King and Messiah, Chapter 4, Part 2

The Similtudes of Enoch

In this text is found the “most important and extensive portrayal of a figure called “Son of Man,” . . . apart from Daniel 7.” Collins first deals with authorship and dating of this work. He attributes the Similtudes to a Jewish author writing between 40–70 ce. A Christian author, he argues, would have applied to the title to Jesus (which does not happen), and a Jewish author, if he were writing after 70 ce would certainly have avoided use of “Son of Man,” since it was commonly used by Christians (e.g., in the Gospels) in describing Jesus.

At any rate, what is most pertinent about the Similtudes’ characterization of the “Son of Man” is, first, its portrayal of him as preexistent in a way “typical in pre-Christian Judaism . . . of wisdom.” Moreover, the “Son of Man,” though not said to originate from David, “takes over the functions of the Davidic king vis-à-vis the nations.” In other words, he is enthroned and acts as “the eschatological judge.” Collins points out that despite the fact the “Son of Man” is not also called the “Son of God,” he is angelic and yet, on account of his enthronement, clearly holds authority beyond that given to most angels.

4 Ezra 13

A final text of importance is the apocalypse known as 4 Ezra. Collins highlights the language in the third vision within this work as key for his theme:

Then after seven days I had a dream in the night. I saw a wind rising from the sea that stirred up all its waves. As I kept looking, that wind brought up out of the depths of the sea something resembling a man and that man was flying with the clouds of heaven. . . .

Since the work only exists in translations, and not in the original Semitic, we do not have access to the original words. Collins, however, suggests that “the original may have read ‘Son of Man,” but contends that even if it didn’t, “it is clearly adapting and reworking Daniel’s vision.” Within this vision, the man rising out of the sea occupies the “role traditionally ascribed to the messianic king.” Though the elements, such as sea and clouds, function differently than they do in Daniel’s vision, nevertheless the author of 4 Ezra is appropriating them self-consciously and giving them a creative reinterpretations.

Conclusion

Reflecting on The Similtudes and 4 Ezra, Collins does find points of departure: “The one is a warrior, concerned with the restoration of Israel. The other is a judge, enthroned in heaven, who does not appear on earth at all.” However, it is still the case that both “identify him with the messiah, and describe his role in terms usually applied to the Davidic messiah, although they understand his role in different ways.”

Collins finds in these texts a tendency to see the messiah as preexistent, and as a heavenly figure. He points out, crucially, that there “was evidently no orthodoxy, and only limited consistency, in the ways in which the messiah might be imagined.” Countless texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, in ruminating on the Davidic messiah, say nothing about his divine status, while texts such as those just discussed speculate “about heavenly deliverers” in a way typical of the period and literature. To Collins:

“In the context of first-century-ce Judaism, it is not surprising or anomalous that divine status should be attributed to someone who was believed by his followers to be the messiah. At the same time, it should be noted that neither the king in ancient Judah nor the messiah in most instances was the object of worship.”

The Exploding Wolf in Romans 7

Michael Bird proposes a delightful anology for the Romans 7 struggle over at Euangelion. I, like Bird, see Romans 7 as providing a description of Paul's pre-Christian condition, rather than, as we hear so often in the pulpit, the struggle inherent to the Christian condition.

Read Bird's "Exploding Wolf" analogy here.

King and Messiah, Chapter 4, Part 1

Collins begins Chapter 4, “Messiah and Son of Man,” by discussing and eventually dismissing the notion of some scholars that lying behind Jewish conceptions of the “Son of Man” was a myth of Iranian origin. While advocates of this view believe the “Jewish conception of ‘the Son of Man’ was a ‘Jewish variant of this oriental, cosmological, eschatological myth of Anthropos [Gk, “Man”],” adapted and transformed, Collins has a different explanation. He credits instead the creative forces of Jewish reflection on and exegesis of Daniel’s vision (Dan. 7). In elaborating on this thesis Collins discusses several key writings: (1) Daniel 7, (2) 11QMelchizedek, (3) The Simultudes of Enoch, (4) and 4 Ezra 13.

Daniel 7

Here Collins summarizes his views presented elsewhere. The “son of man” (7:13) is the archangel Michael (see Dan. 10–12). The images surrounding the ancient of days and the frightening natural attending him and the son of man’s coming represent “old mythic traditions that derive from pre-Israelite, Canaanite roots.” Collins seems to endorse the scholarly view that the “one like a son of man” was not “originally meant to be identified with the messiah.”

11 QMelchizedek

This text, part of the Melchizedek scroll found in Qumran, bears witness to a deliverer figure and thus captures Collins’s attention. The scroll brings together various passages from the OT in midrashic form. Most interesting is one particular point where the reconstructed text has been rendered “Your god is Melchizedek.” Collins admits that this is a “bold reconstruction” but finds support for it in the fact that “Melchizedek had already been identified with the Elohim, or God, of Psalm 82.” Collins argues that in this scroll Melchizedek appears as an angelic figure. At the same time, he is “the paradigmatic priest-king.” The relevance of this work for the present book’s purposes is, according to Collins, that it “shows the growing interest in imagining a savior figure who was divine in some sense, while clearly subordinate to the Most High, and the attempt to ground such a figure in innovative interpretation of traditional texts.”

Nuclear Forebodings

Here's an interesting article, "No Nukes," by Steve Coll in The New Yorker. Ever since his Ghost Wars, I've been a big fan.

Jewish Associations

In an interesting article in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, David Instone-Brewer and Philip Harland tackel the issue of "Jewish Associations in Roman Palestine." It is well established that across the Greco-Roman world there existed associations, organized around such identity markers as occupation, geographical region (of residence or of origin), ethnicity, etc. The members of these associations would typically celebrate their membership with meals and, oftentimes, drinking parties that followed. Brewer and Harland point out that each of these associations would invariably perform their activities in honor of a particular god(s), so it is unhelpful to designate a religious grouping as a separate type of association. 

 To this point, however, little attention has been devoted to studying the extent to which Jews in Palestine (Roman-occupied, of course) themselves congregated together as associations. It is well known that they did elsewhere throughout the Mediterranean world. (In fact, "in many cases and in several respects, Jewish gatherings or synagogues would be viewed as associations . . . by their neighbours and by any local or imperial authorities, and may have often understood themselves as such.") But what of closer to home? Brewer and Harland argue on the basis of Mishnah passages which detail particular customs that must be observed in group dining arrangements that Jews in fact did form relations according to the common (Greco-Roman) custom of associations. 

About Greco-Roman Associations

--They tended to be small gatherings of b/w 15 to 30 members

--Would gather together for meals and drinking parties

--Was common to gather on the occasion of a festival for a god or goddess

The authors of this article argue against traditional scholarly positions that most associations experienced little or no interference from the Roman authorities. This goes for those Jewish associations in Palestine, as well. Rather than employing an empire-wide policy governing the establishment, proliferation, and day-to-day operation of associations, Roman officials tended to deal with individual assocations on an ad hoc basis. Some associations, for example, would try to curry favor with a particular official and in turn might win special recognition from Rome as well as attendant privliges

Brewer and Harland's discussion of the Mishnaic evidence is interesting. They argue that the the rabbis used the term chavurah to mean "association," and this encompassed meeting "for a Passover meal, . . . a peace offering on a high festival day . . . , orfor unspecified ceremonial meals . . . , including ones on a Sabbath." In short, the rabbis were applying the Greco-Roman concept of associations to the observance of their own particular holy days and festivals. Without going into detail about all the rules the rabbis laid down for proper associational gatherings, they did put a high premium(among other things) on separation, as when various associations were meeting in the same hall, and membership and registration, which Brewer and Harland hypothesize received its initial importance from desire by Roman authorities to know who was involved in various--potentially revolutionary--groups.

One last point of interest. Brewer and Harland note that the rabbis in the Mishnah specified that in the eating of the various festival or holy meals members must situate themselves in a reclining positions. The archaeological and literary evidence of the Greco-Roman world attests to the existence and use of triclinia (triclinium, sing.), or C-shaped "couches." The Jews, perhaps, also made use of these. The would allow for members to face inward toward the food placed on a table in the center and thus not be contaminated through interaction with other associational groups using the same hall. Anyhow, lying down while eating--as we see that Jesus and his disciples did during the Passover feast--was to be the proper position of reverance and respect. However, the Jews likely picked up this custom from their Greco-Roman environment rather than inheriting it from their ancestors (though the authors note that the rich among the Jews had likely emulated this for centuries). In fact, as Brewer and Harland note, earlier in their tradition, the prophet Amos had railed against reclining thus at dinners, probably because it suggested undue opulence and mimickry of unrighteous foreign neighbors.

King and Messiah as Son of God, Chapter 3, part 2

Ok, it's been a while. Let's pick up again with King and Messiah as Son of God. I'm realizing that reviews/summaries should be written as soon as possible after reading the works to which they correspond. Next time I'll do that and hopefully save myself some rereading.

Turning to the Septuagint in his investigation of the portrayal of messiah in the Hellenistic Period, Collins asks whether “the translators ever enhance the claims of the king/messiah to divine status, or show influence from the Hellenistic cults?” Little evidence from the Pentateuch would seem to support such a judgment, but Collins maintains that the LXX renderings of the Psalms and prophets provide suggestive evidence.

LXX

Psalms 45. Collins concludes that the translator was not importing into this psalm a notion of the king’s divinity. Rather, when it comes both to (1) addressing the king as “God” in verse 6 and (2) and offering the psalm to Agapeitos—a word “used for . . .  ‘only begotten,’ in Genesis 22 and elsewhere”—the translator is likely faithfully reproducing the original meaning of the Hebrew. What this may show us in both instances is that the translator, perhaps because of the “influence of the Hellenistic ruler cults,” was not uncomfortable with the attribution of divinity to the king. 

Psalm 110 (LXX 109). Again, Collins points out the LXX translator’s lack discomfort translating the Hebrew word into Greek as “I have begotten you” (see LXX 109:3). He also finds significant the alteration of “holy,” singular in the Hebrew, to “holy ones,” plural in the LXX, and suggests that it represents an attempt to associate the messiah with angelic beings, similar to the “depiction of Melchizedek . . . as a heavenly being in the Melchizedek scroll from Qumran.”

Psalm 72:17 (LXX 71:7). Following Volz, Collins suggests that the neutral Greek (LXX) rendering of the Hebrew term meaning “before the sun” should be taken in a temporal sense, implying “the preexistence of the name of the messiah.” The original Hebrew, though not often taken this way, at least allows this interpretation as well.

 Isaiah 7:14, 9:6. Though he clearly believes the child mentions in Isa 7:14 was the offspring of the king or a prophet, meaning that his mother was not a “virgin” in the modern sense of the word, Collins nonetheless finds it striking that the LXX translator uses the word parthenos to render the Hebrew word often translated as “virgin.” Though even parthenos does not necessarily imply a woman who has not had sexual relations, it is not the word usually employed to translate the word we find in the Hebrew version of this verse. I’m guessing here that Collins is merely proposing that the translator was ascribing a miraculous significance to the woman and her giving birth. In the latter part of the prophecy, the translator renders “mighty God” as either “messenger” or “angel” of great counsel. Collins opts for the latter and suggests that “this is not so much a demotion as a clarification of his [the messiah’s] status in relation to the Most High.”

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Collins draws attention to the so-called “Son of God” text from Qumran. In 4Q246 there appears “a figure who is called ‘son of God’ and ‘son of the Most High,’ using Aramaic phrases that correspond exactly to the Greek titles given to Jesus in the Gospel of Luke 1:32–35.” Though some argue that this reference is in fact a negative one, that is, describing a personage inimical to the community at Qumran, Collins concludes that “4Q246 is most plausibly interpreted as referring to a Jewish messiah,” arguing sensibly that “Luke would hardly have used the Palestinian Jewish titles with reference to the messiah if they were primarily associated negatively with a Syrian king [as is suggested by some].” Collins finds in this text many analogies to Daniel and is thus tempted to draw parallels between this “son of God” figure and the “one like a son of man” in the earlier work, but expresses caution on this front, as there are many differences as well—not least of which is that the vision is “that of a king rather than of a visionary like Daniel.”

Collins concludes this chapter with the reminder that “more important than the putative influence of the ruler cults [on the conceptualization of messiah] is the tendency that we have noted in a few passages in the LXX to attribute to the messiah preexistence and angelic status.”