The Reception and Interpretation of “Old Testament” Figures in Literature and Art from Antiquity through the Reformation: Studies, 1983–2018

This article presents a comprehensive bibliography of studies on Adam, Moses, Joseph, and other figures from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the thirty-five years since the publication of Charlesworth’s two-volume Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. It focuses on the reception and interpretation of these figures in both literature and art from the antiquity through the Reformation. It is limited to survey-style studies and comprehensive works rather than those that examine a biblical figure in a single text or work of art, and in this respect is meant to serve as a gateway to advanced research.

Flavius Josephus

The works of first century CE Jewish historian Flavius Josephus constitute our main source for the study of Jewish history of the Second Temple period. In this chapter, we briefly discuss Josephus’ career and his four compositions, as well as the condition of the Greek manuscript tradition of his works. The chapter also deals with the Latin translations of Josephus, a late antique Christian adaptation of mainly Judean War in Latin, known as Hegesippus, and the remnants of Judean War in Syriac. Next comes Josippon, a medieval Hebrew adaptation of Josephus and some other sources, and finally the much-discussed Slavonic, or Old Russian, version of the Judean War.

Armenian

This chapter presents the Jewish Old Testament apocryphal tradition that was transmitted in Armenian and other such works, created in Armenian drawing on biblical and apocryphal tradition. The Jewish works were translated from Greek and Syriac, and the question of Armenian knowledge of Hebrew is discussed. The works attributed to “Books” and “Secret Books of the Jews” are discussed, as well as Canon Lists. Well-known pseudepigrapha are presented, including Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Joseph and Asenath, 4 Ezra, Life of Adam and Eve, Vitae Prophetarum and other such writings. Embroidered Bible writings, typical of the Armenian tradition, are considered, and the scholarly elaborations on lists of questions, genealogy, and objects or events are examined.

Slavonic

The corpus of Jewish literature of the Second Temple period is represented in the Slavonic tradition by biblical pseudepigrapha (especially of apocalyptic genre) and Josephus. The extant Slavonic manuscripts containing these documents belong to the period spanning the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. However, in some cases their language enables us to date the earliest of their proto-texts reliably to the tenth to eleventh centuries. Like the majority of early Slavonic writings, all the texts in the corpus under discussion have been translated from Greek, and most of these translations were produced in South Slavia. Some of these texts have been preserved uniquely in Slavonic, while others have parallel versions in non-Slavonic languages. Some texts must be faithful rendering of ancient originals. Other texts in their present form are products of medieval Byzantine or Slavonic reworking. The differentiation between ancient and medieval materials is not always easy to make.

“The Pseudepigrapha Crescent” and a Taxonomy of How Christians Shaped Jewish Traditions and Texts

In this chapter I introduce the concept of “the Pseudepigrapha Crescent” and share a perception that many early Jewish traditions and texts escaped the destruction of ancient Palestine in 70 and 135/6 CE and were preserved on the fringes of Rome’s influence. Also, some compositions, like Fifth Maccabees, were created freely from ancient traditions that may be “Jewish” or “Christian” or a mixture of these complex traditions. I also suggest a taxonomy of how such traditions and texts were altered by Christians as the manuscripts were copied from 70 CE to about the fourteenth century CE. This chapter thus introduces numerous subjects for discussions.

The Jewish Calendar and Jewish Sciences

This chapter surveys the reception and development of the Enochic 364-day calendar in later Jewish and Christian traditions, focusing on sources from Ethiopia. It traces the creation of Enochic astronomy and of the 364-day calendar in their Mesopotamian and ancient Jewish setting, and then continues to assess this legacy in the Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and, in a rather different way, in 2 Enoch and other Jewish apocalypses. This is done with an eye toward the transmission of other branches of ancient sciences, such as astrology and physiognomy. The chapter then continues to assess the path of the Enochic teaching in Christian Ethiopia, dwelling on the tension between the preservation of the ancient tradition and its acculturation to other, later, branches of Ethiopic astronomy.

Armenian Philonic Corpus

This chapter accounts for the nearly one-fifth of the extant works of Philo that have reached us by way of a sixth-century Armenian translation, including substantial parts of QG and QE as well as the complete “dialogues” with Tiberius Julius Alexander. The Armenian corpus also includes works the Greek of which is extant, and these provide a valuable control over the Greek text, having been translated in a predominantly interlinear fashion from a text that predates the extant Greek manuscripts. The chapter concludes with a brief survey of the Philonic influence on medieval Armenian authors, focusing on certain works by Gregory of Narek (d. 1003) as an example.

Georgian

Within the 1500 years of Georgian literacy, Jewish literature of the Second Temple period is represented by biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha as well as a translation of Josephus’s Antiquitates. Among the former, it is especially the ancient versions of Wisdom, Sirach, and the Apocalypsis of Ezra (IV Ezra), preserved in the Oshki-Bible of 978 CE, that deserve special interest. Beyond, the Georgian tradition is comparatively rich in apocryphal texts that are related to Genesis, including two versions of the Vita Adae and various adaptations of the Caverna Thesaurorum. Whereas some of these texts are of noteworthy age (eleventh to fifteenth centuries) and based on Greek or Armenian models, some others such as the Historia de Melchisedech are late translations from Russian (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries). Josephus’s Antiquitates were mostly translated from Greek by the Hellenizing school of Gelati (eleventh to twelfth centuries); chapters 16 to 20 were added in the nineteenth century on a Russian basis.

Greek

Christian authors and scribes are mainly responsible for the relatively intact survival of the writings of Philo and Josephus, along with the scattered fragments from various other Hellenistic Jewish apologists, commentators, historians, and poets. Byzantine Christianity is also a valuable witness to the Greek text of Second Temple parabiblical writings. Among other things, Christian authors found in these sources insights into the meaning of the biblical text, confirmation of the truth and antiquity of Christian teachings, and raw material for historiography. Christian authors and scribes are mainly responsible for the relatively intact survival of the writings of Philo and Josephus, along with scattered fragments from Jewish apologists, commentators, historians, and poets of the Hellenistic age. Clement, Origen, and Eusebius of Caesarea (among others) found in these sources confirmation of the truth and antiquity of Christian teachings, and raw material for historiography. While official categorization of parabiblical works from Second Temple Judaism as “apocrypha” may have eroded confidence in their authority, it did not ensure their demise. As late as the 12th century, Byzantine chroniclers and commentators continued to cite approvingly from the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees.

Introduction

The voice is the voice of Jacob, yet the hands are the hands of Esau. Genesis 27:22 Jewish literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods has attracted different groups of scholars for different reasons. In modern times, it was Western Christian scholars—or Western scholars interested in the beginnings of Christianity—who first took up the challenge. They were fascinated by the opportunity to reconstruct the context and background of the New Testament world and benefited from the accessibility of manuscript sources preserved in Greek, Latin, and the vernacular languages of the West. Eastern Christian scholars, in turn, often belonged to emergent national schools and were thrilled that their heritages, typically unknown to Western scholars, could also contribute to the study of an ancient and universal legacy....