Table Of ContentRewriting Biblical History
Deuterocanonical and
Cognate Literature
Studies
Edited by
Friedrich V. Reiterer, Beate Ego, Tobias Nicklas
Volume 7
De Gruyter
Rewriting Biblical History
Essays on Chronicles and Ben Sira
in Honor of Pancratius C. Beentjes
Edited by
Jeremy Corley and Harm van Grol
De Gruyter
ISBN978-3-11-024093-1
e-ISBN978-3-11-024094-8
ISSN1865-1666
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Rewriting biblical history : essays on Chronicles and Ben Sira in honor
of Pancratius C. Beentjes de Gruyter / [edited by] Jeremy Corley, Harm
vanGrol.
p.cm.(cid:2)(Deuterocanonicalandcognateliteraturestudies,ISSN1865-
1666;v.7)
“ThisvolumehonorsEmeritusProfessorPancratiusC.Beentjes(known
tohisfriendsasPanc)ontheoccasionofhissixty-fifthbirthday.Thefore-
mostareasofhisresearchhavebeenBenSiraandtheBooksofChronicles”
(cid:2)ECIPPreface.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-3-11-024093-1(hardcover23(cid:3)15,5:alk.paper)
1.Bible.O.T.Chronicles(cid:2)Criticism,interpretation,etc. 2.Bible.O.T.
Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus (cid:2) Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Beentjes,
PancratiusCornelis. II.Corley,Jeremy. III.Grol,Harmvan.
BS1345.52.R49 2011
2221.6067092(cid:2)dc22
2011013790
BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek
TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutsche
Nationalbibliografie;detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternet
athttp://dnb.d-nb.de.
©2011WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/NewYork
Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen
(cid:4)Printedonacid-freepaper
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
Preface
This volume honors Emeritus Professor Pancratius C. Beentjes (known to his
friends as Panc) on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. The foremost areas
of his research have been Ben Sira and the Books of Chronicles (see the
bibliography at the back of this volume). His doctoral dissertation in Dutch,
Jesus Sirach en Tenach (1981), was a critical examination of how far Ben Sira
had used the phraseology of earlier biblical texts. He later produced a critical
edition of all the Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira, The Book of Ben Sira in
Hebrew (1997; reprint 2006). In 2006 he collected more than two dozen of his
English-language articles on Ben Sira in a volume, “Happy the One who
Meditates on Wisdom” (Sir 14:20). Meanwhile, he has also written substantial
Dutch commentaries on 1 Chronicles (2002) and 2 Chronicles (2006), as well
as a set of English-language studies published as Tradition and Transforma-
tion in the Book of Chronicles (2008). The present volume of essays reflects
his interest in these two ancient writings.
One of Panc’s important contributions to scholarship has been to show
how Chronicles and Ben Sira’s Praise of the Ancestors both make new
presentations of biblical history. The Chronicler creates a new text by adding
fresh elements and modifying older material, while Ben Sira forges a new
synthesis out of diverse elements drawn from earlier tradition. A constant
theme of Panc’s research is that the later re-presentations are not an inferior
retelling of the inherited sacred tradition, but rather deserve to be viewed as
new texts worthy of consideration in their own right.
Panc’s scholarly output fits in with a wider resurgence of interest in the
rewritings of history in Second Temple Judaism. Much of the recent impetus
has come from the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Rewritten Bible texts, such as the Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees. This has
led to a renewed interest in other retellings of biblical history, such as the
works of Josephus and Pseudo-Philo. Research has extended into the new
presentations of biblical figures in writings from Second Temple Judaism.
Hence the present volume intentionally puts together two significant rewritings
of biblical history, to illustrate how these two works reinterpreted Israel’s
sacred past.
The Books of Chronicles and Ben Sira 44–50 both rewrite previous
biblical history in different ways. While the postexilic Book of Chronicles
reworks earlier narratives from Samuel and Kings, Ben Sira’s Praise of the
Ancestors offers a new presentation of biblical history from the Genesis
vi Preface
patriarchs to Nehemiah, prior to the praise of the high priest Simon. Whereas
older scholarship often regarded the historiography of Chronicles and Ben Sira
as secondary and derivative, today there is renewed interest in these works as
significant theological and cultural documents.
Both Chronicles and Ben Sira aim to create a national identity centered on
temple piety. Although these two texts were composed less than two centuries
apart, not many scholars have yet compared their achievements in any detail,
even though both works adopt a temple-focused cultic perspective on historical
events and ignore the exile almost completely. It is hoped that the juxtaposition
of them in the present volume will spark further insights.
Since Christine Mitchell is one of the few scholars to have compared the
work of the Chronicler and Ben Sira, it is appropriate that her essay opens the
present volume. Mitchell juxtaposes the two writings, considering the genre of
each, comparing their literary techniques and their use of earlier tradition, and
illustrating the Chronicler’s approach from the account of Asa’s reign.
The next three essays focus on later portrayals of famous ancient
characters. First, Friedrich Reiterer offers a detailed investigation of the
vocabulary in Ben Sira’s description of Aaron, showing how it often differs
from Pentateuchal phraseology and how it depicts Aaron with several royal
features. Thereafter, Jeremy Corley’s study of Ben Sira’s portraits of Joshua
and Samuel indicates how both these characters have been assimilated to each
other and to other famous figures of biblical history. Bradley Gregory then
considers the significance of David’s battles in Chronicles and Ben Sira,
finding that the Chronicler views David’s military campaigns as paving the
way for his preparations for his son Solomon to build the temple, whereas Ben
Sira sees David as a model of personal piety who prays for success in his
contest with Goliath.
The following two essays examine aspects of the Chronicler’s temple
theology in comparison with his sources. Harm van Grol offers textual and
literary readings of the composite psalm in 1 Chr 16:8-36, showing how the
new text highlights themes of the people’s vulnerability and innocence, as well
as the hope of regathering from their situation of dispersal. Thereafter, Steven
Schweitzer outlines the depiction of the sanctuary in Samuel–Kings, an
account that looks back at the theological causes of the temple’s destruction,
and draws contrasts with the Chronicler’s description, that focuses on the new
future possibilities presented by the rebuilt temple.
The next two essays consider the diverse portrayals of Solomon and then
his son Rehoboam. Benjamin Wright contrasts the presentations of Solomon
by the Chronicler and Ben Sira, showing that whereas Chronicles depicts
Solomon positively as the faithful temple builder, part of Ben Sira’s portrait
focuses on his dalliances with women, which are seen as contributing to the
breakup of the kingdom. Then Roland Boer contrasts the representations of
Preface vii
Rehoboam in Kings and Chronicles in light of Machiavellian politics. Whereas
Kings is remote from a Machiavellian approach because Rehoboam’s cruelty
leads to disaster, Chronicles exhibits a Machiavellian perspective because the
king’s harshness leads not to disaster but to security for Judah.
In very different ways, the following two essays discuss how Ben Sira
presents two of Israel’s great prophets. Bart Koet considers the postexilic
portrayal of Elijah as the end-time reconciler of father and son, according to
the last verse of Malachi (echoed in Ben Sira). This role is in sharp contrast
with Hiel’s sacrificing of his two sons to build Jericho, in the last verse before
the narrative introduction of Elijah in 1 Kings. Then, moving beyond mere
questions of quotation or allusion, Archibald van Wieringen employs a reader-
oriented perspective to examine how Ben Sira’s picture of Hezekiah and Isaiah
offers a creative re-reading of the Book of Isaiah.
The next three essays deal with the Chronicler’s portrayals of three of
Judah’s kings from the century leading up to the Babylonian exile. First, Gary
Knoppers demonstrates how, by contrast with the Book of Kings, the infamous
king Manasseh is transformed within the Chronicler’s narrative into a model
penitent, though his reforms are incomplete and his successor Amon follows
his former bad ways. Second, Renate Egger-Wenzel begins with the
Chronicler’s portrait of Josiah before surveying Ben Sira’s depiction of that
king, observing that both texts connect Josiah with the prophet Jeremiah.
Sirach 49 moves from Josiah’s sickness through to the healing of the exilic
destruction under Nehemiah, and states that the Twelve Prophets allowed
Jacob to become strong again. Third, Bob Becking examines the Chronicler’s
description of Zedekiah, viewed as more than just a pawn in the game of
superpower politics, and suggests that the Chronicler reshaped tradition about
Zedekiah on the basis of the Bagoses incident in 408–401 BCE (known to us
from Josephus).
Otto Mulder’s essay focuses on the figure of the high priest Simon, who
appears at the end of Ben Sira’s Praise of the Ancestors. According to Mulder,
Rosh Hashanah is the liturgical background to Sirach 50, while the reservoir
construction (= Bethesda) shows the particular high priest to be Simon II, a
collaborator with the Seleucid monarch Antiochus III.
The next two essays deal with the presence or absence of women in both
rewritings of biblical history. Willien van Wieringen notes that, contrary to
some assertions, the Chronicler’s genealogies do give a significant place to
women (such as Abraham’s concubine Keturah and Judah’s daughter-in-law
Tamar), and that some seeming references to “sons” may actually be to
“children,” that is, daughters as well as sons. Then Núria Calduch-Benages
investigates the absence of named women from Ben Sira’s Praise of the
Ancestors, attributable to an androcentric collective memory in that society.
Whereas some Hellenistic encomia celebrate female characters, many Second
viii Preface
Temple Jewish lists of personages do not name women, though Ben Sira 44–
50 does refer to some anonymous women.
In the final essay in the volume, Maurice Gilbert compares Ben Sira’s
Praise of the Ancestors with the review of history in the latter chapters of the
Book of Wisdom. While observing the literary differences in context, genre,
and structure, Gilbert recognizes the similarities in the sapiential approach to
biblical history and the apologetic purpose.
Overall, this volume traces a long trajectory through biblical history,
illustrating some of the diverse ways in which it has been rewritten and
reinterpreted in the Second Temple period. Both the Chronicler and Ben Sira
sought to find new theological messages for their audience out of Israel’s
ancient tradition, as Panc Beentjes has often demonstrated. Panc, we dedicate
this Festschrift to you in grateful thanks for your many years of scholarship on
these two great texts, and wish you everything good for the future.
JEREMY CORLEY Ushaw College – Durham
HARM VAN GROL Tilburg School of Theology – Utrecht
February 2011
