Rewritten Bible Research Articles

Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission by Molly M. Zahn

Reviewed by: Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission by Molly M. Zahn Sara Milstein Molly M. Zahn. Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 264 pp. Molly Zahn wants us to stop centering the Bible. More specifically, she wants us to stop centering the Bible when we talk about writing and textuality in the Second Temple period. She knows it's not an easy task, cognitively speaking, and so she doesn't fault us in principle for viewing Second Temple Jewish texts through a canonical, teleological lens. But she does implore us to confront the ways in which our categories (and also our subfields) have constrained our thinking and have prevented us from making important connections across different groups of texts. When we use phrases like "Rewritten Bible" (coined by Geza Vermes in 1961) or even its replacement, "Rewritten Scripture," for texts like Jubilees or the Temple Scroll, we imply that "rewriting" is associated exclusively with biblical texts and only yielded texts that are noncanonical. Neither of these points is true. The act of rewriting older works was ubiquitous in the ancient Near East and was used both for texts that ended up in the Bible(s) and texts that did not. For Zahn, it's not just a matter of anachronism; it's about finding categories that better suit the evidence so that we can begin to reshape our thinking. [End Page 403] The overarching replacement term that Zahn proposes is deceptively simple: rewriting. Under this umbrella, she identifies two main categories: revision and reuse. Revision constitutes anything that represents a new copy of a text: under this category, we can thus put MT Jeremiah, the Greek versions of Esther, and Serekh Ha-Yaḥad (a sectarian text that is likewise attested in substantially different versions). Reuse, then, constitutes anything that represents a new work: texts such as Chronicles, Jubilees, or Genesis Apocryphon.1 Zahn thus makes no distinction here between "biblical" and "nonbiblical" texts: both categories can include texts that are now associated with the Bible (or better, Bibles) to varying degrees and texts that are not. Not only does this new framing highlight the limitations of categories such as "biblical," "Rewritten Bible/Scripture," and "extrabiblical," but it also calls into question the ongoing association of rewriting with authority. Though Zahn does not say it directly, it seems fair to say that "authoritative" has operated in the field as a kind of cipher for "protobiblical" or "scriptural," in that scholars tend to assume that texts that ended up in the Bible must have been viewed as authoritative at Qumran, given the number of revisions and literary offshoots that they generated. Zahn does not sever the ties between authority and protobiblical scrolls entirely, but she helpfully shifts the conversation away from the Bible, forcing us to acknowledge again that rewriting at Qumran (and beyond) was not limited to protobiblical texts. In this context, her discussions of revision in texts like the War Scroll, Serekh Ha-Yaḥad, and Hodayot help to decenter biblical texts as the primary sites of scribal activity. One of the most impressive aspects of this book is its scope. Here we have the work of a scholar in her prime, not afraid to venture into uncharted territory and to go beyond her comfort zone of Qumran. Zahn brings genre theory and translation theory into conversation with Second Temple texts; in addition to discussions of Qumran literature, she deftly handles rewriting within the Bible "itself," the Septuagint, and the Aramaic targumim, and she even throws in a dash of midrash and Mesopotamian literature for good measure. As such, she models what she argues for elsewhere: engaging in conversations across texts and subfields so that we can learn from one another. One of her most insightful chapters, to my mind, is on translation as rewriting; here, she covers cases of rewriting in the Septuagint, the targumim, and Genesis Apocryphon, demonstrating well what might be gained not only in viewing translation as rewriting but also in studying such diverse texts in tandem. Needless to say, her footnotes are to be mined both for their...

Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission by Molly M. Zahn

Reviewed by: Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission by Molly M. Zahn Jozef Tiňo molly m. zahn, Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Pp. xi + 264. $100. This thoroughly researched book by Molly M. Zahn follows her numerous other studies on this topic. The goal of Z.'s monograph is nothing less than a presentation of new ways for how to talk and think about rewriting in the context of Judaism of the Second Temple period (p. 5). She rightly states that this need stems from the fact that our understanding of [End Page 315] the nature and purpose of rewriting has been distorted by viewing it as a biblical phenomenon, and that study of the phenomenon has been limited to a few paradigmatic texts that have shaped our concept of a rewritten text in Judaism of the Second Temple period. She thus starts with the suggestion of a different terminology that would be heuristically useful and would avoid anachronistic and canonically inflected labels like Rewritten Bible or Rewritten Scripture. This new terminology then would serve as a basis for further systematic presentation of the phenomenon of rewriting in Second Temple Judaism in a wider perspective. In chap. 1, Z. suggests a division of the broad category of rewriting into two subcategories: revision and reuse. For Z., the term "revision" is reserved for producing a new copy of a given text in which changes are introduced to varying degrees. She states that such changes "could comprise anything from shifts in orthography or morphology to addition or omission of major sections" (p. 38). In "reuse" of textual material, the degree of reproduction varies more widely—reused texts may consist largely of older material, which Z. later refers to as "centripetal reuse"—while others may draw on only specific earlier texts at a few points, which she terms "limited reuse." Revision and reuse represent two different contexts of scribal activity with different outcomes: the former results in a new copy, while the latter yields a new work. In chap. 2, Z. explains at some length modern genre theory in order to show how it may serve to conceptualize her categories of "revision" and "reuse" as analogous to genres. Different genres here correspond to different contexts of scribal activity ("revision" and "reuse" in the case of rewriting), not to different literary genres. She also expresses her preference for viewing rewriting in the context of "discourse tied to founder," which is the concept suggested earlier by Hindy Najman (Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in the Second Temple Period [JSJSup 77; Leiden: Brill, 2003]). Somehow generically related to the rewriting, according to Z., is imitatio, that is, when a writer of a new work mimics language of the text being imitated. In this particular context, Z mentions 1QS and Hodayot, both of which contain, in addition to some portions of rewriting examined in chap. 4, imitation of the language of the Torah and Psalms, respectively. In chap. 3, instead of using "Bible" as a category in investigation of the phenomenon of rewriting, Z. applies her categories of "revision" and "reuse" to investigate more fully the extent of rewriting in the Bible itself. In chap. 4, by exploring some nonbiblical compositions, including Qumran sectarian texts (Community Rule, War Scroll, Hodayot), Z. shows that these were subject to the same sorts of revision and reuse as texts now contained in the Bible and that, therefore, rewriting cannot be regarded as primarily a biblical phenomenon. In chap. 5, Z. moves to discuss translation as a form of rewriting. Z. concentrates here on Greek translations, especially in places where translators introduced deliberate content changes, but she also examines later rabbinic targums. She places both in a category of "revision." Then she investigates the Genesis Apocryphon as a special case in which translation is employed in a new composition; therefore, unlike previous translations, 1QapGen falls into the category of "reuse." In chap. 6, Z. turns to further investigation of reuse. After the presentation in the previous chapters of diversity in the scribal approach to "reuse," she thematizes this diversity by showing various...

Sacred Texts and Disparate Interpretations: Qumran Manuscripts Seventy Years Later; Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 24–26 October 2017 ed. by Henryk Drawnel

Reviewed by: Sacred Texts and Disparate Interpretations: Qumran Manuscripts Seventy Years Later; Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 24–26 October 2017 ed. by Henryk Drawnel Michael DeVries henryk drawnel (ed.), Sacred Texts and Disparate Interpretations: Qumran Manuscripts Seventy Years Later; Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 24–26 October 2017 (STDJ 133; Leiden: Brill, 2020). Pp. xiii + 478. €132/$159. This volume consists of a collection of conference papers delivered at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, Poland, in honor of the seventieth anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Broad in scope, these contributions explore an array of themes within Qumran scholarship and are divided into five main thematic groupings: the text critical intersection between the Hebrew Bible and Qumran manuscripts (part 1), Qumran literature against the historical backdrop of the Second Temple period (part 2), issues of philology and paleography (part 3), wisdom and religious poetry (part 4), and studies addressing a singular issue within particular texts (part 5). Part 1 begins with two contributions from Adrian Schenker. The first, "Are There Mastercopies for Genealogically Related Biblical Texts in Qumran? The Question of Archetypes and Lineages of Biblical Text Witnesses," argues for the presence of unifying efforts within circles charged with the transmission of those texts that would later constitute the Hebrew Bible in the direction of a textual forerunner of the MT. The second, "Room for Further Investigation Opened by BHQ: Three Examples (Genesis 33:18, 20 and 35:7)," suggests understanding the differing OG readings as representing an earlier reading of the text in relation to the MT, which shows evidence of theologically driven corrections. Finally, Emanuel Tov, in "The Background and Origin of the Qumran Corpus of Scripture Texts," proposes that only one-third of the "biblical" texts at Qumran were copied locally while the remainder originated from outside Khirbet Qumran, further suggesting that texts with an affinity to either the MT, LXX, or SP derive from outside Khirbet Qumran. Opening part 2, Bartosz Adamczewski ("Are the Dead Sea Scrolls Pharisaic?") examines evidence for a possible connection between the Qumran and Pharisaic movements, if not a potential Pharisaic origin of at least some of the manuscripts at Qumran. Kenneth Atkinson ("The Changing Views of the Hasmoneans in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Examining Seventy Years of Research") surveys the scholarly debate regarding the relationship between the scrolls and the Hasmoneans, particularly with reference to paleography, archaeology, and history. In "The Wicked Priest, the Righteous Teacher, and the Yahad," Vasile Babota revisits the relationship of the "Teacher of Righteousness," the "Wicked Priest," and the emergence of the yahad. Claude Cohen-Matlofsky ("Women at Qumran? Reconsidering the Textual and Archaeological Data") reassesses the available evidence regarding the [End Page 155] presence of women at Qumran, concluding that the paucity of gendered material at Qumran, in line with other sites in the region, should not discount the potential presence of women at the Qumran site. Lastly, John J. Collins, ("The Historical Context of the Teacher and His Movement") suggests a date post-Alexander Jannaeus for the conflict between the Teacher and the Wicked Priest and thus a late second century b.c.e. date for the origin of the Qumran movement, which, according to Collins, lies within the growing sectarian disputes regarding Torah interpretation in the Hasmonean period, starting with the reign of John Hyrcanus. In part 3, Jeff S. Anderson ("Assembled Israel: Performativity in Rewritten Bible at Qumran") proposes that the performativity of the rewritten speeches of Moses constructs a shared communal identity as the fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant in the present age. Donald W. Parry ("Late Hebrew Forms in 1QIsaa") identifies thirty categories of linguistic elements in which Late Biblical Hebrew, Qumran Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew is reflected in 1QIsaa, which, according to Parry, reveal the milieu and linguistic environment of the scribe at or near the time of the copying of the text (ca. 125-100 b.c.e.). Surveying past studies and suggesting areas of future engagement, Femke Siebesma-Mannens ("Qumran Hebrew from the Perspective of Verbal Valence Patterns...

The Phenomenon of Rewriting Scripture in Late Second Temple Judaism: Some Methodological Reflections on the So-Called “Rewritten Bible” Category

The term “Rewritten Bible” was introduced by Géza Vermes in 1961 to describe works from late Second Temple period that “retell” or “rewrite” Scriptures with characteristic changes. Since then, much has been written about this category of texts. Today some researchers are tired of discussing this concept, suggesting even a move away from the notion. Others, on the contrary, apply it to an increasing number of texts, including even works lying outside the specific context of late Second Temple Jewish literature. This article discusses the phenomenon of the “Rewritten Bible” (RewB) and takes up a polemic with certain approaches to the category, concerning terminology, scope, and character, as well as indication of the purposes of rewriting activity. The article shows that the category remains useful and important, within certain methodological clarifications.

Traditions about the Martyrdom and Resurrection of Daniel and the Three Youths

The article deals with the Christian legend about the persecution and martyrdom of Daniel and his three companions at the hands of a wicked Persian king. This story is found in mediaeval Eastern Orthodox liturgical, hagiographical, and homiletical texts and is based on extracanonical traditions similar to those of the “rewritten Bible” in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The article demonstrates how the “canonical” story about Daniel and the Three Youths developed into this legend, which narrates their martyrdom for Christ and their subsequent resurrection together with him. The origins and textual history of this legend are discussed, as well as its content and structure. It is demonstrated that this legend combines a martyrological account, which is similar to the narrative of Dan 3, 6; 2 Macc 7, with a reinterpretation of stories about biblical heroes. In addition, it is shown how the tradition about the resurrection of the righteous, which is based on an eccentric exegesis of the New Testament passages of Math. 27:52-53 and 1 Cor 15:6, functions in this legend. The liturgical, homiletic and hagiographical traditions regarding the martyrdom and the resurrection of Daniel and the Three Youths.

The martyrdom of Daniel and the Three Youths

This article investigates the legend about the persecution and martyrdom of Daniel and his three companions at the hand of a wicked Persian king. This story is found in Eastern Orthodox liturgical, hagiographical, and homiletical texts and is based on extracanonical traditions similar to those of the “rewritten Bible” in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The article investigates how the canonical story about Daniel and the Three Youths developed into this account of their martyrdom for Christ. The origins, liturgical function, and textual history of this legend are discussed, as well as its structure and tradition-history. My analysis demonstrates that this legend combines a martyrological account (similar to other stories about Jewish martyrs, for example, Daniel 3, 6; 2 Macc 7) with a reinterpretation of stories about biblical heroes. The legend also includes a resurrection story based on an unexpected exegesis of Matt 27:52–53 and 1 Cor 15:6.

"Rewritten Bible" v kontexte explicitnej a implicitnej formy interpretácie v judaizme Druhého chrámu

Over the course of the last two decades, scholarly attention has focused more than ever before on the phenomenon of interpretive textual paraphrase operative in the period before the closure of the Jewish canon. A�special type of extensive paraphrase in Judaism became known as the Rewritten Bible. There is an ongoing discussion about the nature and function of these compositions. The present article views the educational aspect as essential for a proper understanding of interpretive activity in general, and thus also for understanding how the Rewritten Bible phenomenon is to be viewed within the larger framework of interpretive strategies in Judaism of the Second Temple period.

The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul by John J. Collins (review)

Reviewed by: The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul by John J. Collins David Arthur Lambert John J. Collins. The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul. The Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies 7. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. 319 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000545 The Invention of Judaism is really a book about the status of the Torah in ancient Judaism, and its complexities, that also considers how its varying construal impacted questions of Jewish or Judean identity. In this capacity, Collins successfully problematizes our understanding of the place of the Pentateuch as authoritative Scripture in the Second Temple period by highlighting its surprising absences. His work points to a real need for further theorizing concerning the nature and use of the Torah. As such, The Invention of Judaism represents an important advance over standard accounts of the formation of the canon. These histories have tended to focus on a canonical series of core texts, such as the prologue to Ben Sira and 2 Maccabees, to determine whether they reflect a closed canon or one that remains open. Such a procedure presumes a relatively uniform concept of authority and, invariably, a process of linear development. Instead, Collins considers the more fundamental question of how directly various groups of Judeans even related to the Torah. In the process, he succinctly reviews many key debates in the field, making characteristically judicious choices among them. Collins's evenhandedness and clarity makes the book quite useful and highly readable for students and scholars alike. "Introduction: Jews, Judeans, and the Maccabean Crisis" reviews current thinking about the nature of ioudaios as a form of identity. Collins seems to side with the view that "religion" was embedded in a wider web of ethnic identity, but that "Judaism" did not exist in an "unembedded" form. For Collins, much of the question hinges on the place assigned to the Judeans' "ancestral law," a concept that helpfully identifies how issues of practice and identity intersect. As [End Page 443] such, Antiochus IV Ephiphanes's attack on Torah observances, which provoked the Maccabean crisis, could be seen as a form of political repression, deprivation of the right to follow one's ancestral customs, rather than an implausible direct assault on religion. In "Deuteronomy and the Invention of the Torah," following several recent scholars, Collins makes the case for the Deuteronomic Code never constituting a comprehensive, prescriptive source of authoritative law, but serving instead an educational or propagandistic purpose. "Torah in the Persian Period" notes the striking absence of Torah in early restoration texts as well as in the records preserved from the Jewish community at Elephantine. That picture fits the sense of novelty around the Torah's position in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. There too there are questions about the version of the Torah in use, as well as the vagueness of references to it, but it is clear from the frequent use of the formula, kakathub, "as it is written," that there is in view some concern for actual adherence to a textual authority. Despite the clear emergence of the Pentateuch from the Persian period on, "The Persistence of Non-Mosaic Judaism" questions whether according primary importance to the Torah was basic to Judean identity in the Hellenistic period. Indeed, its acknowledgment is surprisingly absent from entire corpora of literature—the wisdom tradition prior to Ben Sira, Enochic literature, and diasporic tales such as Esther and Daniel 1–6. As noted in "Torah as Narrative and Wisdom," even so-called "Rewritten Bible" texts, so clearly dependent on the Torah, fail to relate to it explicitly as works of exegesis. Ben Sira recognizes the authority of the "Law of Moses," but associates it with a broader sense of wisdom and refrains from explicit citation; Tobit references the "Law of Moses," but only in general terms of piety, and even attributes to it laws not found there. "Torah as Law" looks at how observance of ancestral law, an important focus after the Maccabean revolt, could be a basis for a common Judaism, but also lead to a heightened scrutiny of Torah as religious law, evident in such texts...

Rewritten Bible in the “Museum” Slavonic Translation of the Song of Songs

Summary The so-called “Museum” Slavonic translation of the Song of Songs contains a specific recension enrooted in Jewish Second Temple traditions. It becomes more plausible that the Slavonic translation has been produced in the earliest period of Slavic writing directly from Syriac rather than from Hebrew, as it was proposed earlier.

Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques?, written by József Zsengellér

Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques?, written by József Zsengellér

How the “Torah of Moses” Became Revelation

Noting that, in the Hebrew Bible, law, but not narrative, is attributed to Moses, this paper argues that the notion of the “Torah of Moses” as revealed literature, word for word dictation to Moses, is to be traced to a late Second Temple construction of the Pentateuch as apocalypse. The move is evident in the Book of Jubilees, who introduces his work with a detailed account of revelation at Sinai that includes his own work, the “Divisions of the Times,” an apocalypse, but not the “Torah of Moses.” However, as Jubilees overlaps with Genesis in great measure and, it is argued, refrains from alluding to the Pentateuch throughout, the claim would seem to be that the “Divisions of the Times” actually preceded the Pentateuch as one of its sources. The implications of this view for understanding Rewritten Bible and interpretation in the late Second Temple period are considered.

Is <i>rewritten Bible/Scripture</i> the solution to the Synoptic Problem?

New Testament scholars have for centuries posited different solutions to the Synoptic Problem. Recently a new solution was proposed. Mogens Müller applies Geza Vermes’s term rewritten Bible to the canonical gospels. Accepting Markan priority, he views Matthew as rewritten Mark, Luke as rewritten Matthew, and John as additional source. This article examines Müller’s hypothesis by first investigating the history of the controversial term rewritten Bible/Scripture and its recent application to the New Testament Gospels. Müller’s hypothesis is then compared to other solutions to the Synoptic Problem, such as the Augustine, Griesbach, and Farrer-Goulder Hypotheses. The Two Document Hypothesis is discussed and Müller’s 2nd century Luke theory is compared to Burton Mack’s almost similar stance and tested with the argument of synoptic intertextuality in view of the possible but improbable early second century date for Matthew. Lastly, the relationship between the synoptic Gospels is viewed in terms of literary intertextuality. Müller suggests proclamation as motivation for the Gospels’ deliberate intertextual character. This notion is combined with the concept of intertextuality to suggest a more suitable explanation for the relationship between die Gospels, namely intertextual kerugma. This broad concept includes any form of intertextuality in terms of text and context regarding the author and readers. It suitably replaces rewritten Bible, both in reference to genre and textual (exegetical) strategy.

The New Testament gospels as Biblical rewritings

In 1993, in a discussion of fictionality and loyalty to tradition in the Gospel of Matthew, Ulrich Luz pointed out that the writer of Matthew had made substantial changes in the Jesus traditions as taken over from the Gospel of Mark and that in some cases he had even created traditions of his own. The author of Matthew thus consciously engaged in the fabrication of fiction. Nevertheless, according to Luz, throughout his narrative, he clearly expects his readers to accept the referentiality of what is related. This lack of awareness of the differences between fact and fiction places him outside the boundaries of ancient history writing. For parallels to this phenomenon, Luz points to the story of Moses in Deuteronomy and that of the patriarchs in Jubilees. These books, however, are examples of the “rewritten Bible.” This raises the question of whether, with regard to the question of referentiality, the New Testament gospels should be understood on the same presuppositions as the books normally categorized as “rewritten Bible,” and as different steps in a reception history through which the various traditions about Jesus were continually being rewritten and supplemented in accordance with changing theologies and churchly demands.

Summaries of Israel’s Story: Reviewing a Compositional Category

This article reviews and synthesizes the history of, and current research into, ‘summaries of Israel’s story’ (SIS). Particular attention is paid to work done by E. Stauffer, N.T. Wright, H.C. Kee, M.A. Elliot, and Joachim Jeska. This research, as well as investigations into rewritten Bible and other summaries, clarifies the nature of such summaries as a discrete compositional category. Following the review a synthesis of this scholarship will yield a compilation of canonical and extra-canonical SIS.

Rosenzweig’s Bible: Reinventing Scripture for Jewish Modernity (review)

Reviewed by: Rosenzweig’s Bible: Reinventing Scripture for Jewish Modernity William Plevan (bio) Rosenzweig’s Bible: Reinventing Scripture for Jewish Modernity, by Mara Benjamin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. One of the central challenges to religious belief in the modern era has been the application of critical literary and historical techniques of reading to ancient religious texts, particularly the Bible. The challenge goes beyond the theological issue of whether or not the Bible is divinely revealed. Reading the Bible and other ancient religious texts with the benefit of modern literary and historical techniques tends to make them look like any other piece of literature or any other historical document. Is it possible to embrace modern liberal sensibilities in the domain of religious thought and still view the Bible as a privileged source of religious wisdom and law? Put another way, is it still possible to view the Bible as a “scripture?” This is the question that animates Mara Benjamin’s new study of German-Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig. In Rosenzweig’s Bible, Benjamin explores two significant features of Rosenzweig’s work that have gone unnoticed or underappreciated. First, Benjamin reads Rosenzweig as a thinker primarily interested in the significance of biblical language for modern Jews and Germans. Second, Benjamin understands Rosenzweig’s most famous and complicated work, The Star of Redemption (published [End Page 81] in 1921), as only the beginning of his engagement with this issue. Benjamin not only offers a novel interpretation of Star, but also tracks the development of Rosenzweig’s attempt to articulate a conception of Scripture within the boundaries of distinctly modern ways of thinking about religious and literary texts. Most studies of Rosenzweig take The Star of Redemption, a notoriously difficult book to understand, to be the definitive statement of his philosophy, of which his later writings are only an elaboration. Benjamin proposes looking at Star as a crossroads in Rosenzweig’s thought, where the strictly philosophical concerns of his earlier work meet his new embrace of the significance of revelation and biblical language. In Star, Rosenzweig attempts to articulate the philosophical implications of giving primacy to the word of revelation found in the biblical witness. In his later writings, however, Rosenzweig left aside explicitly philosophical issues and focused on the significance of biblical language. Rosenzweig’s “new thinking,” which he also called “speech thinking,” is not, Benjamin argues, about speech in general, but about the meaning and significance of biblical speech, a kind of “scriptural thinking.” The animating idea of Rosenzweig’s project was that a direct encounter with the biblical text as revelation, as Scripture, could provide a truth and meaning that Hegelian philosophy could not. Benjamin plays close attention to Rosenzweig’s use of biblical sources in Star and explains what this tells us about his thought. She argues that his use of biblical texts in Star does not resemble the classical Jewish genres of commentary or midrash, but rather constitutes a “rewritten Bible,” Geza Vermes’ term for ancient sources (like the Book of Jubilees) that retell biblical narratives and law. For example, Rosenzweig’s summary of revelation as God’s commandment to “love Me” is based not on a straightforward biblical quotation but rather on an amalgamation—a mash-up, if you will—of two biblical verses (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Exodus 20:2). Likewise, Rosenzweig placed the Song of Songs at the heart of his account of revelation not because he viewed it as a poetic metaphor for revelation at Sinai (as did the classical rabbis), but because he viewed the Song as a source of revelation itself. Indeed, Rosenzweig did not view revelation as a historical event at all, but rather as a universal event available to all humanity. The uniqueness of the Jewish people lays for him not in its historical presence at Sinai but rather in its continued attesting to the possibility of a revelatory encounter with God that can become available to the whole world. After Star, Rosenzweig engaged in a series of translation and educational projects that served to develop his scriptural thinking as a cultural politics for German Judaism. Translating Jewish texts into German not only made them accessible to German speakers...

Rewriting Prophets in the Corinthian Correspondence: A Window on Paul's Hermeneutic

Abstract Recent discussions of "rewritten Bible" have largely focused on generic characteristics that might define and hold together usefully a certain body of Jewish literature. But more profitable is a characterization of rewritten Bible that stresses the hermeneutical process that has produced a given "rewriting" of a biblical text. When appreciated, this way of considering rewritten Bible also provides a firmer basis for connecting these documents with Paul's letters and elucidating these letters' hermeneutics. For example, juxtaposing 1 Cor 1:31 and 2 Cor 10:17 with L.A.B. 50:2 and Tg. Neb. Jer 9:22–23 highlights the Corinthian letters' transformation of 1 Kgdms 2:10 and Jer 9:23 (MT, OG; English: v. 24) within the world-restructuring narrative of יהוה's acts in Jesus.

The Riverrun of Rewriting Scripture: From Textual Cannibalism to Scriptural Completion

Abstract To retain the concept of rewritten Bible as a scholarly category it is not only crucial to slightly change the name of the notion by re-designating it “rewritten Scripture” but also to accord the term the status of a cross-cultural third-order concept. This will allow research to detach the notion from its somewhat current “parochial” nature intrinsically linked as it is to the study of Second Temple Jewish literature. Rewritten Scripture should be conceived of as an excessive form of intertextuality that signifies the relationship existing between scriptural predecessor and rewritten piece with respect to the question of authority. Apart from advancing the theoretical discussion of the nomenclature, the essay takes a fresh look at a moot point that has loomed large in previous debates, whether rewritten Scripture strives to replace its scriptural predecessor or aims to complement it in an irenic fashion. The acknowledgement of some aspectualism grants legitimacy to both viewpoints, when they are rightfully understood within their proper perspectives. Finally, the article engages in typological considerations that will allow us to distinguish between three continua defined by respectively content, form, and function. Each constitutes a continuum on its own that advantageously may be segmented by several caesuras, which will allow us to differentiate between irenic scriptural completion at the one end of the spectrum and scriptural cannibalism at the other end of the spectrum. The fact that two works belonging to the category diverge on one continuum does not imply a corresponding divergence at other continua.

An imagined book gets a new text: Psalms of the Muslim David

Numerous Arabic manuscripts of the ‘Psalms of David’ contain not the biblical Psalms but Muslim compositions in the form of exhortations addressed by God to David. A survey of five manuscripts reveals that all such texts studied to date can be traced to two early source collections, whose contents were rewritten and expanded by three medieval authors and numerous copyists to produce four distinct texts in seven different recensions. These texts intersect with several types of literature: rewritten Bible, interreligious polemic, sermons, wisdom literature, divine sayings, law, Tales of the Prophets, and ‘dialogues with God’ (munājāt). They should be regarded not as polemical rewritings of the Bible, but as rewritten Qur'an, in which each author employs the idea of David and his Psalms to lend the authority of revelation to his own message.

Once More, with Feeling: Rewritten Scripture in Ancient Judaism—A Review of Recent Developments

Use of the term ‘Rewritten Bible’ or ‘Rewritten Scripture’ to describe a group or genre of ancient Jewish texts has proven to be a source of vigorous scholarly debate over the past two decades. While one might hope for this debate to bring a growing consensus and clarity to our use of ‘Rewritten Bible (or Scripture)’, this survey of three recent monographs dealing with texts characterised as such demonstrates the confusion and disagreement which remain. This article seeks to draw together the main threads of the debate, provide an assessment of the current status quaestionis , draw attention to lines for further enquiry, and propose possible ways forward for some of the issues surrounding the use of these terms. Ultimately it is argued that the term remains useful, but only if used in a relatively restricted sense.

ANTTI LAATO and JACQUES VAN RUITEN (eds), Rewritten Bible Reconsidered: Proceedings of the Conference in Karkku, Finland, August 24-26 2006 (Studies in Rewritten Bible 1).

ANTTI LAATO and JACQUES VAN RUITEN (eds), Rewritten Bible Reconsidered: Proceedings of the Conference in Karkku, Finland, August 24-26 2006 (Studies in Rewritten Bible 1).