Table Of ContentFigures who Shape Scriptures, Scriptures that Shape Figures
Deuterocanonical and
Cognate Literature Studies
Edited by
Friedrich V. Reiterer, Beate Ego, Tobias Nicklas and
Kristin de Troyer
Volume 40
Figures who Shape
Scriptures, Scriptures
that Shape Figures
Essays in Honour of Benjamin G. Wright III
Edited by
Géza G. Xeravits and Greg Schmidt Goering
ISBN 978-3-11-058646-6
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-059637-3
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-059309-9
ISSN 1865-1666
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
Contents
Preface vii
Bibliography of Benjamin G. Wright III (1984–2017) xi
Part 1: Figures
Emanuel Tov
Moses in the Septuagint 3
Kristin De Troyer
Adding Profile to Moses and Joshua
The First Revision of the Book of Joshua 21
Jeremy Corley
No Small Difference When Introducing Samuel in Sirach 46:13 30
József Zsengellér
David in the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum
Reshaping the Contemporary Cultural Memory 56
Géza G. Xeravits
The Reception of the Figure of David in Late Antique Synagogue Art 71
Matthew Goff
A New Suggestion Concerning the Enigmatic Elioud of the Book of the
Watchers 91
Greg Schmidt Goering
Simon and the Actualization of Wisdom in the Jerusalem Temple 105
Part 2: Scriptures
Samuel L. Adams
The Book of Ruth as Social Commentary in Early Judaism 127
vi Contents
Ibolya Balla
Glimpses into Ben Sira’s Society
With a View to the Connections between Ben Sira and Amos 140
Bradley C. Gregory
Exemplars of Humility and the Discourse of Authority in Second Temple
Judaism
A Comparison of Sirach and the Community Rule 151
Eric D. Reymond
Gibberish?
Sir 4:14 in Ms A I (T-S 12.863) Verso, Line 4 164
Tobias Nicklas
Die Idee von „Geschichte“ im 2. Makkabäerbuch 178
Sean A. Adams
Where’s Rome?
A Possible Roman Parallel to the Translation of the Septuagint in the Letter
of Aristeas 197
Barbara Schmitz
King and God
Conceptions of Rule and God in 3 Maccabees 211
List of contributors 231
Index 233
Preface
Benjamin G. Wright, III, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of
Religion Studies, Lehigh University, launched the public portion of his aca-
demic career in 1979, with a research report to the Philadelphia Seminar on
Christian Origins on “The Figure of Phineas in Philo.” In 2019, then, one year
from the publication of the present volume, Ben will have completed four dec-
ades of a still unfinished yet already remarkable scholarly career. So it is fitting,
as Ben reaches this forty-year milestone in his career—as well as his sixty-fifth
birthday in January 2018—to pause and reflect on the impact of Ben’s life and
work as a scholar, teacher, mentor, and mensch.
Ben’s scholarly writing treats a wide range of subjects in the history and re-
ligion of early Judaism and Christianity through the end of the first century CE.
His repertoire revolves primarily around two gravitational centers: Hellenistic
Jewish literature from the Second Temple Period—especially Jewish wisdom
literature—and issues of translating Jewish literature from Hebrew into Greek.
These two interests took shape during his doctoral work in Christian Origins at
the University of Pennsylvania, under the direction of Robert Kraft. His disserta-
tion—completed in 1988 and published as No Small Difference with Scholars
Press the following year—on translation technique in the book of Sirach took up
the thorny problem of the relationship between the grandson’s Greek transla-
tion and its supposed Hebrew vorlage. The project was pioneering for at least
two reasons. First, Ben’s dissertation was one of the earliest to analyze ancient
texts by means of computers. Using digital texts from the newly established
Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies (CATSS) project, he compared
the Greek versions of Sirach to the Hebrew versions and to other Greek transla-
tions of the Bible on a scale nearly impossible to achieve without these new
computational tools. Second, he demonstrated that Ben Sira’s grandson used a
relatively free translation technique. This suggests that modern scholars, con-
trary to prevailing assumptions, cannot responsibly use the Greek texts of
Sirach to reconstruct an original Hebrew parent text, especially when the He-
brew is missing or uncertain. Nearly thirty years after the dissertation’s publica-
tion, Sirach scholars are still absorbing and wrestling with the implications of
Ben’s doctoral research.
Ben’s publishing since his first monograph has proceeded at a dizzying
pace. As of this writing, he has seven books in print, with two additional book-
length commentaries on Sirach underway. In addition to No Small Difference, he
has published a commentary on the Letter of Aristeas; a book on The Apocry-
phal Ezekiel, with Michael Stone and David Satran; a collection of his own es-
viii Preface
says on Sirach, Aristeas, and the Septuagint; two edited volumes of essays; and
a translation of the Septuagint, coedited with Albert Pietersma. In addition, Ben
has written more than seventy scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals and
edited volumes, numerous scholarly notes, more than thirty encyclopedia arti-
cles, numerous introductions or commentaries on ancient works in handbooks
of various kinds, and more than sixty book reviews. Perusing Ben’s curriculum
vitae, I am struck by the number of multi-author projects on which Ben has
collaborated, a testament to his unusual collegiality.
Ben has become especially renowned as a scholar of Sirach. In addition to
his first book, he has published dozens of scholarly articles on the text. The
choice of Ben to write both the Hermeneia and the Society of Biblical Literature
(SBL) commentaries on Sirach testifies to his status as the foremost expert on
the subject, not only in North America but also in the entire world. The breadth
of his impact, however, extends well beyond Sirach scholarship. Ben’s volumi-
nous scholarly corpus has deepened and broadened our understanding of a
wide range of issues regarding the Septuagint, Jewish wisdom literature, and
translation technique. His recently published and erudite commentary for de
Gruyter on the Letter of Aristeas—the first ever complete and comprehensive
commentary on the work—demonstrates a depth of understanding both of the
Letter itself as well as of the broad Greek literary context in which it belongs. His
extensive scholarly work on the Septuagint and on translation issues crystalized
practically in the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), which Ben
co-edited, and for which Ben provided the translations for Sirach and The Epis-
tle of Ieramias. The achievement represents the first complete translation of the
Septuagint into a modern language since the 19th century. A second edition of
the NETS is underway. Ben’s work on the Septuagint has promoted a sea change
in scholarship: from viewing the Septuagint primarily for its value to text critics
as a witness to the earliest Hebrew Bible manuscripts, to seeing it as a corpus
that helps us understand Hellenistic Judaism. In sum, Ben has contributed pro-
foundly to our understanding of early Jewish wisdom and other Hellenistic lit-
erature, scribal culture, translation and transmission practices, pseudepi-
graphic habits, Jewish identity, the role of sacred texts, among other topics.
Beyond his own scholarly writings, Ben has played an outsized role in fos-
tering the scholarship of others. His impact on the field includes his extraordi-
nary roles as Editor and Associate Editor for the Journal for the Study of Judaism
Supplements monograph series, Co-Editor in Chief for the SBL Commentary on
the Septuagint, Area Editor for The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception,
member of the editorial board for the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Series at de Gruyter, Secretary, Vice-President, and President of the Executive
Preface ix
Committee of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Stud-
ies, member of the editorial boards of numerous journals, and for his service on
various program units of the SBL. In addition, he has mentored numerous
graduate students, serving as an external reader or examiner on at least five
dissertation committees, quite an achievement for someone who teaches in an
undergraduate program. Without exhausting his role in fostering the scholar-
ship of others, I will mention one final contribution: informally mentoring
young scholars in the field. Many of my colleagues and I have personally bene-
fitted from Ben’s guidance in many ways, large and small, from phone consulta-
tions, to commenting on draft articles, from constructive criticism of presenta-
tions, to engaging us in conversations over meals and drinks. All of the ways in
which Ben has fostered the scholarly pursuits of others points to his selflessness
and generous spirit.
Finally, those of us fortunate enough to have known Ben personally recog-
nize that his talents transcend his scholarly endeavors. In addition to his excep-
tional scholarship, Ben has excelled as a hockey coach and musician. He has
coached middle school, youth travel, high school, and college hockey teams. At
Lehigh University, he has served as Head Coach, Associate Head Coach, or Fac-
ulty Advisor to the school’s Division 1 club team for more than 10 years, where
the Eastern Collegiate Hockey Association conferred upon him its first ever
Coach of the Year Award in 1999. As an ardent guitarist and singer, Ben has
performed in the past with several bands. He now plays a gig every now and
then, or just for fun with friends. He even travels to conferences with his guitar,
where he entertains colleagues after long days of intellectual exchange. He once
built his own guitar. These personal achievements, alongside his academic
ones, highlight the extraordinary human being who is Ben Wright.
This volume is the brainchild of Géza Xeravits, who proposed the project to me
and invited me to co-edit it with him. It was an invitation I could not decline.
Given Ben’s work on the transmission and translation of biblical traditions dur-
ing the Second Temple period, we settled on the leitmotif of figures and scrip-
tures, a theme Ben has worked on since his very first academic presentation on
Phineas in 1979.
Throughout early Judaism runs a continuous conversation with great fig-
ures of Israel’s past. In some cases, such as pseudepigraphic compositions,
texts evoke famous figures as an authoritative imprimatur for the anonymous
author’s own ideas. In other cases, texts uphold figures as exemplars or as re-
presentations of foundational experiences. On the one hand, existing traditions
about these figures influenced the ways in which later authors formulated their
x Preface
teachings and helped readers to understand their message. Figures of the past
thus influenced many early Jewish writings. On the other hand, these writings
influenced the contemporary understanding of these figures. Such writings
actively reshaped more than the narratives about these figures; they also re-
made their characters.
The papers of the volume investigate how authoritative figures in the Sec-
ond Temple Period and beyond contributed to forming the Scriptures of Juda-
ism, as well as how these Scriptures shaped ideal figures as authoritative in
Early Judaism. The topic of the volume thus reflects Ben’s research, who—
especially with his work on Ben Sira, on the Letter of Aristeas, and on various
problems of authority in Early Jewish texts—creatively contributed to the study
of the formation of Scriptures, and to the understanding of the figures behind
these texts. With great pleasure, we dedicate this volume to Ben as a token of
our gratitude for the scholarship, mentoring, and friendship he has offered to all
of us so graciously.
Greg Schmidt Goering
Charlottesville, Virginia
Hanukkah 5778/Advent 2017
