The Significance of Sinai: Traditions About Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity (Themes in Biblical Narrative)

401 Pages·2008·2.39 MB·English

by  George J. Brooke

The Significance of Sinai
THEMES IN
BIBLICAL NARRATIVE
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS
Editorial Board
GEORGE H. VAN KOOTEN, Groningen
ROBERT A. KUGLER, Portland, Oregon
LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, Durham
Assistant Editor
FREEK VAN DER STEEN
Advisory Board
REINHARD FELDMEIER, Göttingen – JUDITH LIEU, Cambridge
FLORENTINO GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, Groningen-Leuven
HINDY NAJMAN, Toronto
MARTTI NISSINEN, Helsinki – ED NOORT, Groningen
VOLUME 12
The Significance of Sinai
Traditions about Sinai and Divine Revelation in
Judaism and Christianity
Edited by
George J. Brooke, Hindy Najman and
Loren T. Stuckenbruck
Editorial Assistance
Eva Mroczek, Brauna Doidge and Nathalie LaCoste
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
Cover illustration from: Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal, Minhagim-Book
of Venice, 1593.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LC Control No.: 2008038904
ISSN 1388-3909
ISBN 978 90 04 17018 6
Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Editorial Statement ..................................................................... vii
Introduction ................................................................................ ix
Some Unanticipated Consequences of the Sinai Revelation:
A Religion of Laws ................................................................. 1
James L. Kugel
“Fire, Cloud, and Deep Darkness” (Deuteronomy 5:22):
Deuteronomy’s Recasting of Revelation ................................ 15
Marc Zvi Brettler
Priestly Prophets at Qumran: Summoning Sinai through the
Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice ...................................................... 29
Judith H. Newman
Moving Mountains: From Sinai to Jerusalem ............................ 73
George J. Brooke
Moses, David and Scribal Revelation: Preservation and
Renewal in Second Temple Jewish Textual Traditions ......... 91
Eva Mroczek
The Giving of the Torah at Sinai and the Ethics of the
Qumran Community .............................................................. 117
Marcus Tso
Josephus’ “Theokratia” and Mosaic Discourse: The
Actualization of the Revelation at Sinai ................................ 129
Zuleika Rodgers
Why did Paul include an Exegesis of Moses’ Shining Face
(Exod 34) in 2 Cor 3? ............................................................. 149
Moses’ Strength, Well-being and (Transitory) Glory,
according to Philo, Josephus, Paul, and the Corinthian
Sophists
George H. van Kooten
vi contents
In the Mirror of the Divine Face: The Enochic Features
of the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian ................................ 183
Andrei Orlov
Torah and Eschatology in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch .......... 201
Matthias Henze
Can the Homilists Cross the Sea Again? Revelation in
Mekilta Shirata .......................................................................... 217
Ishay Rosen-Zvi
Hearing and Seeing at Sinai: Interpretive Trajectories ............ 247
Steven D. Fraade
The Giving of the Torah: Targumic Perspectives .................... 269
Charles Thomas Robert Hayward
God’s Back! What did Moses see on Sinai? .............................. 287
Diana Lipton
Sinai in Art and Architecture .................................................... 313
David Brown
Sinai since Spinoza: Reflections on Revelation in Modern
Jewish Thought ....................................................................... 333
Paul Franks
Index of Modern Authors ......................................................... 355
Subject Index .............................................................................. 363
Index of Primary Texts .............................................................. 368
EDITORIAL STATEMENT
Themes in Biblical Narrative publishes studies dealing with early inter-
pretations of Biblical narrative materials. The series includes congress
volumes and monographs.
Publications are usually the result of a reworking of papers pre-
sented during a TBN-conference on a particular narrative, e.g. the
Balaam story, or a specific theme, for instance: ‘clean and unclean’ in
the Hebrew Bible, or: ‘the ru’ah adonai and anthropological models
of humanity’.
Having treated the basic texts for this narrative or theme, other
contributions follow its earliest interpretations and receptions through-
out the subsequent phases of ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and
if appropriate Islam. Also studies which illuminate the successive
inculturations into the various Umwelts—the Ancient Near East, the
Graeco-Roman World—are included. Extensions to modern Bible
receptions and discussions of hermeneutical questions are welcomed,
if they are related explicitly to the study of early receptions of Biblical
texts and traditions.
Contributions to the series are written by specialists in the relevant
literary corpora. The series is intended for scholars and advanced
students of theology, linguistics and literature.
The series is published in co-operation with the University of Groningen
(The Netherlands), Durham University (United Kingdom), and Lewis
& Clark College (USA). It includes monographs and congress volumes
in the English language, and is intended for international distribution
on a scholarly level.
More information on the series http://www.xs4all.nl/~fvds/tbn/

INTRODUCTION
In July 2007 a group of us gathered at the Department of Theology
and Religion in the University of Durham to discuss “The Giving
of the Torah at Sinai.” Contributors had been solicited to investigate
the centrality of the theme in biblical, extra-biblical, rabbinic, early
Christian, artistic and later philosophical depictions. Many of the con-
ference participants anticipated a three-day long discussion of Sinai as
the paradigm for all other revelation. The assumption was that Sinai
would then come to be seen all the more clearly as the exclusive and
normative model for subsequent revelation in Judaism, whether as
the basis for the authoritative extrapolation of what had taken place
there or as the touchstone for any claim to revelatory experience of
the divine. For non-Jewish traditions one could well expect that Sinai
was the defining moment for revelation and covenant-making. Thus we
imagined that our conference in Durham and our subsequent volume
would be a work that would discuss Sinai as a paradigm for imagining
all subsequent revelations in Judaism and Christianity.
However, somewhat to the surprise of the editors of this volume,
the papers that were delivered at the conference and that have eventu-
ally been revised for inclusion in this volume did not focus exclusively
on the centrality of Sinai. Neither did they all argue that Sinai was
the paradigmatic revelatory event. Instead, what emerged were very
nuanced discussions of the various ways in which Sinai was not cen-
tral or privileged, but rather relativized amongst many other examples
of revelation in the history of ancient Judaism and beyond. This was
true in discussions of Qumran literature, in analyses of the writings
of Philo and Josephus, in expositions of tannaitic midrash, in fresh
readings of the targums, and so on. The openness and willingness of
the participants in the symposium to reconsider longstanding presup-
positions is what intrigued many of us and will probably surprise our
readers as well.
The essays presented here provide glimpses of how in antiquity
and more recently some Jews and Christians sought to rewrite or even
replace the moment of Sinai with other important moments of revela-
tion and communication with the divine. In this it seems in particular
that the location of revelation was seen as less and less significant; until