see William Propp, “A Scholar Rips Handel’s Messiah,” BR, December 2002.
throughout history. At the same time, it helps us bet ter understand what the Bible is trying to tell us about this famous couple. One of France’s greatest, yet m ost underrated, com posers, Saint-Saens began working on the Sam son and Delilah story as an oratorio in 1867. He was inspired by a libretto (now lost) that Voltaire had written for a n o th er great co m p o se r, Je a n P h ilip p e R am eau. However, due to the lack o f m usical understanding and low tolerance for biblical subjects in 19th-century France, Saint-Saens only scored Act Two before giving it up. Five years later he took up the subject again, this time as an opera with an original libretto written by Ferdinand Lemaire, a Creole poet from Martinique (and the husband o f one o f Saint-Saens’s cousins). In 1876, Saint-Saens completed the project. Due to the m usically conservative clim ate in France at this time, the first performance of his progressive opera did not take place there .3 The great pianist Franz Liszt had heard the piece, and used his influence to have it pre miered in W eim ar in December 1877. France saw no CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS (1835-1921). A child prodigy who could read, write and even play the piano by age three, Saint-Saens composed his first symphony at the age of 16. His opera Samson et Dalila, which he completed in 1876, remains one of his most popular works today, although in his day the music was considered too pro gressive for conservative French ears, and for almost two decades it was only performed outside France—first in Weimar in 1877. 14
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(Judges 16:4). W e are n ot told why he is enamored with her .5
“SERVE US WITH YOUR POWER! ... Sell me your slave Samson!” the Philistine high priest (played by baritone Gregory Yurisich) coaxes Delilah (played by mezzosoprano Markella Hatziano) to betray her lover in a 1996 Royal Opera (London) production of Saint-Saens’s masterpiece. The opera makes for a stirring adaptation, although it often departs from the biblical story. In Judges 16:5, for example, it is not a priest of the deity Dagon that approaches Delilah but the “lords of the Philistines”—that is, Philistine political leaders. It is one of many ways in which Saint-Saens turned the strife between Israelites and Philistines into an epic of com peting religions. The composer also clarified Delilah’s motives. In the Bible she appears to betray Samson for the “eleven hundred pieces of silver” (Judges 16:5) the lords offer her; but in the opera, she does it for her burning hatred of Samson and his God: “What matters your gold to Delilah?” she replies after the high priest offers her riches. “And what could a whole treasure matter if I was not dreaming of vengeance?”
In some ways, it is difficult to understand why Samson is included among the biblical judges. It is true that the Sam son cycle does not fit neatly with the other sto ries in Judges. In fact, his story was probably edited into that book at a late date. Even so, Sam son is twice called a judge (Judges 15:20 and 16:31). Further, in the last scen e, Sam son b rin g s dow n the p illars of the Philistine temple—thus sacrificing his own life in order to kill Israel’s Philistine oppressors. This act seems to be born primarily from personal vengeance and sec ondarily from religious faith (see 16:28), but it never theless establishes Sam son’s place among the judges. U n lik e the b ib lical Sam son , Sain t-Saen s’s m ale lead is no foolhardy ladies’ m an, weakened by love. Instead, he is a prophet, a military cham pion and a priest with great depth and dignity. T his is established
He will arm you with invincible swords !”6 Scene Two of the opera fram es the Sam son and Delilah saga as a rivalry between competing religions.
clearly in Act O ne, Scene O ne, o f the opera, w hen Sam son speaks to the Hebrew s w ith the voice of God and convinces them not to lose faith in Jehovah
Abimelech, the satrap of Philistine Gaza, com es forth and questions the power of the Hebrew God compared with that o f his own god, Dagon. Im bued with the power and voice of Jehovah, Sam son slays Abimelech.
(a corrupt form of Yahweh, the name of the Israelite God): “Miserable W retches, be quiet! Your lack of faith is a blasphemy! Let us implore on our knees the Lord who loves us! Place again in his hands the care of
Abimelech’s name is borrowed from the Philistine king Abimelech, who, according to Genesis 26:1, ruled in the days o f Abraham.
our glory, and then gird up our loins, sure of our vic tory! He is the God of battles! He is the God of hosts! 15
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“BROTHERS, LET US BREAK OUR CHAINS and lift up the altar of the one God of Israel!” Spanish tenor Jose Carreras, as Samson, exhorts the Hebrew people, in a 2001 Barcelona production of Samson et Dalila. The operatic Samson is not only a judge and warrior but also a priest and prophet, fighting for his God as well as his people. Saint-Saens’s upstanding Samson is a far cry from the betrayed lover of Judges 16, who, accord ing to author Clanton, is intent on nothing but revenge. In Judges 13-16, the national conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines is played out in micro cosm via the stories of Sam son’s interactions with cer tain Philistines. Because of this local emphasis, the bib lical narrative focu ses n ot on grand iose claim s of religious affiliation, but rather on more mundane top ics, such as feasting, betrayal and the love of women. In contrast, Saint-Saens has turned the story in Judges 16 into a more religiously oriented and com plex tale. He does so by heightening the role of the Philistine high priest, by basing D elilah’s m otivations on both per sonal vengeance and religious fervor, and by shaping Samson into a cham pion o f God. Thus, the opera high lights the religious themes im plicit in the biblical nar rative in order to m ake a stronger religious statement about the im portance o f m onotheistic faith versus the more m aterialistic idolatry o f the Philistines. It is not until Scene Six of Act One that we meet Delilah, as she and the Philistine maidens sing an ode to spring. In the midst o f this enchanting song, we learn that Delilah and Sam son had a previous rela tionship that had ended. She bem oans the loss of her lover, and tells Sam son in no uncertain terms that her
Delilah immediately embarks on a mission to discover the secret o f Sam son’s power. Is this implicit agreem ent a legitimate source for Delilah’s bad reputation? Shouldn’t she be disparaged for agreeing to betray the man she loves—and who
charm s are more enticing than those of spring. An Old Hebrew tries to warn Sam son against the “serpent’s poison” contained in the words of this foreign woman,
loves her? Even these seemingly simple questions impose wide spread assum ptions on the biblical account and twist
and Sam son him self prays to God to still his passion for Delilah. Sam son never specifies what’s wrong with Delilah, although it seems she somehow limits his abil
Delilah into som ething she is not. First, the Bible only tells us Sam son loved Delilah; it never states that she loved him in return .7 Thus, Delilah’s feelings for Samson cannot be used as evidence of her deception or betrayal
ity to fight or speak for God to his fullest ability! He prays to God, “Cover her charm s whose beauty trou bles my senses, vexes my spirit! And from her eyes put out the flame which robs me o f my freedom.” From
o f Samson. Second, the text never tells us why Delilah agrees to the offer. Feminist Bible scholar Mieke Bal has suggested that Delilah might ju st as fairly be praised
the very start, then, Delilah is no good. T his portrayal is a drastic change from the Bible, which never clearly characterizes Delilah as good or
for this act: “In wartime, and it is such a time, no blame is attached to patriotism. Delilah ju st uses her specific
bad, beautiful or ugly. (Indeed the Bible doesn’t even tell us if she is a Philistine, although the context sug
WITH EYES GOUGED OUT and arms fettered in bronze chains, Samson languishes in a Philistine prison in Gaza, in this 1912 painting by German artist Lovis Corinth. Corinth, who had suffered a stroke in 1911, saw Samson’s blindness as a metaphor for his own helplessness and pain. Other artists and writers—including the English poet John Milton, who set most of his 1671 poetic drama Samson Agonistes in the prison—have turned Samson’s imprisonment into a scene of soul-searching and repentance. As a last temptation for Samson to overcome, Milton has the wicked Delilah visit him behind bars and pretend to beg his forgiveness. Blind at last to her charms, Samson resists her trickery.
gests she probably is.) In the two biblical verses that introduce Delilah, we learn simply that Sam son fell in love with her, and that the lords of the Philistines sub sequently came to her and said: “Coax him, and find out what makes his strength so great, and how we may overpower him , so that we may bind him in order to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hun dred pieces o f silver” (Judges 15:5). Although there is no explicit agreem ent between the parties, there does seem to be an im plicit one; 16
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potential for helping her tribe and makes enough money
&
DALILA
out of it to preserve her financial independence .”8 Or, as others have argued, Delilah, a single woman, may have needed the money .9 Thus, the biblical account should
is the Valley of Sorek, outside Delilah’s hom e, where Delilah awaits the arrival of Samson. In the first scene, Delilah delivers a soliloquy revealing her motivations. In the next scene, the high priest of Dagon discusses
not lead us to assume that Delilah’s motivation w^as base. For Saint-Saens, however, there is no doubt: Delilah herself tells us she w'ants to get revenge on Sam son
a plan of action with Delilah. He instructs Delilah, “Sell me your slave Sam son!” In return, he adds, Delilah “can choose from among all my wealth.”
and appease her gods. The bulk of the interaction between Sam son and Delilah takes place in Act Two of the opera. The setting
Note that it is a religious leader (the high priest), and not a political leader (a lord of the Philistines), who approaches Delilah. This alteration is significant
t
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SAMSON GETS HIS REVENGE by pulling down the pillars of Dagon’s temple onto thousands of Philistine worshipers and himself, in this painting by the 18thcentury Italian painter Antonio Joli. Samson’s captors hadn’t calculated that as his hair slowly grew back in prison, so would his strength. In the Bible, Samson’s captors drag him out to enter tain them during a religious festival, and he prays to God for strength so that he can “pay back the Philistines for [his] two eyes” (Judges 16:28). In the opera, Samson’s goal is loftier: to avenge his God and redeem himself for his misdeed. And like a Hollywood ending, SaintSaens’s opera makes sure the bad guy—or in this case, bad girl—gets what’s coming: Delilah, the high priest and the Philistines simultaneously cry out in shock and terror as the temple collapses upon them. In the Bible, when Samson destroys the temple, there’s no hint that Delilah is present
because, as I note above, it contributes to the thematic thrust of the opera, in which Saint-Saens emphasizes the religious conflict submerged in the biblical story. Delilah then reveals her true feelings for Sam son to the high priest. She hates him: “W hat m atters your gold to Delilah? And what could a whole treasure if I was not dreaming of vengeance ... For, as much as you, I loathe him !” W e then learn that Delilah has already tried to discover the secret o f Sam son’s strength three times before and failed. However, after her ode to spring in the first act she is convinced that he has now “sur rendered to [her] power” and that he is coming to meet her “to tighten the bond between [them].” Following this, she and the high priest exclaim together: “Death to the Hebrew leader!” By having Delilah mention in passing her three pre
where each attempt is described in real time. In the Bible, Delilah first tries to discover Sam son’s secret by asking him flat out: “Explain to m e ... how could you be bound,
vious attempts to discover Sam son’s secret, the opera diminishes the drama of this part of the biblical account, 18
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&r D A L I L A
He then hesitatingly follows her in, whereupon Philistine soldiers approach the house. Offstage, Sam son has evi
so as to subdue you?” (Judges 16:6). He gives her false instructions: “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that are not dried out, then I shall become weak, and be like anyone else” (Judges 16:8). Delilah follows his direc tions and, as enemy assassins burst in to slay him, she
dently revealed his secret to Delilah, for she calls the soldiers into her house, and we hear Sam son scream, “Treachery!” as the curtain closes on Act Two.
cries out, “The Philistines are upon you Samson!” (Judges 16:9). But of course, the mighty Sam son breaks free. Delilah then repeats her question two more limes (Judges
Delilah’s actions in this scene—as told in the Bible and the opera—seem to offer the clearest evidence of her betrayal o f Sam son as well as her role in his cap
16:10,13); each time her param our lies to her. Each time he breaks free from the fetters in which Delilah has bound him. After the third try, Delilah com plains bitterly, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with
ture and death. She shaves his hair; she hands him over to the Philistines. But, once again, if we ju st scratch the surface of the biblical story, we find that the clear evidence of Delilah’s betrayal is not so clear after all. First, is Delilah really betraying Sam son when she asks him how' he could be bound? In the Bible, Samson
me?” (Judges 16:15). The biblical Delilah doesn’t give up, but she is not as
clearly knows w'hat she is doing; she tells him pointblank: “Explain to me what lies in your great strength
confident as her operatic counterpart, w'ho is convinced Samson will reveal his secret because he loves her. In Act Two, Scene Three, the secret is revealed.
and how you could be bound, so as to subdue you” (Judges 16:6). If anyone is being deceptive, it is Samson, who then toys w ith Delilah by giving h er incorrect responses to her request. In contrast, it is difficult to
This scene is (very loosely!) the equivalent of Judges 16:15-22. It begins with Delilah trying once again to reveal Sam son’s secret; it ends with Sam son shaven
imagine the Sam son o f the opera lying or deceiving anyone. In fact, D elilah re co u n ts her thrice-failed attem pts to the high priest in Act Two, Scene Two,
and shackled. In the Bible, we are told that Delilah “harassed him with her words all the days and urged him, and his soul was vexed to death” (Judges 16:15). At last, worn
and says, “Three times already, disguising my purpose, I have tried to discover the secret of his strength. I kin dled this love, hoping that by its flame I should read
dowm, Sam son reveals his secret: He’s a Nazirite, con secrated to God from b irth and b ou n d by vow to leave his hair unshorn. Delilah immediately recognizes
the unknow n hidden in the depths o f his soul. But three times too, frustrating my hopes he has not been at all frank, has let me see nothing.” The fact that Delilah
w hat th is m ea n s. She su m m o n s th e lo rd s o f the Philistines, who bring her the payment in silver. It’s the clim ax of the story and the downfall o f Samson:
sought Sam son’s secret prior to her encounter with the high priest enhances her thirst for personal vengeance. Also, her com m ents portray Sam son not as a deceiver,
“She let him fall asleep on her lap; and she called a m an, and had him shave off the seven locks o f his head. He began to weaken, and his strength left him ”
as in the biblical narrative, but simply as careful and guarded. Thu s, Saint-Saens exto ls the character of Sam son at the sam e time he heightens the ruthless ness o f Delilah .10 Second, is Delilah really responsible for stealing
(Judges 16:19). The Philistines descend on Samson, gouge out his eyes and bring him to Gaza in chains. In the opera, Act Two, Scene Three, Sam son grudg ingly acknowledges his love for Delilah but claims he
Sam son’s strength or might som eone else be to blame? That is, is she the one who shaved his hair? The Hebrew
must submit to the will of his God and “break the sweet bond of our love.” Delilah now deploys her m ost potent weapon: She begins to cry. Sam son cannot resist her
Bible (or Masoretic Text) tells us, “She made (let) him sleep on her knees, then called to a man, shaved seven locks on his head, and then began to humiliate him. And his strength departed from him” (Judges 16:19).
tears and loudly declares that he loves her. The two then exchange several verses of am orous exclamations until Delilah reminds Sam son that he has lied to her before, when he misled her as to the secret of his power.
But why did Delilah need to call to a man? She has already successfully bound Sam son twice and woven his hair together without any assistance.
He responds that his love m eans he has forgotten his God, w'hich should be sufficient proof, w hereupon
Ancient translators tried to solve this problem by specifying that the m an was a barber. In the Greek
Delilah replies that she is jealous of his God because o f the vow he and Sam son share. She begs him to allay her distrust by revealing the nature of his sacred bond with God. Throughout the scene, distant thunder and
Septuagint prepared in Alexandria in the third to second century B.C.E. and in the Latin Vulgate of Jerom e from the fourth century C.E., Delilah sum mons a barber who gives Samson his close shave. Modern translations such
lig h tn in g have b ee n grow ing clo ser, and Sam son takes this to be the voice of God telling him to remember his vow. W hen he tells this to Delilah, she plays her last card and rejects him, saying, “Coward! Loveless
as the New Revised Standard Version reflect this under standing: “She called a man, and had him shave off the seven locks of his head” (Judges 16:19). Since we have
heart, I despise you. Farewell!” She turns and enters her house, leaving Sam son with his hands in the air.
continues on p a g e 44 19
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A
dam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden serves as the foundation for Western theologies of the way we are: sinful and guilty. As the New England Primer of 1683 suc cinctly states: “In Adam's fall, We sinned all.” For their sin, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden in Genesis 3. In the next chapter, we find them established farmers with two illfated sons. But the Bible tells us little beyond that. Did Adam and Eve ever regret their mistake? Did they repent and mend their ways? Or, in their lives east of Eden, did they continue to pass the blame for the human condition, ju st as Adam once blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake? Ancient authors couldn’t resist speculating about what hap pened to the first couple between Genesis 3 and 4. The first such accounts likely originated among Jews during the Second Temple period (roughly 515 B.C.E.-72 C.E.). It was at this time that the serpent became identified with a figure adversarial to God, namely Satan, whose influence over Adam and Eve, and humankind in general, lasted long after the Fall. (In Genesis, the serpent plays instead the role o f the “trickster,” a com m on figure in many religious traditions.)1 These Jewish tales of Adam and Eve’s traffic with Satan exerted noteworthy influence on the Christian community, especially in 20 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 2 0 0 4
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PREVIOUS PAGE: The angel assigned by God to guard Paradise drives Adam and Eve out with his flaming sword, in this 16th-century painted enamel plaque from the National Museum of the Renaissance in Ecouen, France. For eating the forbidden fruit, the first couple was banished from the Garden. But what happened then? Between the Fall in Genesis 3 and the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, the Bible doesn’t really tell us what Adam and Eve’s lives were like, except that Adam tilled the earth as a farmer and Eve bore him sons. Several apocryphal stories, however, that may date from as early as the late Second Temple period— and that arc still repeated as folktales in Eastern Europe—describe how Adam and Eve had more problems with Satan after they relocated “east of Eden” (Genesis 3:24). In the accompanying review, David R. Cartlidge discusses a new book about these popular leg ends that fill the gap in the story of Adam and Eve.
How hast thou been again ensnared by our adversary, by w hose m eans we have been estranged from our abode in paradise and spiritual jo y ?”3 Thus Adam com pletes his penitence while Eve does not, and the blame for human troubles is thereby laid specifically and heav ily at Eve’s feet. This account reflects the church’s tendency to blame Eve, rather than Adam and Eve jointly, for the Fall. The same trend can be traced by com paring Romans 5:14, in w hich Paul lays the responsibility on Adam—“death held sway from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam did, by disobeying a direct com m and”—with 1 Tim othy 2:13-14, where we read that “it was not Adam who was deceived; it was the woman who, yielding to deception, fell into sin.”*
the East, almost from the very beginning of the church.
The second tradition, popular in the Balkan areas from at least as early as the Middle Ages, adds a fur ther twist. In this version, Satan’s second temptation
The Christian community recorded the tales in several fascinating and fun yet relatively little-known apocryphal texts with an unusual theological point all their own. Michael E. Stone, professor of Armenian studies and
o f Eve fails—but, in Satan’s mind, if two wrongs don't m ake a right, try a third. This third time, Satan takes no chances. He tricks Adam into signing a contract
the Gail Levin de Nur Professor of Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , has long had an interest in the Adam and Eve apocryphal literature. His History o f the
(Greek, c h eiro g ra p h o s-literally meaning “handwritten docum ent”) agreeing to be Satan's servant. There are three variants of this second tradition,
Literature o f A dam an d Eve (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) is a technical discussion of interrelationships among the dozens of Adam and Eve apocrypha. His m ost recent publication, A d am ’s Contract with Satan:
but in each Satan takes advantage of Adam and Eve’s ignorance to get Adam to sign on the dotted line. In the first version, Adam sets out to till the earth,
The Legend o f the C heirograph o f Adam (under review here), presents his analysis o f the stories in a manner
as God had com manded (in Genesis 3 :7-19,23). But Satan approaches him and forbids Adam to plow, claim ing that he owns the earth. Adam “knew that the Lord would descend on the earth and would take upon him
that is not only useful to scholars but is accessible to the interested public. The Adam and Eve apocrypha occur in at least two
self the form of a m an and would tread the devil under him ,”4 so Adam assum es that Satan must be telling the truth, that he temporarily owns the earth. Duped by
layers of tradition. The first, probably dating from the Greco-Roman period and most popular in Judaism and the very early church, includes such m anuscripts as The Life o f A dam and
the devil, Adam signs the contract, or cheirograph, m aking him Satan’s ten ant farmer until the com ing of Jesus.
Eve, the misnamed Apocalypse o f Moses (which is actually about the Adam and Eve stories) and the Penitence o f Adam. The stories are found in Greek, Latin, Slavon ic, G eorgian, A rm enian and other languages.2 The gist of these tales
In a second version of the cheiro graph tale, Adam and Eve, when they are first cast out of the garden, do not k now w hat day and night are. (According to these tales, the garden had always been lit with a heavenly
is that Adam and Eve, a fter th eir expulsion, wish to repent and do so by fasting for 4 0 days while standing in the Tigris River. Satan is so upset at this that he appears to Eve in the form of an angel and tricks her into thinking that the 4 0 days are up and she has already completed the penance. She succum bs to Satan’s trickery once again, ju st as she had in the Garden, and Adam is furious. He had warned Eve that she might be tempted again, and so now he rails at her: “O Eve, Eve, where is the labor o f thy penitence?
light.) It happens to be nighttime when they leave Eden, and so Adam believes he will have to live in darkness forever. Satan takes advantage of his ignorance:
Adam's Contract w ith Satan M ich ael E. Stone (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002) 194 pp., S39.95 (hardback)
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“I shall give you light. Inscribe yourself (as belonging to m e) by your handwTiting and also (about) your family and children.” So Adam signs the con tract and only realizes he has been duped when the daylight occurs natu rally. But Satan has hidden the contract: *See Susan Greiner, “Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed?" BR, August 1999.
ADAM SIGNS A CONTRACT WITH SATAN in this mural from the 16th-century church at Voronet in Moldavia, Romania. Several stories about Adam and Eve that were popular in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Armenia tell how Satan tricked Adam into signing a contractcalled a cheirograph (Greek for “handwritten document”) —making Adam Satan’s servant for all eternity. In one version of the story, Satan persuades Adam that the earth is his (the devil’s) possession and forbids Adam to till it until he signs a contract making him Satan’s tenant farmer. In another version, the devil pretends he controls the rising and setting of the sun. He convinces naive Adam to sign himself and his family over to Satan, in return for some daylight On the contract in this mural, Adam is writing “Cheirograph of Adam” in Slavonic characters.
“The devil look Adam’s handwriting and hid it (in the Jord an) under a stone where Christ was baptized .”5 The third form o f the cheirograph story is more elaborate. Cain is born as a m onster: “His head was like others, but on his breast and forehead there were tw elve sn ak e h ead s. W h e n Eve su ck le d h im , the snake heads tormented her stom ach, and our original m other Eve w as covered by a scab becau se o f this torment and fierce torture .”6 Satan promises to relieve Eve’s pain and cure Cain if Adam will sign a contract with the devil. So Adam slaughters a goat and uses its blood to sign the cheirograph with the words: “The living are God’s and die dead are yours”—that is, Satan’s. Satan then removes the torturing snakes and puts them
brings “the remainders of the handwriting ... to Hell where the saints were im prisoned.” But when Jesu s rises from the dead and descends into Hell, he tears
in the Jordan to guard the cheirograph. But when Jesus is later baptized in the Jord an, he crushes the snakes. The devil holds on to the cheirograph, however, and 23
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up (o r sm ash es—in som e version s the c o n tra ct is inscribed on stone) the contract, “and he bound the devil and released the souls from Hell and brought
JOHN BAPTIZES JESUS and both tread on Satan who, in the form of an underwater serpent, holds the eheirograph in his mouth, in this 1587 gospel illumination from Armenia. In the later versions of the cheirograph story, Satan hides the contract in what he thinks is a safe place, the Jordan River, never suspecting that the arrival of Jesus will undo his schemes.
them to the first [kind of] Paradise .”7 These stories about Adam and Eve and the contract with Satan live in contem porary folktales, especially in the Balkans, Russia and Greece, and have long been part of the pictorial arts in these areas of the Eastern church. A 16th-century mural (see photo, p. 2 3 ) from
Elem ents o f the second and third variant o f the cheirograph story (in w hich Satan hides the cheiro graph in the Jord an, where it is protected by snakes, and Jesu s later crushes the snakes and retrieves the contract from Hell) appear more frequently—in Eastern
a church in Moldavia, in Romania, shows Adam sign ing the cheirograph in the presence of Satan. 24
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ADAM’S CONTRACT
images of Je su s’ baptism and the Resurrection.
not simply by being nailed to the cross, but by going down into Hades, repossessing the bill, destroying it,
In the Eastern church, images of the Resurrection are called the Anastasis (from the Greek for “Resurrection”), and they depict Jesu s beating down the doors of Hell
and bringing Adam and Eve out .” 10 This is the theme of the images of the Anastasis, m entioned above. In his sixth homily, Jo h n Chrysostom (ca. 3 7 0 -4 0 0 ) says
and rescuing Adam, Eve and other souls. (In the W est the scene is know n as the “Descent into Hell” or the “Harrowing of Hell”).* Anastasis images appear in vir
“we were all under sin and punishm ent. He Himself, through suffering punishm ent, did away with both the sin and p u n ish m en t... To the cross then He affixed it;
tually every Eastern O rthodox church, and som e (like the painting on the cover o f this issue) show Jesu s carrying a scroll, which is probably the cheirograph
as having power, He tore it apart.” 11 W hat are we to make of these rather obscure leg ends? They are virtually unknow n, especially in the W estern church. According to Stone, in his summary
he retrieved from Hell. At least one 17th-century icon (draw ing on p. 2 6 ) show s Je s u s tearing the scroll right out of Satan’s hands.
chapter, they represent an informal but important type o f Christian tradition, especially popular in the Eastern
In the third version of the cheirograph story, the con tract protected by serpents is sometimes described as being a stone tablet or clay brick rather than a scroll.
church of the Middle Ages and continuing to this day in folklore. Stone dem onstrates that the texts and tra
Stone relates a Romanian folktale in which “Satan asks for the contract to be written. Adam says he cannot write because when he was small there was no school
ditions of these legends tended to survive in certain areas, namely, in Armenia, Russia, Greece, Old Slavonic churches, Romania and Moldavia . 12
for either Hungarians or Romanians .”8 So Satan accepts a handprint on a brick. In images of the baptism, Jesus is sometimes shown treading upon the serpents in the
Nevertheless, as Michael Stone notes, the stories of Adam’s contract with Satan present a provocative the ological position. In the W est, in a view influenced highly by Paul, Augustine, Calvin, Luther and others,
river (as in the 16th-century Armenian gospel illumi nation, shown opposite) or standing upon a rock tablet— the contract—guarded by serpents.
the occasion of sin and the fall of humankind are the direct results of disobedience to a divine com m and ment. In the cheirograph story, however, our fallen
The earliest manuscripts containing stories of Adam’s contract with Satan date to the early Middle Ages, but the tales themselves are likely much older. It is possi ble they w ere even know n to som e New Testam ent
state arises from ignorance: namely, Adam’s and Eve’s ignorance. As Stone puts it, “within [the cheirograph stories’] overarching economy of salvation from Adam’s
writers. The word cheirographos occurs only once in the New Testament, in Colossians 2:13-14, but it is a
sin to Christ’s crucifixion, a more limited world was perceived ... The human condition was, in this smaller perspective, due to a m istake and not to sin ... The sense of sin and guilt must have been less oppressive;
key word in a powerful and suggestive passage: “And though we were dead in our transgressions and in the circum cision of our flesh, he has made us alive with him, forgiving us of all sins. He has canceled the con
the yearning for freedom from this worldly subjection to the devil very acute . "13 These stories thus propose a concept of the human
tract (cheirographos) and all its stipulations which were laid upon us, and he has set it aside, nailing it to the cro ss.” T his raises the intriguing question, Did the
cond ition that differs significantly from that o f the W estern church and its Augustinian view that w^e are creatures who suffer from personal sin and guilt because,
author of Colossians have in mind the legend of Adam’s contract with Satan? The prevailing interpretation of the “contract” in C olossians 2:13-14 is that it represents a bill of sin-
in Adam, we broke a divine com m andm ent. In this W estern view; we are, in Martin Luther’s phrase, “at the same time justified and sinners.” Thus, we celebrate our freedom from sin gained on the cross and yet con
indebtedness that humans incurred because of Adam’s sin; die first couple had broken a divine commandment in a contract held by God. Stone points out, however,
fess that we are still bound by it. It is very possible, then, to picture our struggle as a personal one between
that the author of Colossians may be referring instead to a contract in Satan’s keeping, w hich gives Satan
our redeemed self and our sinful nature. The cheiro graph legend holds a different approach. In its theol ogy, we are a deceived people, no divine edict was trans
dom inion over the earth; the contract does not neces sarily involve the breaking of a divine commandment. The church father Tertullian (c. 2 0 0 C.E.), in his De pudicitia (About Chastity) speaks of Satan’s holding the “contract .”9 As Stone notes, there was a widespread tra
gressed, and our ignorance of the deceit holds us in bondage to a usurper lord of the cosm os, Satan. The struggle then becomes one in which we must overthrow this usurper lord while at the same time understand
dition in the church “that Christ annulled Adam’s debt
ing that we are already freed from his dominion over the earth. Both the Augustinian (Western) and the cheiro
* F o r m o r e e x a m p l e s o f t h i s s u b je c t i n E a s t e r n a n d W e s t e r n a rt,
graph legends’ theologies therefore explain a basic human paradox. But they do so in significandy different
s e e H e id i J . H o r n i k a n d M ik e a l C . P a r s o n s , “T h e H a r r o w i n g o f H e ll,” B R , J u n e 2 0 0 3 .
25 B IBLE R E V IE W * |U N E 2 0 0 4
ADAM’S CONTRACT
JESUS RIPS THE CHEIROGRAPH from the clutches of the devil, as he liberates Adam and other Old Testament heroes from Hell, in the bottom scene of this drawing of a 17th-century Russian icon. According to church tradition, immediately before Jesus' Resurrection (the top scene), he descended to Hell to release the righteous imprisoned there. Not only does Jesus makes things right for humanity by offering salva tion from the Fall, he uses his opportu nity in Hell to annul the cheirograph, undoing Adam's second transgression. Paul himself may have known about the cheirograph, as the following quo tation from Colossians suggests: “And though we were dead in our transgres sions and in the circumcision of our flesh, he has made us alive with him, forgiving us of all our sins. He has can celled the contract ( cheirographos ) and all its stipulations which were laid upon us, and he has set it aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14). Jesus' trip to Hell to liberate the righteous dead has always been a popular scene in the art of the Eastern church, where it is called the Anastasis. (In the West, it is known as the Harrowing of Hell.) Jesus is often shown holding a scroll—appar ently a copy of Adam’s contract—as in the modem Anastasis painting on the cover of this issue.
I# , o«
£froA<'mk i / m n o o ^ O -rto *
ways. The social results of these two struggles may also differ significantly; in the West, the struggle is within
m a w .jtu w r n r .
1O th e r a n c ie n t N ear Eastern sto rie s a lso ca st th e serp e n t in th e ro le o f trick ste r. In th e E p ic o f G ilg a m e s h , fo r e x a m p le , a fte r G ilg a m e sh h a s ob ta in ed th e p la n t th at gives etern al life, th e serp e n t stea ls it from him , and G ilgam esh is left w eep in g o v er h is lo st im m ortality.
us; in the cheirograph stories, the struggle is against a false lord of the world. In Adam an d Eve’s Contract with Satan, Michael Stone
2 S o m e o f th e se te xts a re available in E nglish in R.H . Charlesvvorth, The A p o c r y p h a an ti P se u d e p ig r a p h a o f t h e O ld T estam en t in E nglish, vol. 2 , The P seu d ep ig ra p h a (O x fo rd : C la re n d o n P ress, 1 9 6 3 ) , pp. 1 2 3 -1 5 4 . T h e sto ries m ay also b e found, w ith so m e d iscu ssio n , o n http:/ / jefferson.village. virginia.ed u :80/ an d erson / archive.h tm l.
presents thorough and fascinating scholarship that will serve well both scholars and the general reader. The book is under 200 pages, but it is packed with infor
3 T ra n sla ted b y C h a rle s, in A p o c r y p h a a n d P s eu d ep ig ra p h a , vol. 2 , p. 136. 4 V arian t A tran slated b y M ich ael E. S to n e, in A d a m ’s C o n tra ct w ith Satan (B lo o m in g to n a n d In d ia n a p o lis: In d ia n a Univ. P ress, 2 0 0 2 ) , p. 27.
mation, including the stories themselves, pictorial art and Stone’s insightful com m entaries. Stone’s work
5 S to n e, C o n tra ct, p. 3 3 . 6 Sto n e, C o n tra ct, p. 3 8 .
bears witness to the enduring power of both Jew ish and Christian apocryphal literature. Not only does he work with the received texts, he gives us an account
7 Ston e, C o n tra ct, pp. 3 8 -3 9 . (T h e b ra ck e ts in d icate S to n e's em en d ation to a som ew h at con volu ted R u ssia n text.) 8 Sto n e, C o n tra ct, p. 4 4 . 9 T ertu llian , D e p u d ic itia 19.19-20.
ing of the transm ission of these stories in folktales and in the pictorial art of the church—vehicles of the faith that are all too often underestimated by those whose main work is with texts and more texts.
4ur,«%
•MOM
10 S to n e, C on tract, p. 104. 11 Q u o ted in Ston e, C on tract, p. 10 5 . 12 Sto n e, C o n tra ct, p. 114.
(S3
13 S to n e, C o n tra ct, p. 116.
26 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ JU N E 2 0 0 4
Pilate Dock ■f
V
i 11 t h e
*1
For the Defense id the gospel writers whitewash the
D
role of Pontius Pilate on Good Friday, portraying him as a magistrate who con demned Jesu s only under pressure from a Jew ish prosecution, when in fact Pilate really wcmtedjesus on the cross? This revi sionist portrait of Pilate—presented to BR readers by Professor Stephen J . Patterson in “The D ark Side of Pilate” (D ecem ber 2 0 0 3 ) —is b eco m in g norm ative am ong m any b ib lica l sch o la rs today. As seen through this nontraditional lens, the evan gelists, motivated by the growing dispute between church and synagogue in the first century, magnified Jew ish involvement at Je su s’ trial; the traditional role of Pilate, as reported in the Gospels, is simply pro paganda then, not history.
1 beg to differ. To m ake h is argu m ent, P rofessor Patterson presents the usual negative evi dence on Pilate from the writings of Philo
for describing Pilate in such a negative
and Jo sep h u s that apparently contrasts with the milder im pressions in the New Testament. But while Patterson uses all his negative critical acumen on the Gospel of
light. Philo’s Em bassy to G aius was pub lished after the emperor Gaius Caligula’s death in 41 A.D. and for the benefit of his
Mark as a historical source, he does not do the same for Philo, the first-century Jew ish philosopher at Alexandria. Had he done
successor Claudius. Philo’s interest was in portraying the previous Roman admin istration o f Ju d ea in the worst possible
so, he would have noted why Philo wrote as he did. In his Embassy to Gaius, Philo describes
light so that the new em peror Claudius m ight b e confirm ed in h is decision to relieve the Je w ish h om elan d o f direct
how P ilate had erected , in H ero d ’s Je ru sa le m p alace, several gold-plated
R om an co n tro l by ap p o in tin g H erod Agrippa king in 41 A.D., thus replacing the Roman governors of Ju d ea .2
shields bearing inscriptions supposedly offensive to Jews. The Jew s threatened to send a delegation to Rome to complain. According to Philo, Pilate feared the del egation might also report on som e of his other wrongs, including his “briberies,” “robberies,” “senseless injuries,” and “exe cutions without trial.” 1 W hile this certainly sounds bad, we must keep in mind Philo’s own motivations 27 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ J U N E 2 0 0 4
Had Pilate truly been the scoundrel p ain ted by P h ilo, he w ould n ot have remained in office for an entire decade, the second-longest tenure o f any Roman governor of Ju d ea (n o t the longest, as Patterson has it).* As emperor, Tiberius (14-37 A.D.) encouraged provincials to *The longest was Pilate’s predecessor, Valerius Gratus, 15-26 A.D.
PILATE’S DEFENSE
report instances oi extortion and malfea san ce by R om an g o v ern o rs, and he replaced several. T h e first-cen tu ry h isto ria n Flavius Josephus also had reasons to tell Pilate’s story the way he did. His first reference to Pilate concerns a similar episode, in which Pilate erected Roman military standards, which bore images of the emperor, in the Roman barracks inside the Tower Antonia no rth w est o f the T em ple (n o t “in the Jerusalem Temple,” as Patterson has it ).3 A ccord ing to Jo se p h u s, P ilate’s action inspired thousands ofjews to protest. While Josephus, writing under the Flavian emper
Josephus will report how Titus reminds the Jerusalem ites that the Romans gave
court (Luke 2 3 :6 -7 ) becom es even more understandable .9
perm ission to the Jew's to execute even Roman citizens if they transgressed the Tem ple’s perim eter balustrade with its
The most detailed historical references to Pontius Pilate, o f course, occur in the Gospels, of which M ark's appears to be the earliest. But w hen w as it written?
signs warning Gentiles to keep out .7 True, Luke 13:1 mentions “the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sac rifices,” but this refers either to the aque duct riot (according to Josephu s, some Jew s were clubbed to death; others were trampled by their fleeing com panions )8 o r to som e m ishap o ccu rrin g d uring Pilate’s administration, (or w'hich the gov ernment w'ould inevitably receive blame.
ors in the later first century, might have been expected to share Philo’s proclivity to denigrate the early Roman governors of
Note that when Jesu s com ments on this bloody episode, he does not fault Pilate but puts the event in the same category
Ju d ea, the Jew ish historian reports that Pilate was so overcome by the zeal of the Jew s that he removed the offensive stan
o f accident as the collapse of the Tower o f S iloam , w h ich killed 18 in n o cen t bystanders (Luke 13:1-5).
dards. Further, during a subsequent riot in Jerusalem (the so-called aqueduct riot,
I do not intend to rehabilitate Pontius Pilate but merely to challenge anyone w ho fin d s the
Patterson would do well not to present questionable prem ises as fact, as when he writes: “Mark was written near the end o f the Jew ish W ar against Rome, when the city of Jerusalem had been (or would soon be) sacked, thousands slaughtered.” Even though this supposition is current enough, it has never been proven, and, in fact, there is mounting evidence for dating the Synoptics (the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke) earlier than 7 0 A.D., when the Rom ans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. If Mark—and the other evangelists following him—wrote in response to the fall of Jerusalem and were as anti-Semitic in their versions of Jesu s’ trial as Patterson makes them out to be, how in the w orld co u ld they have
Clearly the gospel w riters were not concoc accounts of Je su s’ over Pilate’s use of Temple monies to build
nonbiblical evi dence on the governor credible
a new aq u ed u ct), Pilate instructed his troops not to use excessive violence in their crowd control. (Clubs were permitted, but
but the New Testam ent record on him incredible. Quite the contrary, the extra-
not swords.)4 Josephus certainly does exco riate later Roman governors of Jud ea who were truly vile such as Gessius Florus who
b ib lica l evid en ce n ot on ly co rrela te s well enough with the gospel versions in show ing a Gentile governor m isunder
flaunted his crim es ... never omitting any sort of violence, nor any unjust man ner of punishm ent .” 5 He does not use the
standing his Jew ish subjects, but the out side evidence even adds important detail to the gospel record. For example, Philo’s Em bassy provides an explanation for the
same language for Pilate. T h e a q u ed u ct rio t, a cco rd in g to Patterson, began after Pilate simply “took”
hostility between Pilate and Herod Antipas
funds from the Temple treasury to con struct the Jerusalem aqueduct, apparently without permission of the Temple author
that Luke (2 3 :1 2 ) enigmatically tells us was repaired on Good Friday w'hen Pilate rem an d ed Je s u s to H ero d ’s cou rt. According to Philo, Herod Antipas had
ities, a permission that, in fact, they most probably granted. The aqueduct, after all, fed the great cisterns under the Temple
embarrassed Pilate politically by writing the em peror Tiberius about the golden shields affair. W ithout hearing Pilate’s
Mount, and surplus income from the half shekel Temple dues could indeed be used
side of it, Tiberius sent a very testy letter to Pilate, ordering him to transfer the shields to a temple in Caesarea and warn
for such purposes .6 Nor could Pilate have “taken” these funds so easily. The trea sury was kept inside the Tem ple, and for a Rom an to seize any o f its funds
ing him to uphold all the religious and political custom s o f his Jew ish subjects. Against this background, Pilate’s attempt
w-ould have resulted in his death. Later,
to transfer Jesu s’ case to Herod Antipas’s 28 BIBLE R E V IE W * |U N E 2 0 0 4
refrained from adding editorializing com ments in their Gospels, such as: “And this is how Jesu s’ opponents were punished for indicting him before Pilate” or “Now was fulfilled what Jesu s predicted on his way to the cross when he told weeping bystanders to weep instead for Jerusalem” (L u ke 2 3 :2 8 ). W ith th eir predilection for prophecy-fulfillm ent cou plets, the gospel w riters could not have resisted including the latter if they had written after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Far more serious, however, is Patterson's charge that the traditional New'Testament versions of Jesu s’ trial are not historical. This is simply incorrect. Nearly every stage in Je su s' hearings before Pilate and his responses during the hearing have direct analogies in other Roman provincial trials of the time. Furthermore, all the named characters are historical figures. Judge Pilate shows up not only in the Gospels but in the his torical texts Patterson cites. In addition, the Rom an historian Cornelius Tacitus
PILATE’S DEFENSE
m en tio n s P ilate in a fam ous passage that reports how Nero, in order to sup press the rum or that he had set fire to
before them the brother o f Jesu s who was called the Christ, whose name was Jam es, and certain oth
Rome, “substituted as scapegoats ... the Christians. Christus, the author of that name, had been executed in Tiberius’s
ers. He accu sed them o f having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned. But those of
reign by the governor, Pontius Pilatus .” 10 Pilate’s name even shows up in stone in the fam ous T iberieu m in scrip tio n dis covered at Caesarea.
the city [Jerusalem] residents who were deemed the m ost fair-minded
As for the man who must have been the chief plaintiff that day, Joseph Caiaphas, not only does his name occur in the pages of Josephu s, his very bones were found in the fam o u s o ssu a ry d iscov ery so admirably reported in B R ’s sister maga zine, B iblical A rchaeology Review.11 Still, it will be argued, the debate is not over the historicity of the trial or the personalities involved but their charac terization in the Gospels. Ju st so. But here Patterson—and so many revisionists like him—totally overlooks cru cial evidence
and who were strict in observing the law w ere offen ded at this. Accordingly, they secretly contacted the king [Agrippa II], urging him to order Ananus to desist from any more such actions, for he had not been justified in what he had already done. Some of them even went to meet Albinus, who was on his way from Alexandria, and informed him that Ananus had no authority to conv ene the San h ed rin w ithout his consent. Convinced by these words, Albinus wrote in anger to Ananus, threatening him with pun-
Ja m es, ju s t as only a sm all fraction of Jerusalem Jew s indicted Jesu s on Good Friday. (No m ore than a few hundred could have fit inside Pilate’s courtyard, and these were clearly part of a claque controlled by the Caiaphas administra tion.) In both cases, the Sadducean aris tocracy, which controlled the Temple and the high priesthood, served as prosecu tion. Both tim es, the Jew ish m ajority in Jeru salem opposed this group. In the case of Jesu s, neither the general Jew ish pop ulace nor the Passover pilgrims had any reason to turn against him , and many, in fact, were weeping when he dragged h is cro ss to Calvary, accord in g to the m ost-overlooked passage in the Bible, Luke 23:27: “And there followed him a great multitude of people [Jews], and of women who bewailed and lamented him.” Acts 5:13 and 5 :2 6 underscore the fact that the general Jew ish population in Jerusalem held the early Christians in high regard. Later, in the case o f Jam es, the
t^ng propaganda in their trial, but reporting reliable historical data. Jew ish majority even had the high priest that has a direct bearing on what truly happened at P ilate’s tribunal that first Good Friday. An extraordinary parallel to the Jerusalem trial of Jesu s took place in the sam e city only 2 9 years later—it might well be styled “Good Friday II”— and it is re p o rted not by any New Testament author, but by the Jew ish his torian Flavius Josephus. It is worth quot ing in its entirety, and to introduce this cast of characters: Ananus was the high priest, son of Annas and brother-in-law of Caiaphas; Festus was the Roman gov ernor of Judea; and Albinus his succes sor. The year is 6 2 A.D., and the place Jerusalem . Having such a character [“a rash, heartless” Sadducee, as Joseph u s styles him], Ananus thought that with Festus dead and Albinus still on the way h e w ould have the proper opportunity. Convening the judges of the Sanhedrin, he brought
ishment. And King Agrippa, because of this, deposed him from the high priesthood .12
canned from office. Accordingly, it was a terrible error for anti-Semitism ever to have arisen in the church, especially when the founder, his
The parallels are more than obvious. N ot C a ia p h a s b u t h is b roth er-in -law
followers, the early Christian community in Jerusalem , and the Pentecost converts
Ananus is involved this time. The later Sanhedrin, much like the Sanhedrin in
w ere a ll Je w ish . O bviously, P rofessor Patterson is absolutely correct on this. But anti-Semitism arose from a m isun derstanding o f the Gospels, not because
the case of Jesus, condem ns to death not Je s u s but his brother (or half-brother) Ja m es ,13 while the later Roman governor A lb in u s, like h is p re d e c e sso r Pilate, opposes this m iscarriage of ju stice. In view o f its n o n -C h ristia n au th orsh ip and congruence to the events of Good Friday, this evidence, I think, is over powering. Clearly the gospel writers were n o t c o n c o ctin g p ro p ag an d a in th eir accounts of Jesu s’ trial, but reporting reli able historical data. However, there is another extremely significant parallel. On the latter occa sion, only a small fraction of Jew s—“the ju d g es o f the Sanhedrin”—condem ned 29 B IB LE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 2 0 0 4
the G ospels—three of them w ritten by Jew s—are themselves anti-Semitic. M u ch is m ade, fo r ex a m p le , of M atthew 2 7 :2 5 , w here the crowd pre sumably shouts, “His blood be on us and on our children!” T his might well have been historical in fact, but its later inter pretation, as impugning all Jew s then and now, is simply ridiculous. First, only those m aking the statem ent that day would potentially be involved. Second, a curse has no value unless God endorses it, and M atthew does not record the heavens o p en in g up w ith the v o ice o f God
PILATE’S PROSECUTION
affirming, “So be it!” And finally, with a majority o f Jerusalem ites not concurring with the Sadducean indictment of Jesus, only a wretched mis-interpretation of this passage led to the tragedy of anti-Semitism in the church. Jew s today can surely be excused for their extreme sensitivity to any hint of their predecessors' involvement on Good Friday. After being ghettoized as “Christ-killers” and suffering medieval (an d m odern!)
pogroms and the horror of the Holocaust, th e ir re sp o n se e a ch d eca d e to the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany or, currently, to Mel Gibson’s Passion film is certainly understandable. Christians should know this and work diligently to correct the terrible errors of som e of their forebears. Flating Jew s today because of Good Friday is as ridiculous as hating Italians because Nero once threw Christians to
For the Prosecution P
rofessor M aier’s extensive rebuttal
of my earlier essay is a m ost wel come engagement from an authority who has written widely on the figure of Pilate .1 I am happy to offer a reply. First, however, a word on name-calling. Professor M aier's repeated reference to
these authors’ respective interests. But I would read the record a bit differently. Philo wrote the Em bassy to G aius not to argue for Jew ish hom e rule in Judea, but to decry the treatment he and his fellow am bassad ors received at the hand s of Emperor Gaius Caligula when they went
the lions. The only final blunder would be to try to claim that Nero never perse cuted Christians, because the records that claim he did must have a hopelessly antiItalian bias! One can only long for the day when the tragedy of anti-Semitism is not com pounded by revisionist m isun derstandings o f the G ospels as fiction rather than fact. W hat ever happened to proper interpretation ?14 (33 en d n o tes a p p e a r on p a g e 44
STEPHEN
J.
PATTERSON
his audience was Roman, and he could only go so far without risking the loss of its sympathies. For this reason I doubt that he denigrated Pilate’s character much more than the historical record would bear. Incidentally, Professor Maier should clar ify whether he is doubting the aqueduct
to R om e to p lead the
MM.......
The assum ed historicity of our gospel accounts of J e s u s ’ a key role in fanning th e flam es of C hristian antii my rem arks as “revision ist” history is intended, I assume, to cast a shadow of political correctness over my views, and to suggest that I hold them for reasons
case of the Alexandrian Jew s after the infamous anti-Jewish riots in 3 7 C.E. that
other than their historical plausibility. That’s no way to begin a conversation. All historians have personal histories to
retelling the episode o f Pilate and the sh ield s is to co n tra st the behav ior of T iberiu s, w ho reprim anded Pilate for doing som ething so foolish, with that of
which their work is related. I am a lib eral Christian who does not believe in the inerrancy of scripture. Paul Maier is a Missouri Synod Lutheran for whom the inerrancy o f scripture is basic. These dif ferences will affect how we each approach the Bible as a source for doing historical w ork. Fair enou gh. At the end o f the day, however, our work must be judged on its h isto rical m erits, n ot on som e unstated theological subtext about w'hich the reader is left only to guess. So let us dispense with tags like “revisionist” and “fundamentalist” and simply look at how we view the evidence differently. Maier is o f course right in arguing that the evidence against Pilate from Philo and Josep hu s must be evaluated in view of
took place in Alexandria under the local Rom an governor Flaccus. His point in
Caligula, who insisted Petronius, his pre fect in Ju d ea, go forward with a sim i larly offensive act, even when Petronius
incident at all, or ju st my infelicitous choice o f w'ords (Pilate “took” funds) in describ ing Pilate’s action. Indeed, Josephu s says simply that he “spent” the money (prob ably with the full approval of his Jerusalem collaborators). The point, though, is that this called forth popular protests, which were put down with violence, resulting in the deaths o f “many.” W hether this was “excessive” or not depends, I suppose, on
could see that it was wrong. His subject is not Pilate’s barbarity, but Caligula’s folly. In any case, these were well-known
one’s perspective. Again, however, these were well-known public events, and not easily falsified.
public events, difficult for Philo to falsify very much even if he had wanted to. The same is true forJosephus’s accounts of Pilate. He does indeed mean to show
One should contrast these very pub lic events w ith the sort o f “events” by w'hich Pilate is exonerated in our Gospels: private conversations between Jesu s and
the incompetence of both the Roman lead ership in Jeru salem and its Jew ish col
Pilate, a trial at which there are no Jesus partisans present to report the facts, even
laborators. That is, in part, why he nar rates the episodes of the standards (yes,
a private communique between Pilate and h is wife. How m ight we su p p ose the gospel w'riters cam e by these intim ate details? Divine inspiration is an answ'er,
in the Fortress Antonia, thus, the Temple M ount, n ot the Tem ple itself) and the protests over the aqueduct. Nonetheless, 30 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ JU N E 2 0 0 4
but not a very good historical explanation.
PILATE’S PROSECUTION
The only public event in question is the so-called Privilegium Pascal, wherein the
gospel trial scenes to actual Roman provin cial trials, and the fact that Pilate and
course, that the current empire might leave something to be desired; and in spite of
Jew ish crowd chooses to have Barabbas released to them instead of Jesus, a very unlikely event that is without parallel and w ithout any external corroborat
Caiaphas were actually real people who lived in Je su s’ day. But this shows only that Mark (or whoever created the trial
the fact that he does all o f this during Passover, the annual celebration of Jewish liberation from Egyptian bondage, thus,
scenes) had a good idea o f how a Roman trial should proceed and that he knew the identity of two key figures in Jerusalem
a time of great tension between Jew s and their Roman occupiers—in spite of all this,
ing evidence. Maier also believes that Pilate’s unusu ally long tenure would likely have been due to his sagacity and geniality as a ruler. B ut th is b e n e v o le n t view o f R om an provincial politics has long passed from historical credibility. Romans ruled their provinces with an iron fist for the sole p urpose o f extractin g the tribute and exercising other m eans of profit-taking. Pilate’s success was no doubt due to his com petence at this sort of hard-ball pol itics. If it can b e d em o n stra te d that Tiberius showed special concern to root out incompetent or excessively brutal gov ernors in the provinces, it should then be noted that Pilate was removed from
at the time o f Je s u s ’ death. It does not show that Pilate (or Caiaphas) said and did certain things, entertained particular attitudes, or held particular conversations, etc. H istorical verisim ilitude is n ot the same as historical accuracy. The martyrdom of Jam es adds noth ing to the case for the historicity of the Christian Passion accounts. Maier thinks that the Jew ish execution of Jam es shows that Jew s could indeed be responsible for an execution, even under Rom an rule. But he fails to appreciate the significance o f the fact that Jam es was martyred in 6 2 C .E ., after the R om an procurator,
Pilate evidently harbors no suspicions about Jesu s whatsoever and regards him as an innocent victim of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin. Pilate tries to release Jesu s but is bullied by a small number of p riests and scrib es in to an execu tion that he truly regrets. As an historian, this ju st doesn’t seem very plausible to me. Nor did it to the author of Matthew, who therefore added to Mark’s basic story a large chanting crowd of Jew s to sway Pilate’s decision with those infa m ous words: “His blood be upon us and our children” (Matthew 2 5 :2 5 ). I am not com inced that any of this is history. But that, of course, is a subjective judgment, as all historical judgm ents are.
death has for centuries played -Semitism... That doesn’t m ake th e Gospels anti-Semitic. office by the Syrian Legate, Vitellius, in the final m onths o f T iberiu s’s rule—for excessive brutality in putting down the Samaritan rebellion. All in all, one may perhaps not single out Pilate as extraordinarily vile within a system of imperial rule that was by its very natu re h arsh . W h en L u k e m e n tions the otherwise unknown incident of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices (Luke 13:1), it is as an illustration of the sort of random vio lence that might befall anyone in Judea. Pilate, and the empire he represents, are random violence. They ju st blend in with other examples o f ‘when bad things hap pen to good people.” B ut it is n o t so m u ch P ilate that Professor Maier wishes to defend, as the historical reliability of the Bible. W hat, then, of the gospel accounts? Are they his torical fact? Maier is convinced that they are by the (apparent) sim ilarity o f the
Festus, had died, and before his succes sor, Albinus, had taken office. The high priest, Ananus the Younger, apparently seized the opportunity posed by this inter regnum to settle scores with several of his fo es, am ong them Ja m e s . W h e n Albinus did take office, he did not sim ply wink at the action of Ananus and the Sanhedrin, as Pilate is said to have done in the case of Jesus, but removed the high priest from office as punishm ent for hav ing taken advantage of the situation .2 That very plausible scenario represents quite a different situation from the pre sum ed trial o f Je s u s in o u r G osp els. Consider: in spite of the fact thatjesus enters Jerusalem and symbolically destroys the Temple, the center of religious and polit ical life in Jerusalem , thus committing an act of effrontery to both Roman and Jewish authority alike; in spite of the fact that he comes to Jerusalem proclaiming the arrival o f a new empire (basileia), implying, of 31 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ J U N E 2 0 0 4
B ut for m any believers, the gospel accounts o f Jesu s’ death are accepted as factual, as are all other things found in the Bible. It is the Bible, after all. For many, the Bible’s accuracy in all things is the first article o f faith. Such a person, I sup pose, will take great com fort in Professor M aier’s h istorical ju d g m en ts, and rest secure in the knowledge that their faith in the Bible is confirmed by such an emi nent historian. But I m ust confess my ow n d isc o m fo rt w ith th is ou tco m e, whether it com es from the historian or the believer. The assumed historicity of our gospel accounts o f Jesu s’ death has for centuries played a key role in fanning the flames of Christian anti-Semitism, an unfathom able evil that has claimed the lives of m illions of innocent Jew s. That doesn’t m ake the G ospels anti-Semitic. But it does make them dangerous in the hands of Christians who are led to believe that w h at they are re a d in g is sim ple
PILATE’S PROSECUTION
historical fact. We should not think that we are immune from the kind of passions that the Passion o f Jesu s has aroused in
risk repeating. As millions of Christians flock to theaters this year to view Mel G ibson’s Passion o f the Christ, let us hope
generations of Christians before us. The death of Jesu s was a history worth revis ing, for it has spawned a history we cannot
that the price to be paid for simple faith in the Bible’s accuracy is not a return to the dark days o f a sim pler time, when
Paul L. Maier Responds... I th an k P ro fe sso r P a tte rso n for h is thoughtful response, to w-hich several
brief com m ents may be appropriate. 1 used the w'ord “revisionist” as the neu tral term it is for “one who,” according to the dictionary definition, “revises, or favors the revision of, some accepted the ory, doctrine, etc.” Professor Patterson's reappraisal o f the Passion story w'ould surely seem a fair example. P rofessor Patterson styles m e as “a Missouri Synod Lutheran for w'hom the inerrancy of Scripture is basic.” This is not the case. In cond u ctin g historical research, I am never bound by any such presuppositions, but rather search for the evidence as objectively as I can, let the chips fall where they may. As for the g old en s h ie ld s ep iso d e
reported by Philo, Caligula’s mad deci sion to have his statue erected inside the Jerusalem Temple is deem ed “similarly offensive” as com pared to Pilate’s con duct in the shields affair. Caligula’s, how ever, was incom parably, dim ensionally worse. Scholars puzzle to this day as to why Pilate’s imageless shields should have been offensive to anyone in the first place. Regarding the aqueduct incident, I have no doubt whatsoever as to its historicity. The violence o f the episode, however, seems to have been a case of crowd con trol gone terribly wrong. Josephus states that Pilate had ordered his troops “not to use their swords ,” 1 a sparing rem ark it was not at all necessary for Josephus to introduce if Pilate were such a wTetch, and m any of the deaths that day were caused by the ensuing stampede. Professor Patterson also claim s that the gospel writers could not possibly have known about several private conversa tions between Jesu s and Pilate and thus must have invented them. This, of course, p o ses
no
p ro blem
for
tra d itio n a l
Christians, who would affirm that after the resurrection Jesu s spent 4 0 days with his followers. Certainly the disciples would have begged to learn all these details. But even if this supernaturalist explanation is disallowed, another will serve equally well: During any interrogation of a pris oner, Pilate would never have been with out a Roman guard or guards, and the New' T estam ent record s at least three Roman officers of the time w'ho converted to Christianity. One such may w'ell have
There is no justification whatsoever for drawing anti-Semitic conclusions because of what happened at the trial and death of Jesus. passed on the information, or even Pilate’s own wife—if the Greek Orthodox are cor rect in assuming her conversion, for which
Pilate was still a saint, and the Jew s were still “Christ-killers.”
(39
1 Paul L. M aier, Pontius P ilate (N ew York: D oubleday, 1 9 6 8 ) a n d T h e F irst E a s te r : T h e T ru e a n d U n fa m ilia r S tory in Words a n d Pictures (N ew York: H arper, 1 9 7 3 ). 2 Jo se p h u s , Antiquities 2 0 :2 0 0 -2 0 3 .
Patterson also claim s, “The m artyr dom of Jam es adds nothing to the case for the historicity of the Christian Passion a c c o u n ts .” O n the co n tra ry , it adds extremely formidable corroboration. The parallels are more than obvious: Trial and Death o f Jesu s The y ea r : 3 3 A.D. The victim: Jesu s of Nazareth The prosecutor: Joseph Caiaphas The ju d iciary : The Sanhedrin The ju d g e a n d his attitu d e: Pilate reluctant to condemn Trial and Death o f Jam es The y ea r: 6 2 A.D. The victim : Ja m es the Ju st, Je su s' half-brother The prosecutor: Ananus, Caiaphas's brother-in-law The ju d iciary : The Sanhedrin The ju d g e an d his attitude: Albinus angry at the lynching Let it be em phasized again that infor mation about Jam es's trial derives from a totally non-Christian source: the firstcentury Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Patterson dism isses this as Ananus
they reserve O ctober 27 as St. Procula’s Day in their calendar. Professor Patterson writes: “Maier also
wanting “to settle scores with several of his foes, among them Jam es.” W hat, pray tell, was the “score” involved? Obviously,
believes that Pilate's unusually long tenure would likely have been due to his sagac
it w as C h ristianity, as d em onstrated also by the early Jew ish-Christian his torian Hegesippus, who provides a much more detailed account of the martyrdom
ity and geniality as a ruler.” I did not— nor ever would—use such terms as “sagac ity and geniality” when referring to Pilate. But E m p eror T ib e riu s ’s co n c e rn that Roman provinces be ju stly governed is historical fact, as is his record for recall ing wayward governors. W hen a prefect o f Egypt o n ce sen t in m ore than the required tribute, Tiberius returned the su rp lu s and com m en ted , “I w an t my sheep sheered, not flayed.” 32 BIBLE R E V IE W » |U N E 2 0 0 4
o f Ja m es .2 Despite our differences, I must stress that Professor Patterson and I are in total agreem ent that there is no justification whatsoever for drawing anti-Semitic con clusions because of what happened at the trial and death of Jesus. (33 'J o s e p h u s , W a r 2 :1 7 6 . 2 Q u o ted in E u seb iu s, C h u rch H istory 2 :2 3 .
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ding Like
The Bible’s Alpha Males WILLIAM
H. C.
PROPP
A FEW WEEKS AGO, MY FAMILY WENT APE. LITERALLY.
Within the space of seven days, we visited the primate exhibits at the San Diego Zoo, watched an IMAX film about Jane Goodall, borrowed an educational video about apes from the library and viewed 2001: A Space Odyssey. (We gave the Planet o f the Apes series a pass.) I enjoyed seeing the glow of recognition on my young boys’ faces as they observed young primates tussling with each other and cuddling with a parent. The older child understands the basics of evolution; the younger still asks, “Daddy, which kind of monkey did I use to be?” Always on the job, my own thoughts turned to the Bible. I reflected on how biblical characters exhibit behaviors observable among our simian relations. That the actions of real and literary humans should resemble those of wild primates is not surprising. After all, we share over
HIM I REVIEW ♦ IUNE -!OCM
APES
9 8 percent of our genetic material with the great apes, making us closer kin than, say, the zebra is to the horse (according to the aforesaid video). Moreover, the mythology of many peoples intuits the
premise. The prototypical human social group was the “Primal Horde,” consisting of an alpha male surrounded by his daughter-mates and son-rivals. Eventually, thought Freud, the sons united to kill the father and mate with his women. Ever since, guilt over this original sin, the O edipal C om plex, has cond itioned and torm ented the male psyche. Freud's notion of acquired, hereditary shame vio
relationship in stories accounting for our obvious struc tural sim ilarities to sim ians: M onkeys are botched humans, punished hum ans or ghosts of dead humans. It would be interesting to know what Israelites made of monkeys. But, unfortunately, they are m ostly off the Bible’s radar, although Solomon received some as curiosi
lates com m on sense. Yet his theory does paint a plau sible picture of the earliest humans as living in ape
ties (1 Kings 10:22), and the derogatory epithet “dog’s head” (used by Saul’s general Abner in 2 Samuel 3:8)
like, male-dominated troops. W hile it is not conceivable that, in a quasi-Lamarckian fashion, a killer could trans mit guilt-feeling to his offspring, it is extrem ely likely
con ceivab ly refers to the cy n ocep h alou s, o r dog headed, baboon .1 Although some primates are matriarchal, the stereo typical sim ian troop—in fact the stereotypical troop
that all human beings inherit social instincts of sub missiveness and rivalry from our com m on forebears. WTiat has this to do with the Bible?
for almost all social m am mals—is dominated by one male, the “alpha,” to whom the lesser males and females, “betas,” submit. Having won his position by display
Take Lamech, a bloodthirsty descendant of Cain and the world’s first polygamist. In good primate fashion, Lamech attempts to impress his women and any would-
and/or com bat, the alpha must continually defend it. Eventually, he is defeated and driven off by a younger, stronger challenger, who confiscates the females.
be male rivals with his aggressive display: “1 have killed (or Would kill’)2 a man for my wound, a boy for my injury. If C ain is avenged sevenfold, then Lam ech
Many researchers, most notably Sir Jam es Frazer and Sigmund Freud, have hypothesized that our ances tors lived similarly. In The G olden Bough (1 8 9 0 ), Frazer assem bled myths from around the globe to argue that
seventy-sevenfold” (G enesis 4 :2 3 -2 4 ). One imagines considerable chest-beating accompanying this speech. Consideration of our sim ian kin also illuminates the biblical theme of young men battling their fathers
kingship was not originally hereditary. Instead, each king had to earn his rank by killing his
and each other over the control o f women. For, like
predecessor. Frazer’s thesis has not fared w'ell in subsequent research, although as a compendium The Golden Bough remains invaluable. Freud’s Totem and Taboo (1913) is bet ter g ro u n d ed , at le a st in its startin g THE BLOODTHIRSTY HUNTER LAMECH (far right) shoots an arrow into the throat of his equally savage ancestor Cain (left), on this 12th-century stone capital from the Cathedral of St Lazare in Autun, France. In the Bible, Lamech boasts to his multiple wives: “I have a killed a man for my wound, a boy for my injury. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy sevenfold” (Genesis 4:23-42). According to medieval Jewish legend, Lamech grew blind with age but still liked to hunt. During an expedition in the forest, he accidentally slew his own great-great-great grandfather Cain when the child who led him through the forest mistook Cain for a wild beast. Early social scientists like Sir James Frazer and Sigmund Freud suggested that primitive human societies were like those of the apes— led by aggressive, boastful patriarchs who dom inated their rivals through violence and through jealously guarding access to the women of the horde. According to William H.C. Propp in the accompanying article, the behavior of the Bible’s “alpha males" reflects our simian heritage. 36 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ JU N E 2 0 0 4
DAVID DANCES before the Ark of the Covenant as his wife Michal (upper left) looks on from a window in dis gust, in this painting by contemporary New York artist Richard McBee. David, who took many wives in his life, is the most illustrious of the Bible’s alpha males. He clinched his claim to the throne by wedding the daughters of his predecessor Saul—Michal and her sister Merab. His behavior resembles that of upstart males in the primate world, who claim the women of their predecessors when they usurp the position of top dog—or top ape. In such a society, sex (and marriage) is an assertion of dominance.
the apes and unlike us A m ericans (in theory, any w ay), high-status Israelite m ales were polygamous. So lom o n , the extrem e case, is credited with three h u n d red c o n c u b in e s and sev en h u nd red w ives (1 Kings 11:3). W om en, in contrast, were allowed but one husband at a time, on pain of death .3 For a younger male to make a power move by tak ing a senior male’s females is a surprisingly com mon theme in the Bible. The motif makes its first brief appear ance in G enesis 3 5 :2 2 , “Reuben w ent and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and [his father] Israel [a.k.a. Jacob] heard of it.” Apparendy the patriarch saved his revenge for an op p ortu ne m om en t, for on his deathbed he cursed his son, the outrage apparently
their anger they killed men ... Cursed their anger— how strong!—and their wrath—how harsh! I shall divide them am ong Ja co b , and scatter them among Israel” (G enesis 49:5-7).
still fresh, “Unstable as water, you shall not flourish, Because you went onto your father’s bed; Then you defiled it. He got onto my couch!” (Genesis 49 :4 ).
As Frazer and Freud m ight have pred icted , the possession of women becom es particularly crucial in the early Israelite monarchy, before the hereditary prin ciple is firmly established. W hen Saul is chosen king,
Two oth er son s in cu r Ja c o b ’s w rath. U su rping their father’s right, Sim eon and Levi take it on them selves to control the marriage prospects of their sister
he appears to possess the right alpha stuff: “No man among Israel’s sons was more handsome than he. From
Dinah. However deplorable, their savage slaughter of the Shechem ites show s that they possess the vigor
his shoulders and upward, he was taller than all the people” (1 Samuel 9 :2 ,1 0 :2 3 ). Nonetheless, despite his physical qualifications, Saul’s popularity am ong the women is surpassed by his officer David’s, and the
their father has lost (Genesis 3 4 ). They, too, receive a dying father’s curse: “As for the brothers Simeon and Levi ... my soul shall not enter their council ... for in 37
B IBLE R E V IE W « JU N E 200 4
APES
older king is constandy provoked by the women’s ditty, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of th o u sa n d s,” a co m p a riso n h e ta k es as in v id iou s
David: “Jonathan stripped him self of the robe that he wore, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his girdle” (1 Samuel 18:4).
(1 Samuel 18:7-8, 21:12, 29 :5 ). The women’s instincts are correct: Throughout the story, Saul displays a lack of confidence that a m odern reader would trace to
To clinch his claim to the throne, David marries Jo n a than’s two sisters Michal and Merab, daughters of Saul (1 Samuel 18:17-27).4 Threatened by David, Saul plans
acute paranoia if not bipolar disorder. Ordinarily, Saul might expect to be succeeded by his son Jonathan. But the Bible presents Jonathan as a clear beta male, constantly deferring to his friend
to take Michal back; he even prom ises her to som e one else (Palti of Gallim, 1 Samuel 2 5 :4 4 ). But David reclaims Michal, as she embodies both his right to the succession and his manly prowess (2 Samuel 3:13-14). It is possible that David confiscates Saul’s wives as well as his daughters. Saul and David each have a
LIKE FATHER LIKE SONS. David’s son Amnon rapes his own half-sister Tamar in this 1640 painting (left) by French artist Eustache Le Sueur. In Freud’s “Primal Horde,” the sons of the male patriarch vie with each other, and their father, for access to women—often their own sisters—and use violence to achieve their aims. Amnon has fallen in love with his half-sister—who is an unmarried virgin and therefore property of their father—and when she refuses his advances, he takes what he wants by force. Amnon is first in line to his father’s throne, but his half-brother Absalom—Tamar’s full-brother—is even more of an alpha male. To avenge his sister’s honor— but really, to become heir to the throne himself— Absalom calls a banquet of all the king’s sons and secredy orders his servants to slay Amnon when he is “merry with wine” (2 Samuel 13:28). In the painting below by 17th-century Italian Mattia Preti, the red headed Absalom (at far right) directs his servants while his stunned sister Tamar (in the hat) watches. Later on, Absalom stages a coup, forcing David into exile.
wife named Ahinoam (1 Samuel 14:50, 2 5 :4 3 ). Might she be the same person ?5 The prophet Nathan later reminds David that God has given him “your m aster’s house and your master’s women” (2 Samuel 12:8). The latter term, naslm , could conceivably refer to Michal and Merab, who are literally women belonging to Saul. But more typically naslm connotes wives. In either case, in inheriting Saul’s women David inherited Saul’s power. David’s succession is not uncontested, for Saul’s son Ishbaal (also called Ishbosheth) initially ruled the North (2 Samuel 2-4). “At the time when there was the war between Saul’s House and David’s House, [Saul’s general] Abner was amassing strength in Saul’s House. Now, Saul had had a concubine named Rizpah, Ayah’s daughter, and he [Ishbaal] said to Abner, ‘W hy did you come in to my father’s concubine?”’ (2 Samuel 3:6-7).
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Ishbaal appears to have regarded Abner’s act as a play
39 B IB LE R E V IE W ♦ J U N E 2 0 0 4
APES
THE ELDERLY DAVID, having survived the devious plots of his son Absalom, is waited on by his most beautiful concubine, Abishag from Shunem, in this painting by contemporary German artist Ilona Kraemer. Despite her beauty, “the king did not know her” (1 Kings 1:4). David’s sexual impotence is a sign of his political impotence. David’s weakness led to the chaos of a disputed succession, and, as always, women were a pawn. David had sworn to his wife Bathsheba that their son Solomon—David’s youngest— would succeed him. But an older son, Adonijah, still survived and was pursu ing his own legitimate claim to the throne while David was still alive. Solomon reluctantly spared his older half-brother, but later, after their father’s death, Adonijah foolishly asked Solomon (via Bathsheba) for Abishag, David's former concubine. In a society where women equaled power, this was too much of an affront—even if only symbolically—to Solomon’s rule, and so Solomon had Adonijah executed. As Propp writes, however, the Israelite monarchy thereafter became much more orderly and lawful. The age of the primal horde, and of the alpha male, was over.
for power. Aggrieved, Abner resolves to go over to
David’s eldest son Amnon should be his heir, but
David's side. As king, David is not content with Merab and Michal. We know of six other wives before he reaches the apex o f h is pow er (1 Sam u el 3 :2 -5 ). And then there is Bathsheba, whom David confiscated from Uriah the
there is as yet no precedent of primogeniture. So Amnon forcibly lies with his half-sister Tamar, thus taking one o f David’s wom en. Both before and after the rape, Tamar proposes that Amnon simply many' her, which would solve her problem: instead of a unmarriageable nonvirgin princess, she m ight becom e q u een .6 But Tamar’s full brother Absalom, who stands to lose most
Hittite, killing the cuckolded officer to boot (2 Samuel 11). God condem ns David to spend the rest of his life suf fering the co n se q u e n ces for h is tra n sg ressio n s o f adultery and murder. The death of his first child with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:14-23) is followed by a legacy
from this arrangement, assassinates Amnon, dooming Tamar to spinsterhood and putting him self in line for the throne. Absalom takes his sister Tam ar into his house, presumably to maintain possession o f her per
of violence. “The sw'ord will not depart from your house forever,” Nathan warns (1 Samuel 12:10). As the final stroke, God promises to “take your women/wives before
son (2 Samuel 13:20). Som e time later, Absalom openly rebels against David. The king flees Jerusalem , leaving behind his ten
your eyes and give them to your kinsm an, and he will lie with your wives/women under the eyes o f yon
concubines. The text tells us he left them to keep an eye on things (2 Samuel 15:16), but it is clearly a sign of subm ission. David is giving up his wom en. Not surprisingly, Absalom finds the harem and publicly lies with them in a tent, thus “in the presence of all
sun; for you acted in secret, but I shall do this thing in the presence of all Israel and in the presence of the sun” (2 Samuel 12:11). David will suffer the ultimate social emasculation, losing his women to a younger
continues on p a g e 46
male publicly. 40 BIBLE R E V IE W * JU N E 2 0 0 4
BibleJBe e p \ BR
A Passion Play on film T he P assio n o f th e C h rist D irected by M el G ibson Ic o n P r o d u c tio n s , 2 0 0 4 ) R E V IE W E D BY S T E P H E N J . P A T T E R S O N
By now, m ost B R readers will have seen the Bible-movie event of the year, The Passion o f the Christ. It’s Ju n e, and the movie is already a falling star. After all the hype and anticipation, Mel G ibson’s film turned out to be sur prisingly conventional. It’s a Passion Play on film. Anyone who has ever seen a Passion Play will know the formula for the movie. Bits and pieces from the Gospels’ portrayal o f the last hours of Je su s’ life are m ixed with popular lore and then presented in a series o f moving tableaus for the benefit o f Christian believers. The hope is that viewers will feel as though they are really there, witnessing what really happened. Some presentations o f the Passion Play even encourage audience participation. You can jo in the throng in shouting “Crucify him!” and “His blood be upon us and our children!” At the viewing I attended, many people applauded at the end. In some sense, the Passion Play has finally found its medium. The camera provides close-ups of the anguish on Mary’s face as Jesus is tortured. Special effects show the flailing ofJesus’ flesh as it rips from his body. Demons, dreams and other new elements can easily be inserted into the script. The dialogue can be spoken in ancient tongues, with subtitles, to give viewers the impres sion that they are eavesdropping on actual events as they unfolded 2,000 years ago. The effect can be truly mesmerizing. The aim of the Passion Play has always been two-fold: to entertain and to inspire. I went to the theater to be entertained. But
as a theologian, I kept w'aking up to the question of inspiration. As the Passion finds its eternal life in DVD form, surely to become a seasonal classic in Christian households around the world, what are the religious passions that Mel Gibson wishes to inspire in this video Passion Play? Gibson has been rather coy about the religious views with which he was raised and which he still pro fesses in some form today. So we are left to guess at the master’s vision based on the film. Here are my guesses. The religion inspired by this Passion has a lot to do with blood. Blood runs, drips and splatters all through the movie. And ju st as quickly as it spills out, it is daubed up by adorers. It is put on the face, or smelled, or dripped onto the lips of the Virgin herself as she tenderly kisses the feet 41 BIBLE R E V IE W * JU N E 2 0 0 4
of her dying son. Adorers of the Precious Blood will find this especially moving, but there are probably many blood-centered Christian groups who will be able to find their own meaning in these bloody images. What exactly Gibson sees in them is not clear from the film. Blood is left to linger as a kind of open-ended symbol, much as it is in that strain of traditional Christian hymnody Methodists, especially, like to claim as their own. W hat does it mean, really, to drink blood, or to be w'ashed in blood? This is not a common experience for most Americans today. Of course, the spilling of Jesus’ blood is closely tied to the Christian doctrine of atonement—the idea that Jesus’ death was a blood sacrifice to atone for the sins of humanity. This, too, is clearly part of the inspirational message Gibson washes to con vey in his Passion. On two or three occa sions Jesus states the he must die as part of God’s greater plan to save the world from sin. Unlike the Christian Gospels, where Jesus’ death is tied to his life of healing the afflicted and teaching about the Kingdom of God, in Gibson’s Passion Jesus dies for no such menial cause. He is not a cham pion of the poor and unclean. Jesus’ chal lenges to the Roman Empire—the histori cal reason for his execution—are completely muffled. Jesus’ death is cast here as a uni versal cosmic event, concerned with big ger things: the salvation of all humanity. It is God’s will and plan that he die. But this is common in Christian theol ogy. Christians long ago abandoned any notion that Jesus’ life ought to count for som ething theologically. Our com m on creeds skip blithely over the life Jesus lived, reducing its significance to a mere comma
IBLE
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nestled between “born of the Virgin Mary” and “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” What Jesus said and did is not important. What counts is his atoning death, proven in its effects by the miraculous evidence that Jesus w'as in fact the Son of God and so uniquely qualified for this role. Pretty standard Christian theology. But in Gibson’s Passion this atonement theme is watered down and confused by tw'o competing causes for Jesus’ suffering and death. One is “Satan,” a pasty-white effeminate figure who lurks in the background and appears to direct some supernatural force against Jesus. Gone are the traditional horns and tail, derived originally from the medieval anti-Jewish slander that Jew's had tails and horns. This Satan seems to be depicted as gay, or maybe androgynous, perhaps a sub tle attempt to locate him more clearly in modernity’s culture w-ars. At one point this new', effeminate Satan carries an albino child or midget, w'ho also seems to delight in Je su s’ suffering. The meaning of this is unclear. Apparendy the role of Satan, absent in the Gospels’ portrayals, derives from Anne Catherine of Emmerich, the 19thcentury mystic whose visions serve as a major inspiration for much of the unusual and bizarre that appears in the film. In her imagination, it wras Satan who orchestrated Jesu s’ torture and death by entering into the hearts of the Jew's who turned on him. That, of course, is the other cause of death in the movie: the treachery of the Jew's. A few lines sprinkled here and there remind us that Jesus really wants to die, but the main plot of the movie is the story of how' the Jews killed Jesus. This must be what Gibson meant when, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, he said, “I know how it went down.” The film opens with Jesus’ arrest by a Jewish cohort (not a detachment of Roman soldiers, as in Joh n’s gospel—Gibson appar ently prefers Mark or Matthew here, though the mystic Anne Catherine may be in the mix, too), who brutalize Jesus all the way to the court of the high priest, a snarling, sometimes sniveling figure decked out in pretend Jewish finery. A slovenly Jewish mob soon joins the ruckus as Jesus is fur ther humiliated and abused. Pilate, a cleancut chap, masculine, thoughtful and wise, tries at the insistence of his beautiful wife to stop the miscarriage of justice. But he cannot. Herod, the Jewish king, depicted here as a sexually ambiguous party animal surrounded by drunken toy-boys (Anne Catherine or Gibson’s own touch?), is too cowardly to intervene. But never mind. In a clever pastiche of Matthew (27:24-26) and John (19:10-11), Gibson creates a dialogue in which Jesus himself publicly absolves
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42 B IB LE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 2 0 0 4
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Pilate of all blame and places responsibil ity for his death squarely on the Jews. The famous “blood curse” from Matthew 27:25 (“His blood be upon us and our children”) is spoken in Aramaic, but left untranslated in the subtitles—a nod, Gibson says, to con cerns of anti-Semitism. So, did Jesus die willingly, as part of a divine plan, or at the hands of his Sataninspired enemies, the Jew's? Perhaps Gibson wants to inspire both thoughts at the same time. Christians have often held the two together: Christ died to save us all from sin, but the Jews rejected him and so are cursed to wander the earth in great suffering until they repent and believe in Jesus—an idea that originated with Saint Augustine. This w'as, in fact, how most Christian theolo gians felt until the 1 9 4 0 s , when the Holocaust finally revealed to most thought ful people that the idea was pernicious. The Catholic Church officially repudiated it in 1965 as part of the Second Vatican Council, w'hose reforms Gibson openly rejects. Gibson’s excessive use of graphic vio lence serves this theological structure in a very shrew'd way. The centerpiece of the film is the slow-motion flogging of Jesus, using a variety of instruments of torture. It is a gruesome display, and probably real istic. It is difficult to watch, and by its end everyone in the theater will have had quite enough. On screen, even the Roman sol diers w'ho administer the flogging seem embarrassed by what they have done. Pilate’s lieutenant is angered that they have gone too far. Pilate himself is sickened by the sight, and his wife aggrieved. Conservative Christians, w'ho believe that Jesus suffered because of their personal sins, report being moved by these scenes to profound remorse. It is a deeply humane response to an aston ishing display of inhumanity. But then the camera pans to the Jewish crowd and their leaders, the high priests. They are not moved. In fact, they only want more of this violence. They want him crucified. And as Jesus bears his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, the Jew ish mob continues his torment, punching and kicking him, and spitting on his bloodied, near-lifeless body. At this point, the Jews in Gibson’s vision become not just the enemies of Christ; they become inhu mane monsters, incapable of feeling what w'e feel, devoid of pity or compassion, ruth less and bloodthirsty (as James Carroll most eloquently suggested in the Boston Globe, on February 24, 2004). At the end of the film, as Jesus dies and an earthquake shakes the pillars of the Temple into a pile of rub ble, we see the beginning of the suffering they must now endure for who they are and what they have done. This brings me to other ideas that might—
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intentionally or not—be inspired by this film. Will the depiction of Jews in such uncom plimentary ways, and the rekindling of the idea that the Jews killed Jesus, inspire new thoughts of anti-Semitism? Or, in a world in which anti-Semitism is on the rise, espe cially in Europe and the Middle East, will Gibson’s Passion incite new acts of violence against Jews? In my own city, in the weeks after the film opened, a synagogue was van dalized, a rabbi was verbally assaulted by teens on the street, and Jewish school chil dren were harassed with words Jews say they have not heard in this city for 40 years: Christ killers! No one knows how far this new trend will run, but the power of film working in an atmosphere of ignorance and intolerance should not be underestimated. After a talk I recently gave on the film, a young evangelical college student perturbed by my critical remarks admitted to me with unselfconscious candor that she had never before heard of the term “anti-Semitism.” Small wonder that many Christians have pronounced the film entirely free of any thing remotely anti-Jewish. Our cultural memory is ever so short. These concerns came especially to mind as the film ended. G ibson —unlike the Christian G ospels—actually depicts the Resurrection: Jesus coming out of the tomb. He is handsome and masculine again, and healed of the wounds inflicted by his ene mies. He looks stem. Now the music comes up. It’s that sort of “now something’s really going to happen” music one hears at the climax of most action hero flicks, at the moment when the abused hero finally turns the tide and starts to vanquish his enemies. I wondered, as the credits rolled, how' many zealots would be stirred by Gibson’s cine matic choices to go out and vanquish a few enemies of their own? In a chilling moment caught on camera outside a New York the ater, one view'er candidly said: “At least now we know who really killed Jesus, and I don’t have to say who” (quoted in the New York Times, February 28, 2004). The Christian story of Jesus’ death is not to be toyed with. It can be a story filled with love and joy, but as we tell it, it is also laced with anger and hatred. Christians, especially Christian filmmakers, have to take respon sibility for both as they tell this story in the modem world. The Holocaust isn’t a myth, and it w'asn’t an accident. And our (Christian) memories of Jesus’ death have played an enormous role in creating the legacy of antiSemitism that has been so deadly in our time. Sixty years ago the most devoutly Christian country in the w'orld exterminated six m illion Jew s. Sixty years is a mere “breather” in the history of anti-Semitism that spans more than two millennia. Intended 44 B IB LE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 2 0 0 4
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or not, the blood flowing through Mel Gibson’s Passion risks inspiring more than traditional Christian piety. There are other passions lurking in the violence of this film. W hy does G ibson tell the story in this way? Why have Christians always told it something like this? Is there another way to tell it? BR’s contributing editor, Stephen J. Patterson, is p rofessor o f New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary.
P ilate s D efense continued from , p a g e 30 1 Philo, E m b assy to G a iu s 2 9 9 -3 0 5 . 2 S ee Paul L. M aier, “T h e Ep isod e o f th e G old en R om an Shields atjeru salem ,” H arv ard Theological Review, Jan u ary 1 9 6 9 , pp. 109-12L 3 Jo se p h u s , Je w is h W a r 2.169-174. 4 Jo se p h u s , Jew ish W a r 2.175-177. ’ J o s e p h u s ,Je w is h A n tiquities 2 0 :2 5 4 . 6 S ee M aier, Pontius P ilate (N ew York: D oubleday, 1968, G ra n d R a p id s , M l: K re g e l, 1 9 9 0 ) , p. 3 5 9 . S u r p lu s from the h alf-sh ek el tem p le du es is d isc u sse d in the M ish n a h , S h e k a lim 4 .2 . 7 Jo se p h u s , Jew ish W a r 6 : 1 18ff. 8Jo s e p h u s , Je w is h W a r 2.177. y P hilo , E m bassy . 10 T a citu s, A n n a ls 1 5 :4 4 . 11 See Zvi Greenhut, “Burial C ave o f the C aiphas Family,” and R o n n y R eich , “C a ip h a s N am e In scrib e d o n Bone Boxes," in B iblical A rc h a eob g y Review, Septem ber/October 1 9 9 2 , pp. 2 8 -4 4 . 12 Jo se p h u s , A n tiqu ities 2 0 :2 0 0 , a s tra n slated b y Paul L. Maier, e d . J o s e p h u s : The Essential W orks (G rand Rapids, M l: K regel, 1 9 9 4 ) , p. 281. 13 H e w a s o t h e r w is e k n o w n a s J a m e s th e J u s t o f Je ru s a le m , th e first b ish o p o f th e c h u rch (se e A cts 15 a n d E u seb iu s, C h u rch H istory). T h e d iscovery o f w hat m ay w ell b e h is o ssu a ry , first a n n o u n c e d b y B ib lic a l A r c h a e o lo g y R ev iew in N o v em b er/ D ecem b er 2 0 0 2 , is s till b e in g d e b a te d . F o r m o r e o n J a m e s , s e e B e n W ith e rin g to n III, “B r in g in g ja m e s O u t o f th e Shadow s,” a n d J e r o m e M u rp h y -O ’C o n n o r , “W h e r e W a s J a m e s B u ried ?" in B R , J u n e 2 0 0 3 . 14 F o r fu rth er d is c u s sio n o n th is th e m e, see Paul L. M aier, “W h o K illed J e s u s ? " C h ristia n ity T o d a y (A pril 9, 1 9 9 0 ), p p. 16-19, and In the Fulln ess o /T im e - A H istorian L o o k s a t C h ristm a s, E aster, a n d th e E a rly C h u rc h (G rand R ap id s, M I: K regel, 1 9 9 7 ), pp. 145ff.
Sam son e t Dalila continued from p a g e 19 contradictory accounts of who cut Samson’s hair, it seems we cannot in all fairness hold her culpable. Act Three opens with Samson, now shorn and blind, turning a millstone in a Philistine dungeon. Samson admits his mistake to God and his people, and even asks God to take his life as an atoning sacrifice for Israel so they can be relieved from the suffering he has caused. As we shall see, this noble offer is made manifest in the finale of the opera. In the Bible, too, Samson’s prison days are a turning point—not because he feels guilty about anything he has done, but because it is here that his hair, the source of his strength, begins to grow again.
SAMSON
The final scene in both the Bible and the opera is set in the Philistine temple of Dagon. In the Bible, the Philistines sum mon Samson from his jail to entertain them during a religious festival in the temple. The blind Israelite asks his guards to prop him against the pillar temples. He then cries out, “Lord God, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act o f revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). Samson then grasps the pillars, and leans into them with all his newly restored strength. The temple topples, killing every one inside, including Samson. “So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life” (Judges 16:30). In the opera, too, Samson’s last act is inspired by his desire for revenge. But he is not only interested in paying back the Philistines for taking his “two eyes.” He wants to avenge God, too. Frenzied “Oriental” music matches the erotic mood and move ments of the worshiping Philistines. Delilah comes forward to taunt him in front of every one: “Love served my purpose; to gratify my vengeance I tore from you your secret ... Delilah avenges today her god, her peo ple and her hatred.” The high priest tells Samson that if Jehovah gives him back his sight, he will worship the Israelite deity. He continues, “But, since he [Jehovah] cannot help you ... I can afford to scoff at him, to show my hatred, by laughing at his wrath!” This blasphemy is too much for Samson; he offers to avenge the glory of the Lord. As the high priest and Delilah begin to make offerings to Dagon, and as the Philistines rejoice, Samson again asks God to let him avenge both himself and God. With a loud cry, he pushes the pillars down, and the temple comes crashing in on every one. Thus the opera ends. In the opera, Samson is very much the representative of God. He speaks for God and even sacrifices himself for God. The operatic Samson seems far more devout than his biblical predecessor, who hardly ever seems to think or talk about God, and who sacrifices himself (along with numer ous Philistines) for personal vengeance. In both accounts, Sam son, in deciding to love Delilah and reveal his divine secret to her, exhibits a fatal spiritual uncertainty. But in the opera alone, Samson recognizes his sins and then makes good. This is the turning point in the operatic drama. In the Bible, he ju st gets his hair back. Yet, the biblical Samson does call out to God in his time of need, and the narrator seems to frame the end of Samson’s tale as an act of God (see Judges 16:23-24). Further, the mere inclusion of Samson’s story in the Book of Judges seems to impart a certain
&
DALILA
religious emphasis to what certainly seems a narrative focused more on wine and women than religious justice. The biblical story seems to emphasize that God can work even through someone like Samson, whereas in the opera Samson is more force ful in his religious convictions. In the biblical text, as we saw above, Delilah’s motives are somewhat uncertain and her role in Samson’s downfall is ambigu ous. She is not clearly evil, nor is she clearly good. And, since we hear no more of her after Sam son’s capture, we don’t know whether his final revenge on the Philistines in the temple includes her. But Saint-Saens, by ascribing to Delilah a vitriolic hatred of Samson as well as a political and religious motive, has in effect removed the vague ness of the biblical narrative and made Delilah into a bold , but treacherous, Philistine avenger, using an arsenal of tricks (including convincing lies and fake tears) to get payback for the mayhem Samson had previously wrought against her and her peo ple. In the end, then, Saint-Saens has turned the story in Judges 16 into a complex tale of competing loyalties and religious battles.
The biblical story does not seem to impart a specifically religious message at first glance. After all, Samson is not a paragon of virtue, and he seems more concerned with personal revenge than with protecting his people. However, when the story is read in the context of Judges, Samson’s conflicts with the Philistines take on a more nation alistic and religious character. Read this way, Samson can be seen as a judge in that his actions do protect his people and serve God’s purposes. This latent characteriza tion of Sam son in the Book of Judges becomes explicit in Saint-Saens’s opera, where Samson is portrayed as maximally religious, except when it comes to Delilah. In both the biblical story and the opera, Samson seems unaware of why he craves Delilah, but only the opera details his inner conflict over his attraction as well as his sorrow at his betrayal of God. Thus, when he destroys the Temple, Samson does so as an act of contrition so that God’s anger will be removed from the Hebrews. In this way, Saint-Saens explores the potentials and ambiguities in the biblical text to tell a more religious version of the story.
A u th o rs An instructor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Dan W. Clanton, Jr. (“Samson et Dalila,” p. 12), received his Ph.D. in 2002 from the Iliff School of Theology. He is currently researching the “afterlife” of Susannah, Delilah and other biblical characters.
CLANTON
MAIER
David R. Cardidge (“Dealing with the Devil,” p. 20) is Beeson Professor Emeritus of Religion at Maryville College, in Maryville, Tennessee. His most recent book (cowritten with Keith Elliott) is Art and the Chiistian Apocrypha (Routledge, 2001). Paul L. M aier (“Pilate in the Dock: For the Defense,” p. 27) is the Russell H. Seibert Professor of Ancient H istory at W estern Michigan University. In addition to his translations Josephus: The Essential Works and Eusebius: The Church History, he has written two historical novels—Pontius Pilate and The Flames o f Rome (all published by Kregel); a best-selling theo logical thriller—A Skeleton in G od’s Closet (Thomas Nelson); and three children’s books. BR’s contributing editor, Stephen J . Patterson (“For die Prosecution,” p. 3 0 ) is professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. His most recent book is The God o f Jesus (Trinity, 1998).
PROPP
M CARTLIDGE
PATTERSON
A professor of ancient history and Judaic stud ies at the University of California, San Diego, W illiam H.C. Propp (“Acting Like Apes,” p. 34) is the author of Exodus 1-18 in the Anchor Bible commentary series. 45
B IB LE R E V IE W * |U N E 2 0 0 4
APES
Interpretations like Saint-Saens’s can be seen as ciphers for attitudes and identities, and if we pay attention to these interpre tations, as well as examine them critically, we will not only be honing our exegetical skills, we will also be more aware of the enduring impact biblical literature has had on our cultures. This awareness ideally should awaken us to the interpretive pos sibilities inherent in every text, and make us approach the biblical text with new' ques tions and new observations. 133 1 See R ose M ary Sheld on, “Spy Tales," B R , O cto b e r 2 0 0 3 . 2 F or analyses o f D elilah in v ario u s m edia, see J . Cheryl E xum , Plotted, Shot, a n d P ain ted: C u ltural R epresen tations o j B ib lic a l W om en , JS O T Suppl. S erie s 2 1 5 (Sh effield , UK: Sheffield A cadem ic P ress, 19 9 6 ), pp. 1 7 5 -2 3 7 ; Elaine H offm an B aru ch, “Forb id d en W ord s—E n ch an tin g Song: T h e T reatm en t o f D elilah in L iterature a n d M usic,” in To S p e a k o r B e S ilent: T h e P a r a d o x o j D iso b ed ien c e in the Lives o f W om en , ed. L e n a B. R o ss (W ilm ette , 1L: C h iro n P u b licatio n s, 1 9 9 3 ), pp . 2 3 9 - 2 4 9 ; a n d H elen Len em an , " P o r tr a y a ls o f P o w e r in th e S t o r ie s o f D e lila h a n d Bath sh eb a: S ed u ction in S o n g ,” in S a c r ed Text, S ec u lar Tim es: T h e H e b r e w B ib le in t h e M o d e r n W o r ld , T h e K lu tzn ick C h a ir in Je w is h C ivilizatio n C e n ter for the S tu d y o f R e lig io n a n d S o c ie t y S t u d ie s in J e w is h C iv ilization 10, ed. b y L e o n a rd Ja y G re e n sp o o n and Bryan F. L eB eau (O m a h a , NE: C re ig h to n Univ. Press, 2 0 0 0 ) , pp. 2 2 7 -2 4 3 . 3 S a in t-S a e n s w as c o n s c io u sly u sin g th e h y p e rch ro m a tic ism o f Liszt an d W a g n e r in h is o p e ra , a n d the F ren ch w ere em broiled in th e early stages o f o n e o f the largest ideological b attles in m u sic h istory: th o se w ho favored the “New M usic" ol Liszt a n d W a g n er versu s th o se w ho allied them selves w ith the m ore con servative classical trad ition o f c o m p o sers like M ozart, S ch u b ert
Exam ination Of The Prophecies
The /Ic je
P a rt T h ree of T h o m a s P a in e ’s T h e A ge o f R easo n A n n o ta ted by F r a n k K.Zindler
T h e m an who coined th e nam e ‘T h e U nited S ta te s Part three O f A m e r ic a ’ w as a ls o a E xam in atio n o f th e Prophecies B ib le scholar o f prodigious w it and ta le n t, a s seen in this study of Old Testament passages claim ed as prophecies of Je s u s by th e New Testam ent authors.
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and Brahm s. T h u s, m an y in th e F ren ch m u sical estab lish m en t felt Sain t-Saen s w as to o liberal o r progressive. 4 T h e m ost com prehensive analysis o f this opera rem ains H enri C o llet, Sam son et D alila d e C. S ain t-S aen s: Etude h isto riq u e et critiq u e a n a ly se m u sica le, L es C hefs-d’Oeuvre de la M u siq u e S erie s (Paris: L ibrarie D elaplan e, 1 9 2 2 ). F o r a m o re co n d e n se d read in g o f th e op era, s e e Brian R ees, C a m ille S ain t-S a en s: A L ife (L o n d o n : C h a tto & W in d u s, 1 9 9 9 ), pp. 2 1 0 -2 1 5 . 5 S ee M ieke B al, L e th a l L o v e: F em in ist L itera ry R eadings o f B i b lic a l L o v e S t o r ie s , In d ia n a S tu d ie s in B ib lic a l L ite r a tu r e (B lo o m in g t o n & In d ia n a p o li s : In d ia n a U n iversity Press, 1 9 8 7 ), pp. 4 9 -5 0 . 6 All q u o te s fro m d ie lib retto are taken from th e b o o k let accom panying Samson et D alila, C hoeurs et O rchestre d e l'O pera-Bastille, c o n d . b y M yung-W hun C h u n g (EM I C la ssics: C D S 7 5 5 4 7 0 - 2 , 1 9 9 2 ). 7 S ee E x u m , Plotted, Shot, a n d P ain ted , p. 182. 8 S ee B al, L e th a l L ove, p. 5L 9 D a n n a N o la n Few ell, “Ju d g e s,” in T he W o m e n ’s B ible C o m m en ta ry , ed. b y C a ro l A. N ew so m and S h a ro n H. R in ge (L o u isv ille, KY: W estm in ster/ Joh n K n o x Press,
orderly manner to the eldest surviving son. The wild, woolly days, when men acted like homicidal apes, using sex and violence to assert status, are over. Or else the text just stops talking about it.8 133 1 S ee D. W in to n T h o m a s, “k e le b h 'D og': Its O rig in and S o m e U s a g e s o f It in th e O ld T e s t a m e n t ,” Veins T estam en tu m 10 ( 1 9 6 0 ) , pp . 4 1 0 -4 2 7 . 1 T h e tense and m ood o f the verb are som ew hat uncertain. 3 O n b ib lic a l law a n d c u sto m relatin g to the family, see R o lan d de V au x, A n cien t Isr a e l (N ew York/Toronto: M cG raw H ill, 1 9 6 1 ), pp. 19-61. 4 M erab is defin itely p rom ised ; it is n o t cle a r that she is d elivered (se e 1 Sam u el 1 8 :1 9 ). S h e n ever a p p ears in th e sto rie s c o n c e rn in g David 5 T h i s is a rg u e d b y J o n D . L e v e n s o n a n d B a r u c h H a lp em , “T h e P olitical Im p ort o f D avid's M arriages," J o u r n a l o f B ib lic a l L ite r a tu re 9 9 ( 1 9 8 0 ) , pp. 5 0 7 -5 1 8 . 6 O n th e ch a ra cte rs' m otives, and o n the p roblem o f
1 9 9 8 ), e xp a n d ed ed ition , p. 7 3 .
in cest, see W illia m H .C . Propp, “K in sh ip in 2 Sam uel 1 3 ," C a th o lic B ib lic a l Q u a rterly 5 5 ( 1 9 9 3 ) , pp. 3 9 -5 3 .
10 O n th is p o in t, see E x u m , “S a m so n 's W o m e n ,” in F r a g m e n te d W o m e n : F em in ist (S u b )V ersio n s o f B ib lical N a r r a tiv e s (V alley F o rg e, PA: T rin ity P ress, 1 9 9 3 ) , p. 8 3 ; Bal, L e th a l L o v e, p. 5 2 ; and Few ell, "Ju d g es,” p. 7 3 .
(C a m b rid g e , MA: H arvard Univ. P ress, 1 9 7 3 ), p. 237.
A pes continued fro m p a g e 10 Israel and in the presence o f the sun” (2 Samuel 16:22). Again, one of David’s sons enacts Nathan’s curse. But David has not surrendered entirely. He has his merce naries and presumably his chief wives with him, and eventually he retakes Jerusalem. Against David’s orders, Absalom is slain, and one would think the curse has finally worked its course (1 Samuel 18). Eventually, David decays into sexual impotency: Although his concubine Abishag is fairest in the land, “the king did not know' her” (1 Kings 1:4)—in the biblical sense. Even after his death, David undergoes one more insult to his manhood. Against the odds, David’s youngest son Solomon, child of Bathsheba, succeeds to the throne. Solomon hesitatingly permits his eldest half-brother Adonijah to live, although Adonijah has many followers and has apparently made a bid for the kingship (1 Kings 1:5-7). But then, in an act of such stupidity that one strongly suspects a set-up, Adonijah asks Solomon for David’s concubine Abishag. The supposed request is conveyed through Bathsheba, who may well have concocted the whole story to eliminate her son’s only living rival.7 Solomon expostulates to his mother: “And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also; for he is my elder brother ... God do so to me and more also if this word does not cost Adonijah his life!” Adonijah is forthwith executed (1 Kings 2:13-25). Another child of David has died for claim ing one of David’s women. After Solomon, with few exceptions the Judahite royal succession proceeds in an 46 BIBLE R E V IE W ♦ |U N E 200 4
7 F ra n k M. C ro s s , C a n a a n it e M yth a n d H eb r e w Epic 8 R ich ard E lliott F ried m a n ( T h e H id d en B o o k in the B ib le [N ew York: H a rp e rC o llin s, 1 9 9 8 ] ) arg u es fo r a c o n tin u o u s so u rce e m b ed d ed in th e B ib le 's historical b o o k s , s tre tc h in g in te rm itte n tly from G e n e s is 2 :4 b th ro u g h 1 K in g s 2 :4 6 . In th e T o ra h , th is d o cu m en t co rre s p o n d s to previou s sch o la rsh ip ’s J so u rce . All die stories I h ave d iscu ssed ap pear in Fried m an's extended J . T h e sex -a n d -v io len ce p re o c c u p a tio n th u s m ay b e sp ecific to a p a rtic u la r a u th o r, and in d e e d it is noted b y Fried m an .
R e a d e r s R e p ly co n tin u ed fr o m p a g e
6
is Bithiali or Bat-yah, literally, “daughter of God.” The Israelite God named her Batyah in recognition of her kindness and compassion toward the infant Moses. There are many midrashic stories about Pharaoh’s daughter. According to these Jewish legends, she was originally named by her father, but the Bible does not record this name because it incorporated the name of her father, the deified Pharaoh, and thus incorporated the name of an Egyptian god. According to midrashic tra dition, Pharaoh's daughter went to the Nile River seeking relief from a painful skin condition caused by an extreme heat w'ave. God had ordained the nasty weather to ensure that Bat-yah would bathe in the river and discover the infant Moses. A different tradition suggests that she went to the Nile to symbolically cleanse herself of the idolatries or Egypt. She left Egypt with the Israelites and later married Caleb, for whom she was a per fect match. Just as Caleb, along with Joshua, defied the majority of spies to reaffirm his faith in God (Numbers 13), so too did Bat-yah defy her evil father and turn to the God of Israel. R abbi L a u re n ce Skopitz Tem ple Beth David R och ester, N ew York
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hen I saw a beast rising out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads; on the horns were ten diadems, and on each head was a blasphemous name” (Revelation 13:1). The Book of Revelation is full of alarming creatures that appeared to the author, John, in a vision during his exile on the Aegean island of Patmos. Particularly iconic is the seven-headed beast that aids Satan in his end-time bid for dom ination of the earth. The beast, as depicted here in a 1393 fresco by the Florentine painter Giusto de Menabuoi, “resembled a leopard, but its feet were like a bear’s and its mouth like a lion’s” (Revelation 13:2). With its pro fusion of heads and horns, it resembles Satan himself—who appeared in the pre vious chapter as a seven-headed, ten-homed dragon menacing the infant Jesus and his mother. Yet despite their family resem blance, the beast from the sea is not the devil but the devil’s appointed earthly authority: “The whole world went after the beast in wondering admiration, and wor shiped the dragon [Satan] because he had conferred his authority on the beast” (Revelation 13:3-4). In Revelation 17, the whore of Babylon is seated on a similar (perhaps the same) beast with seven heads and ten diademed horns. An angel explains to John that the “seven heads are seven mountains ... the ten horns are ten kings” (Revelation 17:9,12). To John’s readers, the beast with seven heads likely represented Rome, the Babylon of its day, famously built on seven hills; the horns, its emperors. Domitian, whose per secutions may have been the cause of John’s exile on Patmos, was the tenth Roman emperor after Augustus. “One of the heads seemed to have been given a death blow,” John wrote, “yet its mortal wound was healed” (Revelation 13:3). This detail, shown clearly in Giusto’s fresco, may refer to the emperor Nero, who com mitted suicide in 6 8 C.E. Few saw Nero’s The Beast Rising from the Sea corpse, and rumors abounded that he had Giusto de Menabuoi either survived or would return from the Fresco, 1393 dead to persecute Christians again. Baptistery of the Cathedral of Padua, Italy
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WWW. URIM AND THUMMIM .GOD .... a suppressed discovery o f the ancient Temple to YHWH built in Upper Egypt.... ...an unexpected artifact unearthed beneath the walled streets of Old Jerusalem.... .... an urgent message found scribbled on a tephillah amid the Dead Sea Scrolls...
Can these ancient dues point to the greatest discovery of our time?
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Read the book EVERYONE will soon be reading! 586 BCE Nebuchadnezzar's armies carry off the final Deportation of Israel; The Temple is destroyed, Jerusalem is in chaos amid flames; all of Israel weeps; The High Priest Seriah ben Azariah is murdered at Riblah along with 80 Priests and Elders...... Where did he hide the Urim and Thummim from thel2-stone Chosen Breastpiece? In 1997, Dr. David Holland searches the dry wadis of the Wilderness of Judah, following the recently discovered clues left by Seraiah. During scientific analysis of the Holy Urim and Thummim crystals in proto-tech electronic modules at the canyon site, suddenly he can communicate - with the Creator of the Universe! W hat future does our world have? How can we direct our destiny before we destroy ourselves along with the only planet God gave to us?
"W h at a story o f hope! S w in g ler tak es us on a jo u rn e y leading fro m the academ ic h alls o f th e U .S . to the WWW. U RIM AND THUM MIM GOD d esert h ills o f Ju d ea. T here - hav in g found the S acred O racle S tones o f th e Jeru salem Tem ple's H ig h P riest he is able to ask G od th e q u estio n s th a t have in trigued | h u m an k in d since th e b eg in n in g . G od an sw ers, w ith a m arv elo u s p h ilo so p h y o f life th a t rests on u n co n d i tio n al love o f all ex isten ce, an d th a t o u r attain in g this jo y is the goal o f a loving C reato r, w ho rejo ices in our h ap p in ess, and su ffers w ith our p a in s." - Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, MIT PhD Nuclear Physics, Earth Sciences Author o f "Genesis & the Big Bang," "The Science o f God" & "The Hidden Face o f God" - Hebrew University o f Jerusalem, Israel "This book is M ichener's TH E SO U R C E meets Carl Sagan's C O S M O S m eets Khalil G ibran's TH E P R O P H E T - distilled to perfection! Get ready for an am azing ride!" - Eugene Baran, BA A nthropology W W W . U R IM A N D T H U M M IM .G O D
david h. sw in gler
by David H. Sw ingler 723 pages, Hard Cover ISBN 0-931371-84-8
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