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The Jewish Roots of Christology: The Discovery of the Hypostatic Voice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

J. H. Charlesworth
Affiliation:
Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

Extract

The Christian canon contains only two apocalypses: the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse of John. Today no less than 19 apocalypses and closely related documents are gathered together in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 volumes; Garden City, New York, 1983–1985). In light of these apocalypses and apocalyptic writings new possibilities for interpreting the documents in the New Testament can be seen. Only one example can be chosen now; it is a significant one, revealing the indebtedness of the Apocalypse of John to the continuum of Jewish apocalyptic thought and clarifying the roots of Christology in Early Judaism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1986

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References

page 20 note 1 G. Mussies points out that in contrast to Classical Attic in which ὃστις, ἣτις and ὃτι introduce essentially relative clauses, ἣτις in Apjn 1.12 ‘introduces dispensable remarks’ (p. 174). He, of course, is referring to what is essential grammatically or conceptually, not narratively or theologically. See Mussies, , The Morphology of Koine Greek as Used in the Apocalypse of St John (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 27; Leiden, 1971), p. 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 21 note 2 See Glasson, T. F., The Revelation of John (The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible; Cambridge, 1965), pp. 1921Google Scholar.

page 21 note 3 See the commentary on the Jerusalem Bible by Fiorenza, E. Schüssler, Invitation to the Book of Revelation (Garden City, New York, 1981), pp. 5153Google Scholar.

page 21 note 4 Caird, G. B., The Revelation of Si John the Divine (Harper's New Testament Commentaries; New York, London, 1966), p. 23Google Scholar.

page 22 note 5 See the commentary on the Revised Standard Version by Collins, A. Yarbro, The Apocalypse (New Testament Message 22; Wilmington, Delaware, 1979)Google Scholar. Unfortunately Yarbro Collins does not comment on the meaning of the voice; but she does state astutely, that ‘the content of the revelation is not so much what is seen as what is said by the revealing figure, Christ’ (p. 10). As I shall attempt to show, ‘the Voice’ is depicted by the author of the apocalypse as the Son of Man; hence like Sophia it is Christianized.

page 22 note 6 Caird, Revelation, pp. 23–26.

page 22 note 7 Ford, J. Massyngberde, Revelation (The Anchor Bible; Garden City, New York, 1975), p. 384Google Scholar.

page 22 note 8 Beasley-Murray, G. R., The Book of Revelation (New Century Bible; Greenwood, South Carolina, 1978), p. 65Google Scholar.

page 22 note 9 Kiddle, M., The Revelation of St John (The Moffatt New Testament Commentary; New York, London [1940]), p. 11Google Scholar.

page 23 note 10 Charles, R. H., The Revelation of St John (2 vols.; International Critical Commentary; Edinburgh, 1920; reprinted 1963–1966), vol. 1, p. 25Google Scholar. G. Quispel and A. F. Johnson present admirable literal translations; but neither comments on the meaning of seeing the Voice. See Quispel, , The Secret Book of Revelation (London, 1979), pp. 3637Google Scholar and Johnson, , The Expositor's Bible Commentary, ed. Gaebelein, F. E. (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1981), vol. 12, pp. 425426Google Scholar.

page 24 note 11 Translated by E. Isaac in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (OTP), vol. 1, p. 20.

page 24 note 12 I am grateful to discussions on the Septuagint with Piet van der Horst.

page 24 note 13 I am indebted here to conversations with George MacRae.

page 25 note 14 J. Neusner translates as ‘an echo’; see his ‘The Heavenly Echo’, in From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism (New York, 1979 2), pp. 129132Google Scholar.

page 25 note 15 Neusner, From Politics to Piety, p. 131.

page 26 note 16 The Hebrew of Tosephta Sotah 13.3 Zuckermandel, M. S. (ed.), Tosephta (Jerusalem, 1970 [New Edition]), pp. 318319Google Scholar.

page 26 note 17 According to Epstein, I. (editor and translator), The Babylonian Talmud (London, 1938), vol. 3, p. 41Google Scholar.

page 26 note 18 See the discussion by Urbach, E. E., The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Abrahams, I. (Jerusalem, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 578579Google Scholar and vol. 2, p. 950 nn. 30 and 33. Also see Liebermann, S., Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York, 1950), p. 249Google Scholar. On the Holy Spirit see Schäfer, P., Die Vorstellung vom Heiligen Geist in der Rabbinischen Lileratur (Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 28; Munich, 1972)Google Scholar.

page 26 note 19 See Stinespring, W. F., ‘No Daughter of Zion: A Study of the Appositional Genitive in Hebrew Grammar’, Encounter 26 (1965) 133141Google Scholar.

page 26 note 20 See the discussion in Hengel, M., Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period, trans. Bowden, J. (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1974), pp. 214215Google Scholar.

page 27 note 21 A handy guide to the passages is ‘Parole (Memra)’, in Déaut, L., Targum du Pentateuque (5 vols.; Sources Chrétiennes 245, 256, 261, 271, 282; Paris, 1978–1981), vol. 5, pp. 9192Google Scholar. Also, see J. B. von Zijl, A Concordance to the Targum of Isaiah (SBL Aramaic Studies 3; Missoula, Montana, 1979), p. 101.

page 28 note 22 Borgen, P., ‘The Logos’, in ‘Philo of Alexandria’, in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Stone, M. E. (Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, section 2, vol. 2; Assen, Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 273274Google Scholar.

page 28 note 23 See Urbach, , The Sages, vol. 1, p. 63.Google Scholar

page 28 note 24 Urbach, , The Sages, vol. 1, p. 40.Google Scholar

page 29 note 25 Translated by MacRae, G. W. and edited by Parrott, D. M., published in The Nag Hammadi Library, ed. Robinson, J. M. (New York, London, 1977), p. 272.Google Scholar

page 30 note 26 Translation mine; text from Ginsburger, M. (ed.), Das Fragmententhargum (Thargum jeruschalmi zum Pentateuch) (Berlin, 1899), p. 5.Google Scholar

page 30 note 27 Ginsburger, M. (ed.), Pseudo-Jonathan (Thargum Jonathan ben Uriel zum Pentateuch): Nach der Londoner Handschrift (Brit. Mus. Add. 27031) (Berlin, 1903Google Scholar; reprinted by O1ms in 1971), p. 6.

page 30 note 28 The text is from Sperber, A. (ed.), The Bible in Aramaic: Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts (Leiden, 1959), vol. 1, p. 4Google Scholar. Compare the minor orthographic variants in Berliner, A. (ed.), Targum Onkelos (Berlin, London, 1884), first part, ad loc.Google Scholar

page 30 note 29 Macho, A. Diéz (ed.), Neophyti l: Targum Palestinense MS de la Biblioteca Vaticana (Madrid, 1968), vol. 1, p. 15Google Scholar. 1 am grateful to private discussions on the Targumim with Professor R. Chestnutt.

page 31 note 30 The translation is essentially that by S. Agourides in OTP, vol. 1, p. 610.

page 32 note 31 The Greek is from Wahl, O. (ed.), Apocalypsis Esdrae, Apocalypsis Sedrach, Visio Beati Esdrae (PVTG 4; Leiden, 1977) ad loc.Google Scholar

page 32 note 32 See the contribution on the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah by Knibb, M. in OTP, vol. 2, pp. 143476.Google Scholar

page 33 note 33 See the publications by Henrichs, A., Koenen, L., and Rudolph, K., listed in Cameron, R. and Dewey, A. J. (editors and translators), The Cologne Mani Codex (P. Colon inv. nr. 4780): ‘Concerning the Origin of his Body’ (SBL Texts and Translations 15, Early Christian Literature Series 3; Missoula, Montana, 1979), p. 6Google Scholar. I am persuaded that the Apocalypse of Shem is Jewish and predates Mani primarily because it is quoted and is free of any Manichaean phrases. The tradition may have been obtained through oral traditions, and it is possible that the document never evolved into a written form.

page 33 note 34 The Greek is taken from the edition by Cameron and Dewey, just cited.

page 33 note 35 My translation is influenced by that of Cameron and Dewey.

page 34 note 36 See t he comments in OTP, vol. 1, p. 683.

page 34 note 37 Old Church Slavonic: glasŭ, ‘voice, word, utterance’. In Old Church Slavonic there is no determinative particle, no definite article; hence either ‘a voice’ (with Rubinkiewicz and others) or ‘the Voice’. The latter possibility has not been considered by translators or commentators (there is presently no commentary on the Apocalypse of Abraham). For the Slavonic see Philonenko-Sayar, B. and Philonenko, M. (editors and translators), L'Apocalypse d'Abraham: Introduction, texte slave, traduction el notes (Semitica 31; Paris, 1981), p. 54.Google Scholar

page 34 note 38 The translation is that by R. Rubinkiewicz and revised by H. G. Lunt; it is published in OTP, vol. 1, p. 693. I have capitalized ‘voice'; in OTP the editorial policy was to avoid capitalization, whenever possible. Obviously my concern here is appreciably different. Versification is according to the OTP. Verse 10 is my own translation.

page 35 note 39 See the discussion in Charlesworth, , ‘The Slavic Pseudepigrapha’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament (SNTS Monograph Series 54; Cambridge, London, New York, 1985), pp. 3236.Google Scholar

page 35 note 40 The Syriac is from Charlesworth, (editor and translator), The Odes of Solomon: The Syriac Texts (SBL Texts and Translations 13, Pseudepigrapha Series 7; Chico, California, 1977) ad loc.Google Scholar

page 36 note 41 Philo appears to argue against a voice that is hypostatic. He claims that ‘it is not the nature of voice to be visible’ and that references to the voice being visible (, De Migratione Abrahami 50) as in Exodus 20.18 [LXX] are to be explained as the voice of God ‘interpreted by the power of sight residing in the soul’ (, De Mig. Ab. 49). The Voice may well be hypostatic not only in the apocalypses but also in Stoicism, in Kore Kosmu 23.10, and in Aeschylus' Prometheus 21 (φωνν … ὂψη) and in Plutarch (esp. Moralia 592), but obviously here I cannot exhaust a study of the concept of the Voice in antiquity. Josephus may have known about the tradition of a Voice; see his avoidance of and his preference for θεα φων (cf. esp. Ant. 1, 185).

page 36 note 42 Brackets mine. See Henning, W. B., ‘The Book of the Giants’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11 (1943) 5274CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cf. esp. p. 65. Like the Apocalypse of Shem, this section of the Book of the Giants is preserved in a Manichaean text. Compare this fragment of the Book of the Giants with the fragment found ostensibly in Cave IV; see Milik, J. T., with Black, M. (editor), The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford, 1976), esp. see pp. 306307.Google Scholar One has to resist the temptation to see the hypostatic word in possible passages; the word is not hypostatic, for example, in Aristobulus (Fragment 3), in John 12.28–30, or in Mark 9.6 and parallels.

page 37 note 43 I am convinced that the same author wrote Chapters 1–3 and 4–22.

page 37 note 44 See the excellent introduction to and translation of the Testament of Abraham by E. P. Sanders in OTP, vol. 1.

page 39 note 45 The preoccupation of the serpent and the woman leads A. Yarbro Collins away from discussing the significance of the Earth. See her The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (Harvard Dissertations in Religion 9; Missoula, Montana, 1976).Google Scholar

page 38 note 46 By far the best discussion of φων that I have seen is by ProfessorBetz, Otto in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Friedrich, G., translator and editor: Bromiley, G. W. (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1974; reprinted 1981), vol. 9, pp. 278301.Google Scholar He even sees the parallels between the heavenly voice and the Bath Qol; but he sees only the redactional work of the author of the Apocalypse of John, suggesting only that the speaker is the Son of Man.

page 38 note 47 It is possible the voice from heaven mentioned in Acts 10 was seen in some Christian circles as the Voice. Also, there may be some link with the traditions about a hypostatic Voice in Mark 1.11 and 9.2 (and parallels) and 2 Peter 1.18. In Acts 9, however, the voice belongs to Jesus.

page 39 note 48 J. T. Sanders correctly perceived the process of hypostatization that clearly antedates the Apocalypse of John. See his The New Testament Chriswlogkal Hymns: Their Historical Religious Background (SNTS Monograph Series 15; Cambridge, 1971), esp. pp. 5057.Google Scholar

page 39 note 49 R. Bultmann correctly argued that the Logos of John's prologue inherits the essence and function of Sophia in the Wisdom literature. See his ‘Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs zum Johannes-Evangelium’, in Eucharisterion: Festschrift für Hermann Gunkel, ed. Schmidt, H. (Göttingen, 1923), vol. 2, pp. 126.Google Scholar Also, see the judicious study of Wisdom Christology by Dunn, J. D. G. in Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Philadelphia, 1980), esp. p. 164.Google Scholar

page 40 note 50 I agree with C. Rowland who concludes that the ‘vision of Christ in Rev. i. 13ff. demonstrates that the theological possibilities of angelology for Christological exposition were being explored at a very early stage, ideas which were taken up by later writers dependent on the Jewish apocalyptic tradition as a Christological tool of considerable potential’ (p. 11), See Rowland's, The Vision of the Risen Christ in Rev. i. 13ff.: The Debt of an Early Christology to an Aspect of Jewish Angelology’, The Journal of Theological Studies N.S. 31 (1980) 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 40 note 51 H. M. Parker rightly points to the abundance of pseudepigraphical material in the Apocalypse of John. See his The Scripture of the Author of the Revelation of John’, Iliff Review 37 (1980) 3551.Google Scholar