The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity

282 Pages·2016·5.99 MB·English

by  Eva Mroczek

The Literary Imagination
in Jewish Antiquity

The Literary Imagination
in Jewish Antiquity
EvA MroczEk
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mroczek, Eva, author.
The literary imagination in Jewish antiquity / Eva Mroczek.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-027983-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Jews—History—70-638.
3. Judaism—History—Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.–210 A.D. I. Title.
BS1171.3.M76 2015
221.6—dc23 2015031602
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan, USA
In memory of my grandmothers
Hanna Dmochowska-Mroczek (1930–1991)
and
Genowefa Rafałowicz (1935–2010)

contEnts
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Beyond Bible and Book 3
1. The Mirage of the Bible: The Case of the Book of Psalms 19
INTRODUCTION: MILTON’S VIAL AND THE UNCONTAINED TExT 19
BIBLICAL SPECTACLES 22
WHY THERE WAS NO “BOOK Of PSALMS” IN THE SECOND
TEMPLE PERIOD: MANUSCRIPTS AND THE IMAgINATION 25
PSALMS WITHOUT PSALTERS: RETHINKINg PSALMS
TraDITIONS BEYOND “BIBLE” AND “BOOK” 38
CONCLUSION: BIBLIOgraPHIC SURPRISES IN EARLY JUDAISM 45
2. The Sweetest Voice: The Poetics of Attribution 51
INTRODUCTION: WHAT DID ANCIENT AttRIBUTION CLAIM?
AESTHETICS AND AUTHORSHIP 51
CHAraCTERS IN SEARCH Of STORIES: AUTHORITY, PSEUDONYMITY,
AND POETICS 53
THE PSALM SUPERSCRIPTIONS AND DAVIDIC VOICE 58
SINfUL KINg TO ANgELIC BARD: THE MAKINg Of THE SWEET
SINgER Of ISraEL 71
CONCLUSION: THE LIfE Of THE WRITER 84
3. Like a Canal from a River: Scribal Products and Projects 86
INTRODUCTION: THE POETIC “I”: HISTORICAL OR LEgENDARY? 86
THE fIRST JEWISH AUTHOR? BEN SIra AND THE AUTHORIAL NAME 90
viii Contents
WHAT IS “THE BOOK Of BEN SIra”? OPEN BOOKS AND AUTHENTIC TExT 103
THE AfTERLIVES Of BEN SIra AS TExT AND CHAraCTER 110
CONCLUSION: METAPHORS AND MANUSCRIPTS 112
4. Shapes of Scriptures: The Nonbiblical Library of Early Judaism 114
INTRODUCTION: “COLLECTINg, If POSSIBLE, ALL THE BOOKS
IN THE WORLD” 114
MENTAL ARCHITECTURE AND THE SHAPE Of THE SACRED LIBraRY
IN EARLY JUDAISM 118
fROM fORgERY TO ExEgESIS: THE NONBIBLICAL LIBraRIES
Of MODERN PUBLISHINg 128
JubIlees AS BIBLIOgraPHY: A NATIVE HISTORY Of WRIttEN REVELATION 139
CONCLUSION: BIBLIOgraPHY AND TOTALITY 154
5. Outside the Number: Counting, Canons, and the
Boundaries of Revelation 156
INTRODUCTION: WHEN HAILE SELASSIE fINISHED THE BIBLE 156
QUALITATIVE NUMBERS: TWENTY-TWO AND TWENTY-fOUR
BOOKS IN JOSEPHUS AND 4 ezra 161
BEYOND PSALM 150: WHEN KINg DAVID fINISHED THE PSALTER 171
CANONS, CLOSURE, AND THE INSUffICIENCY Of SCRIPTURE 180
CONCLUSION: REVELATION OUT Of REACH 182
Conclusion 184
Notes 191
bibliography 233
Index o f Ancient sources 257
Index o f Modern Authors 262
Index o f subjects 265
AcknowLEdgMEnts
The image on the cover of this book is by Montreal artist guy Laramée, whose
carved book sculptures speak of the containment and shaping of written knowl-
edge. In Laramée’s works, discarded dictionaries, encyclopedias, and even Bibles
are no longer vessels for verbal communication: they are shaped into landscapes
made of hidden words. In this piece, five stacked volumes, their spines still intact,
have become a stark rock face dotted with caves. To the scholar of early Judaism,
the landscape evokes the hills of Qumran, which, for two thousand years, con-
cealed the Dead Sea Scrolls. As the hills revealed their secrets, we came face to
face with textual forms and literary landscapes vastly different from our own.
Carving up books seems sacrilegious to bibliophiles. But the accumulation,
erosion, and reshaping of knowledge that we see in Laramée’s work reflects our
own dynamically changing textual history. That history moves more slowly than
Laramée’s power tools, but both the physical forms of writing and the way people
have conceptualized literary worlds and religious texts continue to take new
shapes. This book takes up these questions from the perspective of Second
Temple Jewish literature, asking how it appeared to its creators and earliest
audiences—before the concepts of “book” and “Bible,” which structure our own
literary imagination, were available to think with. I thank guy Laramée and his
representation, Jayne Baum of JHB gallery, New York, for permission to use this
image. Even more, I thank him for creating work that insists we undo our
assumptions about how writing is supposed to look.
My own thinking about the contours of early Jewish literature began in grad-
uate school at the University of Toronto. Parts of this book originate in my PhD
dissertation, completed there in 2012. My doctoral supervisor, Hindy Najman,
drew me into the field with her inimitable energy and imagination, and showed
me how to listen to ancient texts on their own terms. But she also helped me
find—and trust—my own voice as a scholar. She continues to be my mentor,
ix