Antiquitopia

            Continuing my pursuit of ancient quirks, I want to discuss the strange first-century interest in Moses’ beauty.   I have discussed it in Hebrews 11 and Acts 7, in Philo of Alexandria’s recounting, and now that other prominent first century Jewish writer: Josephus. Josephus picks up on this broader first-century promotion of the fine physique of Moses, but there are some major alterations, dislocations, and expansions.               To briefly recap, previous traditions directly relate Moses’ beauty at birth as the reason why his parents, particularly his mother, decided to save him from infanticide.   Although Acts 7:20 merely notes that Moses at birth “was beautiful (ἀστεῖος) before God,” Hebrews 11:23 reasons that, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful (ἀστεῖον)...

            I have been contextualizing treatments of Moses in the first to fourth centuries CE, particularly pertaining to his visions in early Christian sources (see my discussion here ):  particularly how those visions are alternatively highlighted, expanded, or suppressed and diminished in the sources--and why?  In order to do this, however, it is important to see what the earliest Christians' contemporaries were doing with Moses, how they were using his visions, promoting or suppressing them.  While the earliest Christians, represented in the NT, largely suppressed Moses' visionary abilities, later Christians sought to affirm and even expand them.  Many Jewish (and don't forget Samaritan) trends in the first to fourth centuries also sought to expand what Moses saw and heard on the mount.  Josephus, however, proves to be more exceptional in this regard.       ...

I have been fascinated with the traditions of Moses in the first to fourth centuries CE lately.  In connection with my "Christian Moses" project, I have been reading up on how his reputation developed in contemporary sources.  For this, there are many important scholarly works, but perhaps one of the most helpful ones in considering his broader significance in the ancient world is John Gager's Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism .  Of any figure from the Jewish tradition, Moses was the best-known to outsiders.  And while many erudite Greeks and Romans (and Egyptians) tended to refer to Moses as a lawgiver (usually as one inferior to Plato, among others), perhaps the most widespread view of Moses was that of a magician.  He is invoked among the Greek and Demotic magical papyri as an authority--sometimes works are written in his name (such as the much under-studied Eighth Book of Moses) or his name is invoked in surviving amulets because it was thought to have power in ...

            As I am reading Philo for reading his discussions of Moses’ visions, I cannot but help return to this strange little obsession of mine with Moses’ “beauty” (ἀστεῖος).   In a previous post (from February--wow how time flies), I discussed the terminology and usage in the New Testament (Acts 7 and Hebrews 11).  There I had some helpful comments, and I have looked up how this little verse in Exod 2:2 has been re-interpreted by Rabbis, Josephus, and, here Philo.  It is time to put this into a little bit of context.                Naturally, one turns to Philo’s Life of Moses , although the terminology appears elsewhere.    In this work it appears in the following passages: Now, the child from his birth had an appearance of more than ordinary goodliness (ἀστειοτέραν), so that his parents as long as they could actually s...

I have been working through the different references to Moses in the New Testament for an upcoming project.  While there are some well-worn topics discussed by scholars (Jesus as a prophet like Moses; which, from the other perspective, makes Moses a Proto-Christ; Moses as faithful servant; etc.), I was struck by a detail--one of the smallest of details--that shows up in the Acts of the Apostles in Stephen's speech and again in the Epistle to the Hebrews.  Acts 7 and Hebrews are often discussed together, particularly for their rather similar views of the temple and the notation of Moses making the tabernacle "according to the pattern" shown to him--used in both texts to suggest a temple not made with hands and that God does not dwell in hand-made temples. But there is another detail that I had not previously considered about Moses they share:  his beauty.  When Stephen begins his discussion of Moses (which takes up about half of his speech), he states: At this tim...

I am participating in a conference at Union Theological Seminary this Thursday on "See the God." I am speaking on ancient, with an emphasis on late ancient Judaism. Here is a talk-teaser: There is an uncritical assumption that often circulates in scholarship and popular belief that Judaism is a religion of hearing to the exclusion or ignoring of seeing. This assumption operates by pointing to Jewish aniconism and reducing Jewish encounters with the divine to the Deuteronomistic emphasis on audition. Did not God say that humans could not see God—or literally God’s face—and live (Exod. 33:20)? Nonetheless, this reductive maneuver ignores the rich ambivalences of the Bible and later Jewish views concerning whether and how one can see God and live. Some follow Exod. 33:20 and categorically claim its impossibility. In this case, numerous intermediary figures fill the ocular gap, allowing appearances of aspects of God—like God’s Memra, Shekhinah, Glory, or even God’s tefilli...

In Exod. 33:20, the LORD famously tells Moses, "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live." Moses then is allowed to see God's backside (v. 23). One might compare Exod. 3:6 where Moses is afraid to look at God. Recently I was asked if I would write up a little piece on seeing God in late antique Judaism. It is quite a broad topic, and, of course, should I take up the task I will be looking at some of the Hekhalot texts. But my mind also began buzzing about something else--I wonder how Rabbinic literature, particularly the Targumim and the Midrashim, handle these passages of seeing God and living or not living. That is, even though we have this passage of God telling Moses no one can see the LORD's face and live (although perhaps God's backside), there are plenty of passages where people do see God's face and live--even Moses himself. God says he speaks to Moses face-to-face in Num. 12:8 (as opposed to everyone else to whom he speaks in dr...

As I continue to work through my chapter on Hebrews, I am always struck by a certain productive ambiguity the homilist often exploits. One ambiguity is in a passage that I often just pass over in chapter 11. Indeed, the style of hall of faith of Hebrews 11 often makes my eyes glaze over, although I recognize the rhetorical effectiveness of its genre. Nonetheless, this time I was struck by the following line (11:27): πίστει κατέλιπεν Αἴγυπτον μὴ φοβηθεὶς τὸν θυμὸν τοῦ βασιλέως, τὸν γὰρ ἀόρατον ὡς ὁρῶν ἐκαρτέρησεν. By faith he left Egypt not fearing the anger of the king, for as seeing the invisible he endured. Immediately, I read this in two ways. Because of Moses' paradoxical vision of the invisible (i.e., God), he endured Pharaoh's anger. The vision gave him the strength or ability to endure. The other reading is that he endured the rare and frightening vision of God, the very sight of whom kills (since one cannot see God and live). Indeed, in Hebrews, as far as I have...

I am continuing my review of Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel . I am dividing the rather lengthy first chapter into three posts (and they themselves are a bit long). You can see my introductory remarks here . Chapter 1 consists of a barely revised version of his booklet from ten years ago, also from Eerdmans (and even with the same cover design), entitled, God Crucified . In the first third of this chapter, he discusses ancient Jewish "monotheism," something that will be elaborated in chapters 2 and 3. He argues that the key issue for understanding New Testament Christology is Second Temple monotheism. He gives two views of monotheism among modern scholars: “strict” and “revisionist.” In the former, Jesus cannot be divine in a Jewish context—Jesus’ divinity threatens monotheism. In the latter, there is a denial of any strictness to monotheism: categories of being between human, angelic, and divine are all blurry (blurred by principle angels, exalted...

So, I am currently working on my Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice chapter, and anyone who has read the Songs might be struck by how the Songs take aspects of theophanies and descriptions of the temple and the throne/chariot from a wide variety of sources and bring them together. Ezekiel has long been recognized as a formidable influence, but I have been arguing that Exodus 25-30, while often recognized as an influence, is just as formidable if not more so than Ezekiel in terms of imagery, precise language, and partially for the structure of the latter half of the Songs--and even responsible for the idea of seeing the heavenly sanctuary on the Sabbath. Nonetheless, this organization, imagery, and language is enriched from a large variety of sources. The question then becomes: what does this synthesis mean? I came to my own conclusion long ago, but in my current reading I found my sentiments echoed by Philip Alexander: The author(s) of the Sabbath Songs assumed that Moses, Ezekiel, Da...

hmmm...maybe I should start collecting these...

I wonder how many times Moses had to hear, "Are we there yet?" in forty years of wandering...but this is almost as bad: