Psalm 2, Eclipse on a Full Moon, Die to Observe

1. Devorah Dimant, “Use and Interpretation of the Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) 411.

“Thus the text of wisdom alludes to Ps 2, integrating it and commenting upon it. Ps 2 is selected apparently because it urges kings and judges to exercise wisdom.”

Dimant is saying that Wisdom 1:1 and 6:1 allude to the LXX of Psalm 2:10. Let’s look at the verses:

Wisdom 1:1: “Love righteousness, you [judges] of the earth, think of the Lord in goodness and seek him with sincerity of heart” (NRSV).

Wisdom 6:1: “Listen therefore, O kings, and understand; learn, O judges of the ends of the earth.”

Psalm 2:10: Now therefore understand, ye kings: be instructed, all ye that judge the earth (Brenton’s English translation of the LXX).

“Kings.” “Judges.” “Understand.” Yes, there’s commonality between the wisdom passages and the LXX of Psalm 2:10, which is more evident in the Greek.

I never really viewed Psalm 2:10 as Wisdom seems to interpret it. Wisdom of Solomon’s point is that the kings and judges of the earth should learn wisdom and practice righteousness so as to avoid God’s judgment. I always assumed that Psalm 2 was saying to the kings: “Straighten up! Stop conspiring against my son, the Davidic monarch, or he and I will stomp you out of existence.” But I can understand why Wisdom of Solomon views the Psalm in a more general sense, for Psalm 2:11 tells the kings to serve the LORD with fear. They’re not merely to leave the Davidic monarch alone; rather, they must serve the LORD.

My reading of Psalm 2 has been Messianic, since it appears to relate to the Messiah gaining dominion over all of the nations, notwithstanding their resistance. Revelation 19:19-21 gives the scenario that formed the backdrop for my interpretation: “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.” Kings challenge the Messiah Jesus Christ, and they receive God’s wrath as a result. That looks like the message of Psalm 2!

Elsewhere in the New Testament, however, there’s a belief that Psalm 2 was being fulfilled in the first century, meaning they didn’t think it applied only to the second coming of Jesus Christ. In Acts 4:24-27, the apostles interpret the conspiring of the nations against God’s anointed in light of the execution of Jesus by Herod and Pontius Pilate. Hebrews 5:5 applies Psalm 2 to God’s anointing of Jesus Christ, which had already occurred.

The New Testament most likely doesn’t see the contents of Psalm 2 as a single event (the second coming of Jesus Christ), but rather as something that spreads over many years of history. Christ has inaugurated the end times! And the early Christians warned the rulers of the earth that they should submit to God’s Messiah today, since he will one return to set up his dominion.

But Wisdom of Solomon also sees Psalm 2 as a present sort of thing: the kings of the earth are to rule right now in wisdom and righteousness. It doesn’t apply Psalm 2 to the single end-time arrival of the Messiah, but it does mention the prospect of a coming judgment for rulers who disobey wisdom. As far as I can see, the “son” vanishes from Wisdom of Solomon’s interpretation of Psalm 2, maybe because there was no Davidic monarch at the time (although Solomon seems to be portrayed as the author of the book). In the eyes of the Wisdom of Solomon, there was no “son of God” at the time for the kings of the earth to challenge.

2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1910) 804-805.

Julius Africanus (third century C.E.) “treats the darkness at the crucifixion as miraculous, since an eclipse of the sun would not have taken place at the full moon.”

I’ll be parading my ignorance in this section! I’ve read elsewhere that the eclipse of the sun at Jesus’ crucifixion is problematic because a full moon was occurring at the same time. That may have something to do with the time when Jesus died, the Passover. Passover usually occurs at or near a full moon. See Apr 20, the date for Passover in 2008. The moon is full!

I don’t understand astronomy, but a full moon is not consistent with the moon being between the sun and the earth (a solar eclipse). Somehow, Julius Africanus was sensitive to that way back in the third century C.E. I wonder how.

I’m curious about what exactly Julius thought God did to carry out the miracle. Did God move the moon and place it in front of the sun? Was the darkness an optical illusion, or in people’s heads? Did clouds cause it? I don’t know.

Many liberal scholars say that the synoptic Gospels have darkness at Jesus’ crucifixion because they’re trying to evoke the day of the LORD, a time of thick darkness (Zephaniah 1:15). For them, the darkness is something literary or religious that the author put into the plot. It’s not historical, as far as they’re concerned.

Why darkness? It may convey God’s disapproval of Jesus’ enemies, or the evil that appeared to triumph when Jesus was on the cross, or Jesus’ endurance in our place of God’s righteous wrath, which the day of the LORD is all about (God’s wrath, that is). John, however, does not mention darkness at Jesus’ crucifixion. Some scholars believe this is because John saw Jesus’ death as a time of spiritual light. For John, Jesus was the light of the world particularly when he was finishing the work God had given him to do–at his crucifixion.

Maybe there’s an explanation for the darkness during the full moon. Or maybe the darkness conveys a literary or theological point. Maybe it’s both! I don’t know.

3. “The Law,” A Rabbinic Anthology, ed. C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938) 116-117.

“It is written, ‘Keep my statutes: through them shall a man live’ (Lev. XVIII, 5). R. Ishmael said: How can one know that [in a time of persecution] they say to an Israelite in private, ‘Serve the idol, and you will not be killed,’ he should serve the idol, and not be killed? Because it says, ‘A man shall live through them,’ and it does not say, ‘A man shall die through them.’ But if he is told in public, is he to obey? No, for it says, ‘Ye shall not profane my holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel’ (Lev. XXII, 32)…(Sifra 86b.)”

When I was in seventh grade, I had a Jewish social studies teacher, and our class spent a week on religion. He told us that Judaism views life as sacred. That’s why Jewish doctors are permitted to save life on the Sabbath. And, if a Jew is on the verge of starving to death, Jewish law allows him to eat pork. “It would even let him put salt on it, because human life is sacred,” my teacher said.

I thought that contradicted what I read in the Gospels, namely, the scenes in which the Jewish leaders don’t like Jesus healing on the Sabbath. But they’re not exactly contradictory. The people Jesus healed were not on the verge of death when Jesus performed the miracle. They could have come back on another day, as the leader of the synagogue said (Luke 13:14).

What about the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath? When Brad Young spoke at Hebrew Union College, he said that Jesus was upholding a halakhic point of view. According to the passage he handed out to us, a Jew is permitted to break the Sabbath if he has an ox’s hunger, which could place him on the verge of starving to death.

So why did the Pharisees dislike Jesus’ disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath? Did they think the disciples didn’t have an ox’s hunger? If so, they may have had a point. Mark 2 seems to put the incident in Capernaum, which was where Peter lived. Surely they could have eaten at Peter’s house after synagogue services, right? It wasn’t that far of a journey! They wouldn’t starve to death on the way. Was the plucking of grain absolutely necessary for their survival? I don’t know. Jesus refers to the example of David, who ate the bread of the priests when on the verge of starvation. So maybe there’s some truth in what Brad Young said.

The rabbinic passage I have in quotes addresses a question I have had: When can Jews break the law to save their lives, and when can they not? My social studies teacher said a Jew could eat pork if on the verge of starvation. But II Maccabees 7 tells of story of seven brothers who chose to be martyrs rather than eating the king’s pork. Couldn’t they have eaten it to save their skins?

No, for the situations were different. In one case, the Jew ate pork in an emergency situation–so he could survive to live a life of obedience to God’s commandments. In the other case, the very validity of God’s law is challenged. Will the Jews obey God as their ruler, or will they exalt Antiochus as supreme? In their minds, the supremacy of God is something worth dying for.

I wonder if the same principle applies to the Sabbath. In I Maccabees 2, we read of Jews who chose to die at the hands of their enemies rather than fight on the Sabbath. Mattathias then decreed that Jews could fight on the Sabbath. That was a matter of saving their lives so they could continue to live in obedience to God’s commands.

But, during the Holocaust, Jews worked on the Sabbath when their Nazi persecutors demanded it. In Schindler’s List, it was almost a privilege when Oscar Schindler permitted the Jews to rest on the Sabbath! Shouldn’t they have died for their commitment to God’s Sabbath, as the seven brothers gave their lives when Antiochus told them, “Eat pork or die?” I’m not sure how an orthodox Jew in a concentration camp would answer that. Maybe he’d express hope that the Jews would see better days and be able to resume their observant Jewish lives.

Other Higher Powers?

On Stephen Collins’ web site, there’s an interaction between Stephen and someone who wrote in his guestbook. Stephen Collins played the Reverend Eric Camden on 7th Heaven.

“J.J.” writes the following:

“I loved your show. How could you compromise like that? What’s with the ‘your higher power’ statement? How could you[?] You play a minister! How could you put God aside for a higher power? This ruins the whole show! We spoke of the show at our last Bi[bl]e Study and the main comment was ‘it used to be a good, healthy show to watch, but like the rest of TV, they’ve gone to the ‘politically correct’ route and thrown the Lord out of the show!['] Shame on you! JJ. San Diego, CA USA.”

And Stephen Collins replies as follows:

“Dear JJ,

“I have nothing to do with the concept or execution of the scripts. But personally, I have no problem with the term ‘higher power.’ Eric did not, as you suggested, ‘put God aside for a higher power.’ He simply acknowledged that acceptance of a higher power is a good thing. Personally, I don’t believe that a ‘higher power’ is in competition with God. I also believe that there are different kinds of higher powers at work in life: sometimes the spirit of a community of people working toward a common good can be a power greater than an individual. Sometimes the beauty or force of Nature is surely a power higher than ourselves. That doesn’t mean that God isn’t there or that we don’t need God. I also believe that God is generous and is glad for the work of powers other than He. And I believe He directs them. The idea of a higher power isn’t ‘politically correct.’ In modern culture, the idea often comes from 12-Step groups, like AA, which are spiritual, not religious, in nature. 12-Step groups, respecting that people who come to them are from different religious backgrounds, don’t require a specific religious belief from their members. You may be uncomfortable with that. But I don’t think God is.

“-Stephen

“P.S. And I hope you watch our Christmas episode in December. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

I wonder if the “Christmas episode in December” is the one where Haylie Duff converts to Christianity. Hmm!

I kind of liked what Stephen said about a power greater than ourselves. Sometimes, I like Judeo-Christian conceptions of God; sometimes, I don’t care for them too much. But I don’t ever want to get to the point where I think I’m the ultimate power in the universe. For me, a healthy spirituality includes humility before something or someone greater than I am. It also entails admiration of something above myself–something beautiful, good, and inspiring. I may be self-centered, but I don’t assume that I can find my healing or motivation totally inside of myself–with all my bitterness and resentment.

There’s something about nature that puts us in a state of awe, even as it makes us feel really small. And, yes, there was a sense in monotheistic or henotheistic religions that nature was a competitor with God for humans’ affections.

Deuteronomy 4:19: “And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven” (NRSV).

Job 31:26-28: “if I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon moving in splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges, for I should have been false to God above.”

The Koran presents the following interaction between Abraham and his idolatrous father:

“And when Ibrahim said to his sire, Azar: Do you take idols for gods? Surely I see you and your people in manifest error. And thus did We show Ibrahim the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and that he might be of those who are sure. So when the night over-shadowed him, he saw a star; said he: Is this my Lord? So when it set, he said: I do not love the setting ones. Then when he saw the moon rising, he said: Is this my Lord? So when it set, he said: If my Lord had not guided me I should certainly be of the erring people. Then when he saw the sun rising, he said: Is this my Lord? Is this the greatest? So when it set, he said: O my people! surely I am clear of what you set up (with Allah). Surely I have turned myself, being upright, wholly to Him Who originated the heavens and the earth, and I am not of the polytheists” (Sura 6:74-79, translation on BibleWorks).

What I think Abraham is telling his father is something like this: “Look, the sun and the moon may look glorious, but they’re definitely inferior to God. The sun and the moon set. They don’t even dominate the sky all of the time, so certainly they’re not the highest! I worship the one true God, who made the heavens and the earth.”

But is there a way that the glory of the heavens can lead people to God, by helping them realize that there’s something greater than themselves? There are Bible passages that come to mind:

Psalm 19:1: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

Romans 1:20: “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse[.]“

But a particularly intriguing passage is Wisdom 13:1-7:

“For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things men assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them.
And if men were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator. Yet these men are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him. For as they live among his works they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful.”

There’s almost a sympathy for the pagans in this passage. “These people are looking for something or someone greater than themselves, and nature puts them in a state of awe. And why wouldn’t it? It’s so beautiful, so mysterious! It humbles us! But, while we should appreciate nature, we shouldn’t treat it as the highest power. That title belongs to the one who made all these things.”

Wisdom of Solomon seems to coincide with Stephen Collins’ comment: there are all sorts of “higher powers” in the world, and they can assist the God who created them in the first place. They can also perform a function of putting us in a state of awe and humility. And yet, we should remember that God is the highest power, the one who created nature.

Intermediary, Dependence

Source: Birger A. Pearson, “Jewish Sources in Gnostic Literature,” Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 479.

“…the Gnostic pattern featuring the ‘blasphemy’ or ‘vain claim’ of the Demiurge–itself based upon Jewish texts and exegetical traditions–occurs in a number of extant Gnostic texts. Yet the differences among them in details seem to preclude the literary dependence of one text upon another. What is found here is a common tradition, subject to refinement in this or that Gnostic book.”

I wonder what Jewish sources did with the “blasphemy” and “vain claim” of the Demiurge. Granted, one can interpret certain Jewish writings to claim that God has an intermediary. Wisdom of Solomon seems to present wisdom as a personified extension of God. Philo refers to a logos, which he called a “second God.” Targumim present a memra speaking for God.

Do these ideas contradict Jewish monotheism? I’m not sure how Jews in those periods would have answered that. Maybe they thought the intermediary was like the Alan Rickman character in Dogma: a seraph who acts as the voice of God, since God’s real voice is so powerful it would kill us. After all, the Bible often vacillates back and forth between an angel speaking and God speaking (e.g., Genesis 22; Exodus 3; etc.), so perhaps God had an angelic spokesperson early on in Jewish tradition. But, back to my original query, I don’t think Jewish tradition ever saw this intermediary as evil, as Gnosticism does. So I wonder what Pearson has in mind when he says Jewish sources discussed the vanity and blasphemy of the Demiurge.

I also refer to this quote because it can help me in terms of my Fishbane paper. Michael Fishbane seeks to identify inner-biblical exegesis, in which one passage interprets, clarifies, and interacts with another passage. But is passage A necessarily interacting with passing B? Maybe it’s referring to something in the general culture, rather than passage B per se. One way Pearson dismisses the “textual exegesis” possibility is by asking: are the two passages too different for one to have used another? If so, then we can’t dogmatically claim that passage A interprets passage B. Unfortunately, as I’ve shown in past posts, Fishbane sometimes assumes that passage A interacts with passage B, when there are clear differences between the two.

Graetz and Tobit

Source: H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume II (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1893) 430.

“Hadrian and Rufus’s cruel measures were directed not against the survivors alone, but also against the dead. The heaps of dead [Jewish] bodies were not permitted to be interred, but the horrible sight was intended as a warning to the survivors that they should no longer dream of deliverance from the Roman yoke…It appears that a pious man desired to impress upon the survivors who had made peace with the Romans, and who lived in seclusion, the necessity of interring the corpses in the darkness of the night, even at the cost of their own happiness and peace. To this end he composed a book–the Book of Tobit–in which great weight is laid on the duty of secretly interring the bodies of those whom the tyrants doomed to disgrace; and at the same time it was hinted that the danger attending his duty would bring a rich reward. In evidence of this the case was cited of the pious Tobit, who after suffering many misfortunes as the result of his labor of love, was in the end rewarded with rich blessings. The contents of the Book of Tobit undeniably indicate that it was composed in the reign of Hadrian.”

Most scholars these days do not date Tobit to the time of Hadrian, who ruled in the second century C.E. This is for a variety of reasons, one of which is that an Aramaic version of Tobit was found at Qumran, and Qumran was destroyed before the time of Hadrian. So obviously the book existed before then!

But Graetz was doing what he could with what he had at the time, in this case, the nineteenth century. And he noticed a parallel between something that happened in the time of Hadrian and the plot-line of Tobit. Many scholars today use the same sort of approach to date books–if a book has themes like a tyrannical madman and the Jews’ desire to preserve their religion, then it probably originated in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a tyrannical madman trying to destroy the Jewish religion. Now that I see how Graetz fowled up while being so sure, I wonder how certain such an approach actually is.

On a related note, it amazes me how late some books of the apocrypha/deutero-canon may be. Many scholars date the Wisdom of Solomon to the first century C.E., since it reflects knowledge of Rome. Isn’t that a little late to be part of the Old Testament?

Divinized After Death

Source: John Sellars, Stoicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) 39.

The Stoic poet Lucan says about the first century B.C.E. figure Cato:

“Cato was a true father of his country, and far worthier than others who have since been granted this title, to have altars raised in his memory. One day when we are finally freed from slavery, if that ever happens, Cato will be deified; and Rome will then have a god by whose name it need not be ashamed to swear. (Pharsalia 9.601-604)”

I don’t know all of the context for this, but Sellars says that Cato was a political opponent of Julius Caesar. I wonder if the libertarian Cato Institute was named after him. That would coincide with Cato, the opponent of Caesar, who tried to liberate people from slavery.

I’ve read in sources (well, wikipedia) that the Romans worshipped their emperor after his death, as if that was the time when he became divinized. Wisdom of Solomon 14 states that one cause of idolatry was a father’s desire to commemorate his dead son. Some say that there were early Christians who maintained that Jesus became divine after his resurrection, but I’m not sure if I accept this as a New Testament perspective, since Paul presents Jesus as a pre-existent being (Philippians 2; II Corinthians 8:9).

Persecution in Egypt

Source: Peder Borgen, “Philo of Alexandria,” Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 253-254.

“By joining in cultural life, the Jews of Alexandria aimed at full citizenship of the Greek polis…Full Greek citizens were exempted from the Roman poll tax, the provincial Hellenes paid a lower rate, and native Egyptians paid the tax in full. The Jews in Alexandria pressed for equal status with the Greeks there. The Greeks in turn, tried to deprive the Jews of the privileges granted by the Emperor Augustus, and have them classified with the native Egyptians. After Gaius Caligula became Emperor in 37 C.E. these quarrels in the religious, cultural and juridicial field led to anti-Jewish riots which grew into a pogrom. A military uprising by Jews against Greeks followed in 41 C.E. on the death of Gaius Caligula and the accession of Claudius.”

There’s a lot that I don’t know about this situation, and I’m sure Philo’s treatise spells things out a lot more. Part of me wonders why the Jews didn’t simply pay the tax. They claimed that they were persecuted, when it seems they were just deprived of citizenship, as were the Egyptians. Not being put in the elite is not the same as persecution.

At the same time, the pogroms were persecution. I’m not sure who carried them out. Were they the Greeks, or the Egyptians? Did they do this because they thought the Jews were just plain weird? Or did the Egyptians dislike how the Jews were trying to get a higher status, something they (the Egyptians) could never attain?

One thing is certain: the Jews felt persecuted. If the Wisdom of Solomon is from the first century, then it indicates that Jews in Egypt at the time believed they were oppressed on account of their religion. That’s why they clung to the immortality of the soul and the justice God displayed at the Exodus.

My Agenda for a While: Three Papers

I have three papers to write for this month (and maybe the next). I’m going to brainstorm some on this blog.

Writing papers can be hard. I don’t always know where to start. This blog can be a place where I can get my thoughts out, refine my ideas, do some of the hard work of documentation (which will save me time when I actually sit down to write the papers), and maybe get some feedback.

Warning: a lot of what I write will be rough. I may retread some of the same ground over and over. I will not always be crisp in my questions and proposed solutions. But I’ll identify my “paper” posts with the word “paper.” Then, if people don’t want to read them, they can go on to my more interesting posts.

So what are my topics? They are three:

1. I’m writing a book review of Michael Fishbane’s Biblical Interpretation of Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988).

2. I’m doing a project that relates to the interpretation of the Bible. I’m planning to talk more with my professor about this sometime soon. What I’m doing is looking at how the Temple Scroll (in the Dead Sea Scrolls) interacts with a particular Scripture. I’m also going to trace how other Second Temple sources interact with that same passage. Part of my question is this: Can we determine how Second Temple scribes viewed the passage by looking at how they treated it?

You see, Fishbane has a traditum-traditio sort of model in his description of inner-biblical exegesis. The traditum is the authoritative tradition, which the scribe considers to be sacred Scripture. The traditio is the scribe’s method of interpreting that Scripture. Like the rabbis, the biblical scribes and authors tried to understand, clarify, and update biblical traditions. They do this when they add notes to the text itself, or refer to the text and add clarification, or rewrite a text according to their own ideology (as I-II Chronicles supposedly does with I-II Samuel and I-II Kings). Eventually, the traditio itself becomes a traditum–the sacred text that is subject to interpretation. (Fishbane 7-8, 10-11, 262)

I guess my question is this: Does the Temple Scroll view the passages with which it interacts as an authoritative traditum? On some level, this is a no-brainer, since the Temple Scroll is obviously appealing to the laws of the Pentateuch. Why would it do so if it did not deem them to be authoritative (Fishbane 7)? At the same time, it does not always adhere rigidly to those laws. It sometimes alters them or adds new laws altogether!

My professor recommended that I look at one passage or theme. Right now, there are two that come to mind: plunder and conquest.

a. Plunder. In Temple Scroll 58, we read the following:

“If they triumph over their enemies, smash them, put them to the sword and carry away their booty, they shall give the king his tithe of his, the priests one thousandth and the Levites one hundredth from everything. They shall halve the rest between the combatants and their brothers whom they have left in their cities.” The translation is from Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Penguin, 1997). I’ll get into the Hebrew later on in my research.

What makes this topic fruitful is that I know it appears in Second Temple literature: II Maccabees talks about the division of spoils. II Maccabees 8:28 says, “After the sabbath they gave some of the spoils to those who had been tortured and to the widows and orphans, and distributed the rest among themselves and their children” (NRSV).

As far as the Hebrew Bible is concerned, the division of spoils is discussed in at least two places: Numbers 31:25-30 and I Samuel 30:20-25.

Numbers 31:25-30 has:

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the ancestral houses of the congregation make an inventory of the booty captured, both human and animal. Divide the booty into two parts, between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. From the share of the warriors who went out to battle, set aside as tribute for the LORD, one item out of every five hundred, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats. Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the LORD. But from the Israelites’ half you shall take one out of every fifty, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats– all the animals– and give them to the Levites who have charge of the tabernacle of the LORD.’”

And I Samuel 30:20-25 states:

David also captured all the flocks and herds, which were driven ahead of the other cattle; people said, ‘This is David’s spoil.’ Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David, and who had been left at the Wadi Besor. They went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. When David drew near to the people he saluted them. Then all the corrupt and worthless fellows among the men who had gone with David said, ‘Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may take his wife and children, and leave.’ But David said, ‘You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the LORD has given us; he has preserved us and handed over to us the raiding party that attacked us. Who would listen to you in this matter? For the share of the one who goes down into the battle shall be the same as the share of the one who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike.’”

So let’s summarize, going from the earliest text to the latest:

Numbers 21:25-30: The spoil is divided, with half going to the warriors, and half going to everyone else. Of the warriors’ spoil, 1/500 goes to the high priest, and 1/50 goes to the Levites.

I Samuel 30:20-25: I guess everyone gets the same amount of spoil.

II Maccabees 8:28: The soldiers distributed the spoils among themselves and their children, while giving some to the widows, the orphans, and the tortured.

Temple Scroll 58: The king gets a tenth of all the spoil, the priests 1/1000, and the Levites 1/100. Then, the rest of the spoil is divided between the warriors and the congregation.

You know, come to think of it, Temple Scroll 58 may think that it’s actually being faithful to Numbers 21:25-30. In Numbers 21:25-30, the high priest gets 1/500 of 1/2 of the spoil, and the Levites get 1/50 of 1/2 of the spoil. 1/500 times 1/2 is 1/1000, and 1/50 times 1/2 is 1/100, which are the numbers that appear in Temple Scroll 58. I haven’t yet looked at the similarity (or dissimilarity) in language and vocabulary between the two passages, but I’ll do so at another time.

Here’s another factor: Temple Scroll 60 says the following:

“To the Levites shall belong the tithe of the corn, the wine, and the oil that they have sanctified to me first; the shoulder from those who slaughter a sacrifice and a proportion of the booty, the plunder and the catch of birds, wild animals and fish, one hundredth; the tithe from the young pigeons and from the honey one fiftieth. To the priests shall belong one hundredth of the young pigeons, for I have chosen them from all your tribes to attend to me and minister (before me) and bless my name, he and his son always.”

There are echoes here of Deuteronomy 18:1-5, but I can’t think of anywhere in the Pentateuch that specifies that the Levites will receive 1/100 of one type of plunder, and 1/50 from another. I’m not sure if it arrives at these numbers through exegetical math, or what exactly.

b. Conquest. I won’t spill my guts here as I did on the plunder. Basically, the Bible tells the Israelites to slaughter all of the Canaanites. But I read in a commentary on Wisdom of Solomon that God actually wanted to have mercy on the people of Canaan. And I wonder if, in I Maccabees, it is people of Canaan who surrender to the Maccabees and get spared. In rabbinic literature, the Canaanites are offered a chance to repent, and they’re only destroyed if they do not do so. I know that the Temple Scroll touches on this topic, but I’m not sure at the moment what it says. I’ll look into that today.

3. I’ll cut to the chase here too, and offer more details in a coming post. In II and IV Maccabees, Antiochus is God’s punishment on Israel for what it is already doing: Hellenizing. Hellenization involved a change in Israel’s ancestral constitution, or politeia, as Jerusalem was converted into a Greek polis. Why did the Maccabees, or the authors of II and IV Maccabees, or other defenders of the Maccabees deem that to be wrong? As Victor Tcherikover points out through an analysis of the sources, it’s not as if Hellenization meant Israel had to worship idols. So what was the problem?

I know that this third topic needs to be crisper, but that’s why I’m writing all this. Consider it a rough draft.

More to come!