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Did the Spirit Withdraw from Israel? An Evaluation of the Earliest Jewish Data1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
The view that the Holy Spirit as the source of prophecy was believed by Jews during the tannaitic period to have withdrawn from Israel, to return only in the eschatological future, is built upon a pastiche of texts: Ps 74.9; 1 Macc 4.46, 9.27 and 14.41; Josephus's Ap. 1.37—41; 2 Apoc. Bar. 85.3; Pr Azar 15; and t. Soṭa 13.2—4. On the basis of such texts, E. Sjöberg referred to ‘a widespread theological conviction’ about the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit and J. Vos to ‘die verbreitete Tradition’. C. K. Barrett quoted G. F. Moore approvingly: ‘The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prophecy … The Holy Spirit is so specifically prophetic inspiration that when Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the last prophets, died, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel.’ W. D. Davies suggested cautiously, after a thorough analysis of the data, ‘… we may now assume that Paul was reared within a Judaism which, to use very moderate language, tended to relegate the activity of the Holy Spirit to the past’. G. W. H. Lampe generalized, ‘In the main, the Spirit continues to be thought of as being, pre-eminently, the Spirit of prophecy, manifested in the distant past in such great figures as Elijah (Ecclus. 48.12) or Isaiah (vs. 24), but which was now no longer present in Israel.’ J. Jeremias subtitled section nine of his New Testament Theology ‘The Return of the Quenched Spirit’, and
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References
2. ‘Πνεûμα’, TDNT 6.385.Google Scholar
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17 Biblical translations, including Apocrypha, are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise stated.
18 See Kirkpatrick, A. F., The Book of Psalms (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1902) 439–42Google Scholar; Tate, M. E., Psalms 51–100 (Word Biblical Commentary 20; Waco, TX: Word, 1990) 247.Google Scholar
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25 This interpretation is borne out by the simplicity of the language of 1 Macc 9.27. The verb, ϕθη, which refers elsewhere in 1 Maccabees to the appearances of Judas (4.6) and a military detachment (4.19), is employed similarly here of the non-appearance of a prophet at a particular point in time rather than to the ceasing of prophecy for all time.
26 Josephus, (Ant. 13.5Google Scholar) omits this reference to a prophet in his version: ‘After this calamity had befallen the Jews, which was greater than any they had experienced since their return from Babylon …’
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35 Translations of 2 Baruch by Klijn, A. F. J. in Charlesworth, J. H., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983) 1.621–52.Google Scholar
36 This conviction is encapsulated in 54.15: ‘although Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment. And further, each of them has chosen for himself the coming glory.’
37 Meyer, , TDNT 6.815.Google Scholar
38 ‘Why Prophecy Ceased’, 40.
39 Before embarking upon our analysis, we ought to recognize the perennial problem of dating rabbinic material. Strack, H. L. and Stemberger, G. (Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991] 176Google Scholar) place the final redaction of the Tosefta in the later third or fourth centuries. Its reliability as a source for understanding the first century CE, therefore, is dependent in part upon the existence of prior texts which share its perspective. I have attempted to demonstrate in part two that no such firm evidence of this viewpoint antedates the Tosefta itself. Therefore, even if t. Soṭa 13.2–4 supported the alleged dogma of the permanent withdrawal of the prophetic Spirit, its usefulness for interpreting the New Testament would be limited.
40 Unpublished translation of E. M. Meyers. Other translations of the Tosefta, unless otherwise specified, are from Neusner, J., The Tosefta, Translated from the Hebrew: Third Division Nashim (The Order of Women) (New York: Ktav, 1979)Google Scholar. Hebrew citations and the translations of Meyers and myself are based upon Zuckermandel, M. S., Tosephta: Based on the Erfurt and Vienna Codices, with Parallels and Variants (2nd ed. with a ‘Supplement to the Tosephta’ by Liebermann, S.; Jerusalem: Bamberger & Wahrmann, 1937).Google Scholar
41 TDNT 6.816. Similarly Horn, F. W., ‘Holy Spirit’, Anchor Bible Dictionary 3.263–4.Google Scholar
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43 Translation mine.
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47 Translation from Danby, H., The Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University, 1933) 446.Google Scholar
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50 E.g., 1QH 12.11–12; 13.19; 14.25.
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54 Lev Rab. 21.8.
55 J. Soṭa 1.4.
56 7. Ŝeb. 9.1.
57 T.Pesah. 1.27.
58 Der Geist Gottes im Neuen Testament (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1926) 118.Google Scholar
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61 ‘Das Dogma’, 290.
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63 TDNT 6.816. For criticism of this view, see Barton, , Oracles of God, 112–15.Google Scholar
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66 Mek. Beshallah 7. Translation from Lauterbach, J. Z., Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael: A Critical Edition on the Basis of the Manuscripts and Early Editions with an English Translation, Introduction and Notes (3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1933–1935) 1.252.Google Scholar
67 Parallel texts in b. Soṭa 48b, b. Sanh. 11a, b. Yoma 9b, and j Soṭa 9.17, where there is likewise no indication that the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit was believed to be permanent.
68 See, for example, Meyers, E. M., ‘The Crisis of the Mid-fifth Century B.C.E., Second Zechariah and the “End” of Prophecy’;, in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. Wright, D. P., Freedman, D. N., Hurvitz, A.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995) 713–23.Google Scholar