Angels at Sinai: Exegesis, theology and interpretive authority

Dead Sea Discoveries

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 313-333

  Najman, Hindy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61949288866     PISSN: 09290761     EISSN: 15685179     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156851700509977     Document Type: Review

References (48)

1. See A.F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (SJLA 25; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 64, 189, 211
2. W.D. Davies, "A Note on Josephus, Antiquities 15.136," Jewish and Pauline Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984) 84-88
3. idem, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. I. Abrahams; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 152-53
4. idem, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990) 209
5. R. Kimelman, "Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third Century Jewish-Christian Disputation," HTR 73 (1980) 567-95, esp. 574-77
6. On interpretive authority see H. Najman, "The Law of Nature and the Authority of Mosaic Law," Studia Philonica Annual 11 (1999) 55-73
7. idem, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing: Jubilees and Its Authority Conferring Strategies," JSJ 30 (1999) 379-410
8. idem, "Torah of Moses: Pseudonymous Attribution in Second Temple Writings," The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition (ed. C.A. Evans; JSPSup 33; Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 202-16
9. See, e.g., J.L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)
10. idem, Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986)
11. M.A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)
12. idem, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989)
13. idem, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)
14. H. Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing," 388
15. idem, "The Law of Nature," 58-59
16. L.H. Schiffman, "The Concept of Covenant in the Qumran Scrolls and Rabbinic Literature," forthcoming
17. See, e.g., the opening pages of B. Leyerle, "Blood is Seed," JR 81 (2000)
18. On the shift from immediacy to mediation in the second temple period see J.L. Kugel, Early Biblical Interpretation, 13-39
19. M.A. Fishbane, "From Scribalism to Rabbinism: Perspectives on the Emergence of Classical Judaism," The Garments of Torah, 64-78, esp. 68. In recent times there have been a number of very important and helpful studies on angels and related matters in second temple, early Christian and rabbinic traditions
20. J.C. VanderKam, "The Putative Author of the Book of Jubilees," JSS 26 (1981) 209-17
21. See the insightful treatment of the angel of the presence by J.C. VanderKam, "The Angel of the Presence in the Book of Jubilees," DSD 7 (2000) 378-93
22. See also U. Glessmer, "Calendars in the Qumran Scrolls," The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 1.213-78
23. Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing," 380
24. M. Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jüdischen Engelglauben, 307 n. 80, and
25. J.C. VanderKam, "Authoritative Literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls," DSD 5 (1998) 382-402
26. M.J. Bernstein, "Introductory Formulas for Citation and Re-citation of Biblical Verses in the Qumran Pesharim," DSD 1 (1994) 30-70
27. Similarly, as Fossum has pointed out, the Samaritan literature contains both the tradition of angelic mediation and the tradition of the immediacy of Mosaic revelation. See The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord, 194, 228-30, 260
28. See also Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles, 209
29. Trans. H.D. Betz, Galatians, 161
30. R. Kimelman, "Rabbi Yohcombining dot belowanan and Origen on the Song of Songs," 576. Note also that in this passage, as in Ant. 15:136, one could understand to refer to the prophets who received the law from Moses, not to heavenly beings
31. See the comprehensive discussion of Gal. 3:1-18 by Betz, Galatians, 128-60, esp. excursus: Abraham, 139-40
32. L.T. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology, 127-28
33. Trans. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 63
34. 2) 118
35. idem, Yemenite Midrashim: A Lecture on the Yemenite Midrashim, Their Character and Value [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Shalem Books, 1992) 13-18
36. On the relationship between Origen and the Rabbis, see N.R.M. de Lange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) 21-37
37. Clark, "The Uses of the Song of Songs," 391-94
38. Urbach argues that Origen was influenced by R. Johanan in "The Homiletical Interpretation of the Sages," 254-56. On the other hand, Kimelman argues that R. Johanan is the chief rabbinic respondent to Origen and is thus inclined to reject the attribution of the angelic mediation tradition to R. Johanan, because of what Kimelman regards as opposition to angelic mediation in other traditions attributed to R. Johanan
39. See D.J. Halperin, "Ascension or Invasion: Implications of the Heavenly Journey in Ancient Judaism," Religion 18 (1988) 55 for a discussion of a hekhalot text in which Metatron reveals the law to Moses, against angelic opposition
40. Urbach, The Sages, 136-37
41. J. Schwartz, "Jubilees, Bethel and the Temple of Jacob," HUCA 56 (1985) 63-85
42. J.L. Wentling, "Unraveling the Relationship between 11QT, the Eschatological Temple, and the Qumran Community," RevQ 14 (1989) 61-73
43. M.O. Wise, "The Covenant of Temple Scroll XXIX, 3-10," RevQ 14 (1989) 49-60
44. For developments of this and related interpretations of Moses' interaction with the angels at Sinai, see M.A. Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination, 61 and 199 n. 16
45. M.J. Bernstein, "Angels at the Aqedah," DSD 7 (2000) 263-91
46. Schäfer, Rivalität zwischen Engeln und Menschen, 119-39
47. Bernstein, "Angels at the Aqedah," 263-91
48. See the excellent discussion of this tradition in rabbinic interpretations in J. Goldin, "The Death of Moses: An Exercise in Midrashic Transposition," Judah Goldin: Studies in Midrash and Related Literature, 175-86