The despoliation of Egypt in pre-rabbinic, rabbinic and patristic traditions

313 Pages·2008·1.68 MB·English

by  Joel Stevens Allen

The Despoliation of Egypt
Supplements
to
Vigiliae Christianae
Texts and Studies of
Early Christian Life and Language
Editors
J. den Boeft – J. van Oort – Bart D. Ehrman
D.T. Runia – C. Scholten – J.C.M. van Winden
VOLUME 92
The Despoliation of Egypt
in Pre-Rabbinic, Rabbinic and
Patristic Traditions
by
Joel Stevens Allen
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Allen, Joel Stevens.
The despoliation of Egypt in pre-rabbinic, rabbinic, and patristic traditions / by
Joel Stevens Allen.
p. cm. — (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae ; v. 92)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-90-04-16745-2 (hardback : alk. paper 1. Exodus, The. 2. Bible.
O.T.—History of contemporary events. 3. Egypt—Civilization. 4. Egypt—
History—To 332 B.C. 5. Jews—History—To 1200 B.C. I. Title.
BS1180.A44 2008
222’.12060901—dc22
2008007075
ISSN: 0920-623x
ISBN: 978 90 04 16745 2
Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission
from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by
Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to
The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910,
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
I dedicate this work to my beloved wife Kitty whose self-sacrificial
and unstinting support throughout the nine years of doctoral studies
has made it possible. I also dedicate the work to Drs. Adam Kamesar
and Richard Sarason, both of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati,
Ohio. Their constant encouragement and penetrating critique both
motivated me for the work and perfected me in it. I am grateful also
to the library staff at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky who
cheerfully tracked down and procured hundreds of obscure texts from
around the world. I would also like to thank my two daughters, Johanna
and Emma, who have more than once had to put their daddytime on
hold for the completion of this project. I love you both!

CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
PART ONE
PRE-RABBINIC INTERPRETATIONS
1. The Septuagint ...................................................................... 19
2. The Book of Jubilees ............................................................. 29
3. Artapanus ............................................................................... 45
4. Ezekiel the Tragedian ............................................................ 59
5. The Book of Wisdom ............................................................ 75
6. Philo’s Life of Moses ................................................................ 91
7. Philo’s Who is the Heir? ........................................................... 107
8. Josephus ................................................................................. 119
9. Excursus: The Social Background of the “Fair Wage”
Interpretation ......................................................................... 137
PART TWO
RABBINIC INTERPRETATIONS
1. Midrashic Pondering the Plunder ......................................... 149
PART THREE
PATRISTIC INTERPRETATIONS
1. Irenaeus .................................................................................. 181
2. Tertullian ................................................................................ 195
3. Origen .................................................................................... 211
4. St. Augustine .......................................................................... 235
5. The Despoliation: Others Patristic Texts .............................. 261
viii contents
Conclusions and Ramifications .................................................. 273
Bibliography ................................................................................ 281
Index of Author .......................................................................... 299
Index of Subject ......................................................................... 303
INTRODUCTION:
THE DESPOLIATION OF EGYPT IN PRE-RABBINIC,
RABBINIC AND PATRISTIC TRADITIONS
It is probably safe to say that the interpretation of the Bible is as old
as the Bible itself, as is evidenced by the fact that later biblical books
are known not only to allude back to earlier books, but to modify,
sometimes completely, the original sense of earlier texts.1 Yet, after the
biblical period, the interpreters of scripture began to play a central
role in Israel, and the accumulated body of this interpretive lore
came to be known widely even in the diaspora. These biblical interpre-
tations appear in many books which were composed roughly from the
third century B.C.E. to the first century C.E., yet were not accepted
in the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures. These texts allow us to recon-
struct in some detail how the Bible was read and understood in this
crucial period.
The process of interpretation of ancient texts was not merely an
exercise in investigating antiquity; these scriptures were always inter-
preted with a view to their relevance to application to daily life, and
to the issues with which faced their contemporaries. Kugel identifies
four basic assumptions which, in spite of the wide variety of styles and
genres and even interpretive methods, underlie all traditional biblical
interpretation. The first assumption was that the Bible is fundamentally a
cryptic document. All interpreters maintain that, although the scripture
may appear to say X, what it really means is Y. The second assump-
tion is that the Scriptures are fundamentally relevant to contemporary
life and its challenges. The third assumption is that the Scriptures are
perfect and perfectly harmonious. While there might appear to be dis-
crepancies in the Bible, these apparent variances are latent with deeper
meaning, and are not mistakes but opportunities for the interpreter to
search for the deeper substance of the text. Because there is perfect
harmony among all parts of the Bible, any biblical text can be used to
illustrate another. In its extreme form, the doctrine of ‘omnisignificance’
claims that nothing is said in vain or even for rhetorical flourish. Every
1 For a seminal study of inner-biblical interpretation, see M. Fishbane’s Biblical
Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
2 introduction
detail of scripture is an opportunity to interpret; that is, to search for a
deeper meaning. The fourth assumption is that all scripture is of divine
provenance, or divinely inspired.2
Interpreters of the scriptures are sometimes thought of as being
completely cavalier in attitude, altering meanings willy-nilly to fit their
whims and fancies, or more commonly, their theological/political
agendas. This, however, is not correct. While all of their interpretations
reflect their beliefs and ideas; at times, their primary concern is simply
to explain what they have encountered in the text which may be either
difficult to understand or having some unacceptable contradiction or
moral problem. But their interpretations typically start with the text
itself, which has been examined in its every detail in search of hidden
meanings. The meanings they found are, of course, relative to the
writer and to his communities, either a timeless moral truth or a law
to be observed, or a prediction of the future. But these interpretations
typically flowed directly from something seen in the text; an apparent
contradiction, an unnecessary detail, a repetition or an emphatic turn
of phrase was seen by the exegete as an opportunity to explore the text
to discover its real meaning. But very often, the primary motivation
appears to be making sense out of the biblical text—but making sense
out of all of it, even its seemingly insignificant details, its confusing
features, its troubling passages. For it was often these very things that
were invitations for the exegetes to work their magic.3
In the case of the themes to be investigated here, reflection on the
meaning of the text was initiated by a particularly troubling moral fea-
ture found in the story of the exodus; the despoliation of the Egyptians.
This study will examine the pre-rabbinic, rabbinic and patristic inter-
pretations of the texts that describe the plundering of the Egyptians:
the spoliatio motif in Gen 15:14; Exod 3:21–22; 11:2–3 and 12:35–36.
Few passages have evoked such embarrassment, both to Jewish and
Christian expositors as this one. Vigorous and various apologies for this
passage began in the Hellenistic era, and continue to the present time.
Since the attacks on Israel’s behavior necessarily involved an attack on
the Hebrew Bible itself, and upon the God it claims to reveal, Jews and
Christians have often found themselves backed into the same corner,
2 J. Kugel, The Bible As It Was (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997),
17–23.
3 Kugel, The Bible As It Was, 23–6.