Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism)

305 Pages·2007·1.22 MB·English

by  Macaskill

Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in
Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
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Supplements
to the
Journal for the Study
of Judaism
Text and Studies
Editor
John J. Collins
The Divinity School, Yale University
Associate Editor
Florentino García Martínez
Qumran Institute, University of Groningen
Advisory Board
j. duhaime – a. hilhorst – p.w. van der horst
a. klostergaard petersen – m.a. knibb – j.t.a.g.m. van rutten
j. sievers – g. stemberger – e.j.c. tigchelaar – j. tromp
VOLUME 115
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Revealed Wisdom and I naugurated
Eschatology in Ancient Judaism
and Early Christianity
By
Grant Macaskill
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2007
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
ISSN: 1384–2161
ISBN: 978 90 04 15582 4
Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints BRILL, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ..................................................................... vii
Preface ......................................................................................... ix
Chapter One Wisdom, Apocalyptic and Generic Compatibility ......... 1
Chapter Two 1 Enoch ............................................................... 26
Chapter Three 4QInstruction ..................................................... 72
Chapter Four The Gospel of Matthew ......................................... 115
Chapter Five 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch ............................. 196
Chapter Six Conclusions ............................................................. 229
Appendix Previous Research on Wisdom and Apocalyptic in the
Gospel of Matthew ...................................................................... 241
Bibliography ................................................................................ 259
Index of Texts ............................................................................. 285
Index of Modern Authors ........................................................... 292
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Coun-
cil. I am grateful to them for providing the (cid:2)nancial assistance they did
and for the constant helpfulness of their staff.
My thanks go to Professor Richard Bauckham for his wise super-
vision of my doctoral research. I am particularly grateful to him for
continuing to show interest in my research during the long period of
his illness. Thanks also go to Dr. Mark Elliot who supervised me during
Professor Bauckham’s absence and who proved to be both a wellspring
of important information and a good friend. In addition to my of(cid:2)cial
supervisors, I must thank Jim Davila, who took a great interest in my
project and was enormously helpful throughout the process. He and
Dr. Alasdair I. Wilson examined the (cid:2)nal thesis and provided numerous
suggestions as to how it could be improved: I am grateful to them both
for their valuable insights.
I am grateful also to Professor Andrei Orlov for his interest in my
work and for sharing with me photographs of the manuscripts of
2 Enoch. He has devoted years of his life to the study of 2 Enoch and I
can only hope he does not mind too much when this particular “youth”
has disagreed with some of his conclusions. Likewise, I have continually
been amazed by the grace and kindness of Frank Andersen, who has
shared much of the wisdom built up over his long years with me.
My colleagues at St Mary’s College must also be thanked. Librar-
ians Colin Bovaird and Linda Kinloch proved more helpful than they
ever needed to be, as did Debbie Smith, Margot Clement and Susan
Millar. Among those who were students at the same time as I was, Ian
Werret deserves particular acknowledgement for constantly acting as a
sounding-board for my research conclusions. Dr. Alex Panayotov has
also been a great help to me as I have continued to develop my work on
2 Enoch.
I am, of course, enormously grateful to John J. Collins for accept-
ing this thesis for inclusion among the Supplements to the Journal for the
Study of Judaism and for suggesting a number of ways in which the thesis
could be re(cid:2)ned. I must also thank Florentino García Martínez, who
forwarded my manuscript to John and suggested that it might (cid:2)nd a
natural home in the series.
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viii acknowledgements
Within the community of St. Andrews, Alasdair I. and Cathie
Macleod have shown endless support and deserve also to be credited
with helping me through the last few years. More widely, I would like
to thank the various members of my family, scattered throughout the
country, for continuing to encourage me and to take an interest in my
work.
Finally, thanks go to my wife Jane, who has endured many a long
night alone as I have been consumed by my research. She supported us
(cid:2)nancially during the three years of my doctoral research; more impor-
tantly, she has loved and supported me in that time. Thank you.
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PREFACE
This book arose out my doctoral research on the Gospel of Matthew
and I think some introductory comment is probably required as to why
it now (cid:2)nds itself in a series devoted to the study of Judaism.
In 2001, as I began to work towards my research proposal, I was
intrigued by the fact that while scholars had identi(cid:2)ed the importance of
sapiential and apocalyptic elements within Matthew’s Gospel, the ques-
tion of their relationship to one another within Matthew’s schema had
been largely ignored. Were they distinct elements with distinct functions
within the Matthean narrative? Had they been brought together by
redactional chance? Were they, in the end, uncomfortable bedfellows?
Or might they relate to one another in some more subtle sense? Might
their mutual presence point to some kind of underlying idea in Mat-
thew, betrayed by their presence but largely overlooked by scholarship?
As I began to explore the issue, it became clear that at least one con-
stituency within New Testament scholarship, dealing not with Matthew
but with underlying sources and traditions, had dealt with this question
in an extremely simple, redactional fashion: sapiential and apocalyp-
tic elements in Q and in historical Jesus traditions belong to different
strata—they are not simply distinct, but are to some extent mutually
corrosive, being founded upon radically different views of God and sal-
vation. Inevitably, such an approach impinges upon Matthew research
since, on one hand, the Gospel is generally seen as dependent upon Q
and, on the other, it is one of the sources used in reconstructing the
Historical Jesus.
At the same time, I was aware that scholars of Second Temple Juda-
ism, drawing on the rich and diverse sources of the time, were approach-
ing the question in a very different way. The assumption of the “generic
incompatibility” of wisdom and apocalyptic had been reassessed in the
light of the variegated material from Qumran and the pseudepigrapha,
with the conclusion that since these elements often occur together they
are clearly not incompatible on a generic level. Thus, the focus of the
question had shifted to the speci(cid:2)cs and subtleties of the relationship.
I was keen, therefore, to approach the question of the relationship of
these two elements in Matthew’s Gospel in a way that would draw upon
the valuable insights of this second group of scholars. It was important,
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