[JSP 19 (1999) 103-128]

FROM POETRY TO HISTORIOGRAPHY: THE IMAGE OF THE HASMONEANS IN CANTICLES AND THE QUESTION OF THE TARGUM’S PROVENANCE AND DATE

Philip S. Alexander

Department of Religions and Theology, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, England

The Structure and Argument of Targum Canticles Targum Canticles 6.7-121 offers an intriguing evaluation of the Has- monean period of Jewish history, which when analysed and placed in its historical and literary context may help us to date and localize the Targum, and to clarify its relationship to the rabbinic traditions of apoc- alyptic and historiography. In order to understand the full significance of this section of the Tar- gum it is necessary first to consider its function within the structure and argument of the Targum as a whole. Close readers of Targum Canticles have usually sensed a profound unity in the work. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, this unity—which is reflected in the almost total absence of any substantial textual variants in around 100 manuscripts from all over the Jewish world—is so profound that this Targum, un- usually, must have had a single author, and that it has not been tam- pered with to any significant degree since it left his hands.2 Yet the overall structure of the Targum has proved to be somewhat elusive.

1. For a translation of the text see Appendix A. 2. P.S. Alexander, ‘Tradition and Originality in the Targum of the Song of Songs’, in D.R.G. Beattie and M. McNamara (eds), The : in their Historical Context (JSOTSup, 166; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 318-39 (336). 104 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999)

Loring3 analysed it into an ingenious schema organized around the recurrent themes of God’s choice of Israel, Israel’s apostasy and the means by which atonement was affected between God and Israel. Thus 1.4, from Egypt, represents God’s choice of Israel; 1.5, the episode of the Golden Calf, represents Israel’s apostasy, which is fol- lowed immediately in the same verse by a reference to the construction of the , the instrument in this case by which Israel was reconciled to God. There can be no doubt that the Targumist detected a pattern of communion, estrangement and reconciliation running through the history of Israel’s relationship to God, and that this pattern, conse- quently, recurs fairly often in his text as he recounts Israel’s history. But the pattern is not repeated with the regularity that Loring supposes. His detailed schema breaks down: sometimes the element asserting God’s choice of Israel appears to be missing, or the means by which the atonement is achieved is not stated. And, at several points, he clearly forces the sense of the Targum to make it fit the pattern. Schneekloth,4 following a proposal of Leon Liebreich,5 attempted to show that the Targumist himself has actually indicated the structure of his work by his strategic placing of the rubrics ‘ the prophet said’ and ‘King Solomon said’ (1.2; 1.17; 2.8; 7.2; 7.7; 8.5; 8.13). However, again the result is not entirely convincing: some of Schneek- loth’s sections extend over several chapters (Section 3 = 2.8–7.1), while others cover only a few verses (Section 4, a ‘Sermon’ = 7.2-6). A third attempt to clarify the structure of the Targum was offered by Raphael Loewe,6 who suggested that it should be seen, ‘without incongruity’, as having a ‘symphonic construction’. He divides it into five movements, the first running from 1.2 to 3.6, the second from 3.7 to 5.1, the third from 5.2 to 6.1, the fourth from 6.2 to 7.11 and the fifth from 7.12 to 8.14. The musical analogy is helpful in that it reminds us of the high

3. Richard T. Loring, The Christian Historical Exegesis of the Song of Songs and its Possible Jewish Antecedents: A Chapter in the History of Interpretation (ThD, General Theological Seminary: New York, 1967), chapter 2. 4. Larry G. Schneekloth, ‘The Targum of the Song of Songs: A Study of Rab- binic Bible Interpretation’ (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1977), pp. 284- 94. 5. L.J. Liebreich, ‘The Benedictory Formula in the Targum to the Song of Songs’, HUCA 18 (1944), pp. 177-98 (182). 6. Raphael Loewe, ‘Apologetic Motifs in the Targum of the Song of Songs’, in A. Altmann (ed.), Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 169-73. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 105 artistry of the Targum, and it allows us to play with its ‘anticipations’ (e.g. the messianic reference at 1.17) and its ‘flashbacks’ (e.g. the refer- ence to the division of the kingdom after Solomon’s death in 8.11-12) in aesthetic terms. But it rather falls down because Loewe fails to demonstrate that his individual movements have any kind of inner musi- cal structure, and consequently he fails to justify his division of the Targum as a whole into five movements. No rigid schema can or should be imposed on the Targum for two reasons. First, for all its freedom, the interpretation of the Targumist is constrained by the underlying biblical text. There had to be a more or less plausible correlation between the text and the interpretation: the Targumist is fastidious in this regard. He was further limited by the fact that he imposed upon his interpretation a broadly chronological frame- work. To a certain extent he had to get his correspondences between the text and history as best he could, and this may sometimes have forced him to take events somewhat out of sequence, or to omit elements that he might ideally have liked to include. Secondly, however, I doubt that the Targumist would have wanted to impose a rigid, repetitive schema on his work. He was too much of an artist to do so. The more pre- dictable the text the duller and less artistically pleasing it would have become. If we are to try to catch the elusive form of the Targum through a musical analogy, then I would suggest that the programmatic tone poem, rather than the classical symphony, would be the more appropriate comparison.7 The unity of the work is essentially deter- mined by the repetition of certain motifs and themes, rather than by a regular or formal structure. Only when we identify those motifs and clarify the Targum’s theological programme will we be able to discern its structure. The dominant theme of the Targum is the theme of exile. The Tar- gumist writes with an acute sense of the pain of exile and with a deep longing for redemption. Exile and redemption for him are not personal but national: it is the condition of his people and his nation that con- cerns him. Exile for him means the loss of statehood and the absence of the Shekhinah; redemption means the return to the ancient homeland,

7. The tone poem, also known as the symphonic poem, is a development of the classical symphony, in which the boundaries between the distinct movements have been dissolved, and the overall structure of the composition is looser and more impressionistic. 106 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) the rebuilding of national institutions—especially the Temple—and the restoration of the Shekhinah to the Temple.8 Time and again the Targumist specifically identifies idolatry as the cause of the exile, and the term clearly has a special significance for him. Thus in his account of the wilderness wanderings he stresses the sin of the Golden Calf. He represents Israel as saying to the nations: Do not despise me because I am darker than you, because I did what you did and bowed down to the sun and the moon. For it is the false prophets who have caused the fierceness of the Lord’s anger to be visited upon me. They taught me to serve your idols and to walk in your laws. But the Lord of the World, who is my own God, have I not served, nor followed his laws, nor kept the commandments of his (1.6). , foreseeing on the point of death the future exile of the people, says to God: It has been revealed before me that this people will sin and go into exile. Now tell me how they will be provided for and how they will settle among the nations whose decrees are as harsh as the scorching heat of the noonday sun at the summer solstice, and why they should wander among the flocks of and Ishmael who associate with you their idols as [your] companions? (1.7). Idolatry is probably for him a code-word for assimilation in to the surrounding culture: he seems to be witnessing in his own milieu a loss of communal identity, a breaking down of the barriers between the Jew- ish community and the non-Jewish world, and perhaps widespread apos- tasy. His account of the Amalek incident is suggestive in this regard: After they had crossed the sea they murmured for water, and wicked Amalek came against them, who bore a grudge against them on account of the birthright and the blessing which Jacob had taken from Esau. He came to wage war against Israel because they had ceased to observe the words of Torah. And wicked Amalek was stealing from beneath the wings of the clouds of glory souls from the tribe of Dan, and was killing them, because they had in their hands the idol of Micah (2.15). Amalek here, the descendant of Esau, surely stands for Christianity, and what the Targumist fears is apostasy: note how Amalek steals souls

8. For references to the theme of exile in the Targum see 1.4; 2.8; 5.2, 4, 6-7; 7.11-12; 8.14. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 107 from ‘beneath the wings of the clouds of glory’, a reversal of the lan- guage of conversion to , by which proselytes are described as coming ‘under the wings of the Shekhinah’. The Targumist emphasizes that it was ‘the mixed multitude’ that made the Golden Calf (1.9 and 1.12), and he praises the chasteness of the women of Israel in a way that suggests that he may be concerned about intermarriage (4.12).9 The redemption of Israel, according to the Targumist, will be achieved through prayer and study. Prayer and study protect Israel in exile: Michael the Prince of Israel will say: If she [i.e. Israel] stands firm like a wall among the nations, and gives her silver to buy the unity of the Name of the Lord of the World, then we, you [the other angels] and I [Michael], along with their scribes, will surround her with ramparts of silver, so that the nations have no power to rule over her, just as the moth has no power to rule over silver. And even if she is poor in precepts, we will intercede for her before the Lord, and He will remember for her the merit of the Torah which the children study, which is written on the tablet of the heart and [which] stands like a cedar against the nations (8.9). Prayer and study are also the sign of repentance and hasten the com- ing of the Messiah: The Children of Israel say to one another: Let us rise early in the morn- ing and let us go up to the Synagogue and the House of Study. Let us search in the Scroll of the Torah and see whether the time of redemption has come for the people of the House of Israel (who are compared to the vine), when they will be redeemed from their exile. Let us ask the Sages whether the merit of the righteous, who are as full of precepts as pome- granates, is revealed before the Lord, and whether the time has come to go up to , there to give praise to the God of heaven, and to offer burnt offerings and holy sacrifices (7.13; cf. 7.14). Thus for the Targumist two institutions, both of them essentially exilic in character, are of paramount importance—the Synagogue and the House of Study—but of these two the House of Study receives more attention. This is hardly surprising: given that he was deeply learned and most certainly a product of the schools, the Targumist naturally favours the Rabbinic institution. He refers to it under the titles of the House of Study, the , the College and the .

9. For other references to idolatry in the Targum see 1.5; 2.15, 17; 5.3. 108 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999)

The relationship of the Sanhedrin to the Temple is somewhat proble- matic in his thinking. The Temple is clearly also an important insti- tution for him: it is the place where the Shekhinah is manifested, and he spends a great deal of time glorifying its worship, but in many ways he implies that the Sanhedrin has priority. He introduces the Sanhedrin anachronistically into his account of the period of the First Temple (see, e.g., 4.1). He assigns to the Sanhedrin the sort of cosmic importance that was traditionally assigned to the Temple. The Head of the College and the collectivity of the Sages have the same salvific role as pillars of the world that in other texts are played by the High Priest and the priesthood (7.3; cf. 5.15). Indeed one gets the impression that in his mind Tabernacle and Temple on the one hand are not clearly distin- guished from the College on the other. Thus when the Messiah comes, the will go up with him to Jerusalem, but it will be to hold a Shi‘ur, and the Shi‘ur will take place in the Temple: And at that time the King Messiah will be revealed to the Assembly of Israel, and the Sons of Israel shall say to him, Come, be a brother to us, and let us go up to Jerusalem and suck out with you the principles of the Torah, just as an infant sucks the breast of its mother. For all the time that I was wandering outside my land, when I was mindful of the Name of the Great God and gave up my life for His divinity, even the nations of the earth did not despise me. I will lead you, O King Messiah, I will bring you up into my Temple, and you will teach me to fear the Lord and to walk in his ways (8.1-2).10 The merits of the Scholars and the Sages acquired through their devo- tion to the study of the dual Torah protect Israel and hasten the redemp- tion (cf. 8.9 quoted above). The doctrine of merits is central to the theology of the Targumist. It is the means by which the Targumist explains God’s gracious and beneficent actions towards his people. The merits of the Patriarchs, and interestingly also of the Matriarchs, come in at key points, especially the merit of the Aqedah: King Solomon said: When the people, the House of Israel, were dwelling in Egypt, their complaint went up to the heavens above. Behold, then the glory of the Lord was revealed to Moses on Mount Horeb, and He sent him to Egypt to deliver them and to bring them out from the oppression of the tyranny of the Egyptians, and he leaped over the [appointed] time on account of the merit of the Patriarchs who are likened to mountains,

10. For other references to the Sanhedrin/College and the study of the Torah in the Targum see: 1.7-8, 10; 2.4-6; 3.4; 4.4, 9, 13-15; 5.10-13; 6.2, 5; 7.1; 8.7, 13. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 109

and He jumped 190 years over the time of slavery on account of the righ- teousness of the Matriarchs who are compared to hills (2.8). When God wanted to destroy Israel for the sin of the Calf, it was the merit of the Aqedah that saved them: At once the Lord said to Moses: Go, descend, for your people have be- haved corruptly. Let me be, that I may destroy them. Then Moses turned and pleaded for mercy before the Lord, and the Lord remembered for them the Binding of , whose father Abraham bound him on Mount Moriah upon the altar, and the Lord turned from his anger and caused his Shekhinah to dwell among them as before (1.13). Daniel also, and Óananiah, Mishael and , acquired merit for Israel, and their merit is compared with that acquired by Abraham: The Lord said through his Memra: I will go up and test Daniel, and I will see if he is able to withstand this testing, as Abraham his forefather, who resembles a palm-branch, withstood ten trials. And I will also prove Óananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and if they are able to withstand their tests, I will, on account of their meritorious deeds, redeem the people of the House of Israel, who are compared to bunches of grapes. And the name of Daniel, Óananiah, Mishael and Azariah will be heard through- out the land, and their scent will spread like the scent of the apples of the Garden of Eden (7.9). Daniel and the Three Hebrew Children were particularly useful to the Targumist, because they represented Jews who in the condition of exile had resisted idolatry, even to the point of being willing to sanctify the name of God. They introduce a note of martyrdom—a theme that is also traditionally linked to the Aqedah.11 The final major motif of the Targumist is messianism. Targum Canticles is an intensely messianic document. The Messiah is alluded to throughout the work, and the final section is a scenario of the mes- sianic age which includes such elements as the restoration of the Tem- ple, the resurrection of the dead and the ingathering of the exiles, the wars of Gog and Magog and the messianic banquet. It is interesting how often the Targumist warns his readers against forcing the redemp- tion: it is study of the Torah and the merits of the Sages and the Fathers that will bring the redemption, not taking up arms against the enemies of Israel.

11. For other references to the doctrine of merits in the Targum see: 1.9; 2.17; 3.6. 110 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999)

The King Messiah will say: I adjure you, O people of the House of Israel, not to attack the nations of the world, in order to escape from exile, nor to rebel against the hosts of Gog and Magog. Wait a little till the nations that have come up to wage war against Jerusalem are destroyed, and after that the Lord of the World will remember for your sake the intercessions of the righteous, and it will be His good pleasure to redeem you (8.4). The same point is made by the account of the premature exodus of the Sons of Ephraim from Egypt: Moses, the teacher of Israel, opened his mouth and thus said: I adjure you, Congregation of Israel, not to presume to go up to the Land of Canaan, until it should be the will of the Lord and until that generation, the men of war, perish utterly from the midst of the camp—as your brothers, the sons of Ephraim presumed when they went out of Egypt 30 years before the [appointed] time had arrived, and they fell at the hands of the who dwelt in Gath, and they killed them. Rather wait out the period of forty years, and after that your sons will enter and pos- sess the (2.7; cf. 3.5). There seems to be an urgency about these injunctions, which suggests that the Targumist lived at a time of messianic fervour, when there was a real danger that zealots would take up arms against the nations in order to bring in the messianic deliverance.12 These themes—exile, idolatry, the centrality of the Sanhedrin and the study of Torah, the doctrine of the merits of the Patriarchs and Sages and messianism—are the leitmotivs of Targum Canticles and bind the work together into an artistic and theological unity. They also help us to segment the text into its main sections. The opening three verses of ch.Ê1 form an introduction to the work. Verse 1.1 gives a version of the of the Ten Songs. This involves an exegesis of the words shir ha-shirim, which takes them to imply that there were several songs (the Targumist identifies 10 in all—the number of completeness), and that the Song of Songs is ‘the most excellent of them all’. The Midrash of the Ten Songs also helps to establish the historical perspective of the Targum, since the songs are seen as reprising the history of the world from the creation to the consummation. It further establishes the cen- trality of messianism to the Targum: the tenth song will be the march- ing song of the returning exiles in the messianic age. Canticles is the ninth song: the history of the world has run much of its course; the

12. For other messianic references in the Targum see: 1.7-8; 4.5; 7.4; 8.2, 8, 12- 13. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 111 messianic redemption is at hand. Verses 1.2-3 are, as Liebreich pointed out,13 an opening benediction typical of liturgical texts. Verses 8.13-14 are a messianic peroration, again typical of liturgical texts. The remaining text, constituting the body of the work, can be orga- nized into three large sections, each beginning with an exile, leading to an exodus and culminating in an occupation of the Land, the building of the Temple, the establishment of the kingship and the abiding of the Shekhinah in the midst of the people. The first runs from 1.4 to 5.1 and covers the exile in Egypt, the exodus from Egypt, the wilderness wan- derings and the giving of the Torah on Sinai, the entry into the Land, and climaxes with the building of the Temple under Solomon and the descent of the Shekhinah. The second section runs from 5.2 to 7.10 and covers the exile in Babylon (and Assyria), the exodus under Cyrus, the return to the Land, the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of the Shekhinah. The climax of this section is the restoration of statehood under the Hasmoneans, a point to which I shall return later. The final section runs from 7.11 to 8.12 and covers the exile in Edom (i.e. prob- ably Christendom, but see below), the exodus when the Messiah comes, the return to the Land, the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of the Shekhinah. Thus the history of Israel is seen as following the pat- tern of estrangement from God, reconciliation and communion—three exiles (Egypt, Babylon and Edom), three exoduses (under Moses, Cyrus and the Messiah), culminating in three Jewish States (under Solomon, the Hasmoneans and the Messiah). And in each of the three main sec- tions of the work the major theological themes which I identified earlier are introduced in a variety of ways; they drive home the message of the book and bind it into a unity.14

The Treatment of the Hasmoneans This analysis of the structure and argument of the Targum brings its treatment of the Hasmoneans into sharp focus. On the very face of it Targ. Cant. 6.7-12 depicts the Hasmoneans in a positive light, but the

13. L.J. Liebreich, ‘The Benedictory Formula in the Targum to the Song of Songs’, HUCA 18 (1944), pp. 177-98. 14. The broad historical schema of the Targum is similar to that of the hymn Ma‘oz Íur by Mordechai ben Isaac (before 1250), which is part of the Ashkenazi liturgy for Óanukkah. For the text see, e.g., S. Singer, The Authorized Daily Prayer Book (London: Centenary Edition, 1992), pp. 708-710. 112 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) account becomes even more positive when seen within the overall struc- ture of the work. In the Targumist’s scheme of Jewish history the Has- moneans balance the period of Solomon on the one hand, and the period of the Messiah on the other. They mark a high-point, charac- terized by righteousness, fidelity to the Torah, political independence and a properly functioning Temple graced by the Shekhinah, that matches the peaks achieved in the Solomonic and Messianic eras. The account is certainly lacking in detail. The only Hasmonean mentioned by name is Mattathias, and the Greek king against whom he fought is bizarrely identified as Alexander,15 but the general message is clear. The Hasmoneans were a ‘royal house’, and thus entitled to the kingship. Mattathias was a legitimate high priest. His sons were also righteous, and the people under their rule enjoyed a period of unusual felicity. Such a positive evaluation is rather surprising. In this section of his ‘history’ the Targumist cannot rely on biblical sources, but antecedent rabbinic traditions on the Hasmoneans, at least as found in the major rabbinic writings, hardly give grounds for such extreme optimism. There are a fair number of references in and Midrash to the Has- moneans, but they are frequently ambivalent, to say the least, and many are downright hostile.16 There was a rabbinic tradition that the Has-

15. JTSA 478 reads Antiochus instead of Alexander, but this is a secondary correction. The Targumist has probably muddled up the tradition of ’s visit to Jerusalem with the attack on the city by the forces of Antiochus. For Alexander’s visit see , Ant. 11.329-39; b. Yom. 69a; Scholion to Meg. Ta‘an., H. Lichtenstein (ed.), ‘Die Fastenrolle’, HUCA 8Ð9 (1931Ð32), pp. 339-40; Sefer Yosippon 10, David Flusser (ed.), The Josippon [Josephus Gorionides]: Edited with an Introduction, Commentary and Notes (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1981), I, pp. 54-60; Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah 2, G.D. Cohen (ed.), The Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah) by (Philadelphia: Jewish Pub- lication Society of America, 1967), Hebrew section, p. 11. 16. See Appendix B. See also J. Derenbourg, Essai sur l’histoire et la géogra- phie de la Palestine d’après les Thalmuds et les autres sources rabbiniques (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1867); G. Alon, ‘Did the Jewish People and its Sages Cause the Hasmoneans to Be Forgotten?’, in idem, Jews, Judaism and the Classical World (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977), pp. 1-17; M.J. Geller, ‘ and the Pharisee Rift’, JJS 30 (1979), pp. 202-11; J. Nadich, Jewish Legends of the Second Commonwealth (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), pp. 61-86; J. Efron, Studies on the Hasmonean Period (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987), esp. pp. 143-218; S.J.D. Cohen, ‘Parallel Historical Tradition in Jospehus and Rab- binic Literature’, in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, I (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986), Division B, pp. 7-14. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 113 moneans had usurped the high priesthood and that King Yannai (Alex- ander Jannaeus) had massacred the Sages. This comes out in the well- known story in b. Qid. 66a, which tells of how Yannai invited the Sages to celebrate with him a great military victory. The celebration is marred when a ‘scoffing, worthless fellow’ called ben Po‘irah tells Yannai that the Pharisees are secretly against him. ‘How can I tell?’ inquires the king. Eleazar advises Yannai to don the High Priest’s turban,17 and when he does so, an aged Pharisaic sage, Judah ben Gedi- diah, exclaims, ‘The crown of royalty should suffice you! Leave the crown of the high priest to the descendants of !’ He cites as grounds for this claim the rumour that Yannai’s mother had been cap- tured in Modi‘im: he was therefore of tainted lineage and unfit to be high priest.18 The charge having been investigated and found not proven, Yannai again asks Eleazar’s advice: ‘Trample them down’, he says, that is, destroy them utterly. ‘But what will happen to the Torah?’ Yannai asks. Eleazar replies that ‘the Torah is bound up and placed in a corner. Anyone who wants can come and learn.’ So, because of Elea- zar’s evil counsel, the story concludes, all the Sages of Israel were mas- sacred and ‘the world was desolate until Shim‘on ben Sheta˙ came and restored the Torah to its former glory’. The memory of tension between the Hasmoneans and the Sages, and in particular of Yannai’s massacre of the Sages, runs through the classic Rabbinic sources (see, e.g., b. Ber. 48a; b. Sanh. 107b). It is true that the Palestinian and the Babylonian sources differ subtly in their empha- sis. On the whole the Palestinian traditions are less negative than the Babylonian. Where Babylonian traditions refer to Yannai as a murderer of the Sages, the parallel Palestinian traditions fail to mention this fact (cf. b. Sanh. 107b with y. Óag. 77d and y. Sanh. 23c). The story from b.ÊQid. quoted above, which is recorded as a and so, allegedly, is of Palestinian origin, seems to be trying apologetically to deflect the

17. What he says is: ˚yny[ ˆybç ≈yxb µhl µqh. The ≈yx was a gold plate engraved with the inscription ‘Holy to the Lord’ which was fastened by blue lace to the front of the High Priest’s turban or holy crown (Exod. 28.36; 39.30; Lev. 8.9). Curiously Targ. Cant. 5.14 and 7.2 mistakes it for the breastplate (Exod. 28.15-21). 18. It is unclear what precisely were the grounds for claiming that Yannai should not hold the high priesthood. The words µy[ydwmb tybçn wma µyrmwa wyhç look like a secondary addition to the story. Taken on its own Judah’s statement appears to imply that Yannai is barred from the high priesthood because he is not of Aaronic descent (i.e. presumably he is descended from Levi). 114 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) blame for the massacre of the Sages from Yannai on to his evil coun- sellor, but, as a sharp intervention in the story attributed to the fourth- century Babylonian Amora Rav Na˙man bar Yiß˙aq points out, this does not exonerate the king.19 There are some positive things said in Talmud and Midrash about the Hasmoneans, particularly about their early victories and early actions (see, e.g., b. Ta‘an. 18b on Nicanor’s Day). Yo˙anan the High Priest () gets a slightly better press than Yannai (see, e.g., m. So†. 9.10 and parallels on the enact- ments of Yo˙anan the High Priest), but the overall impression created by these traditions is ambivalent and at times negative. This was the message picked up by the later Jewish chronographers such as Abraham Ibn Daud and the Sefer Yosippon. Ibn Daud in his Sefer ha-Qabbalah states quite bluntly, ‘Yannai hated the Sages’,20 and the section on the Hasmoneans in the Sefer Yosippon, on which Ibn Daud may be par- tially reliant, gives a ‘warts-and-all’ account of the Hasmoneans which shows little obvious inclination to idealize them.21 The contrast with the Targum is stark: ‘As for the royal house of the Hasmoneans, they are as full of precepts as a pomegranate, not to mention Mattathias the high priest and his sons, who are more righteous than all of them, and [who]

19. Besides being slightly less hostile to the Hasmoneans, three other features of the Palestinian sources should be noted: (1) they contain far fewer references to the Hasmoneans; (2) in some stories where the Babylonian parallel mentions the Has- moneans, the Palestinian version either makes no reference at all to them, or, instead of a specific name (Judas, etc.), it talks more vaguely of ‘one of the Has- moneans’; (3) the major Palestinian sources on Óanukkah and the Hasmoneans, Pesiqta Rabbati and , are both late (the former dating to the sixth or seventh century, and the latter to the eighth). See Appendix B for references. 20. Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah 2.50 (Cohen [ed.], The Book of Tradition, p.Ê14). 21. Sefer Yosippon 13Ð35 (Flusser [ed.], The Josippon, pp. 66-15.). Urbach’s evaluation of the Talmudic evidence is surely grossly over-sanguine: ‘In principle the Sages recognized the kingship of the House of the Hasmoneans. The enactments of John Hyrcanus were accepted, and we find Simeon b. Shetah also on good terms with King Jannai. The clashes and expressions of opposition do not go beyond what we know of the attitude of the prophets to the kings of the House of David and even to David himself. It was the open rebuke of strong-willed and dominating men’ (E.E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975], p. 660). Gedalyahu Alon also doubts that there is an anti-Hasmonean bias in classic Talmudic sources (see n. 16 above). I wonder to what extent Urbach and Alon have been influenced by the re-evaluation of the Hasmoneans in modern Zionism (see n. 27)? ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 115 enforce the commandments and the words of the Torah with zeal’ (6.7). How is this to be explained? A combination of factors may be at work. The positive evaluation of the Hasmoneans may in part be dic- tated by the Targumist’s scheme of history. He needed a climax to his second exodus, the exodus from Babylon, which completely reversed the conditions of exile and led to the re-establishment of statehood and Temple. This could only have come with the Hasmoneans. The alter- native, to put it in the time of Herod, would surely have been unthink- able, even if he had known much about Herod.22 He also probably perceived a significant link between the and the First. Solomon celebrated the dedication of the First Temple for eight days (cf. 2 Chron. 7.8-9). The Hasmoneans inaugurated the celebration of the re-dedication of the Second Temple over eight days. Note how emphatically the Targumist insists that the Shekhinah abode in the Second Temple, as in the first (6.11), a point which seems to have been disputed (cf. the discussion in Exod. R. 2.2 and Midr. Ps. 11.3). It should also be conceded that there is a certain historical plausibility in his claim that the Hasmoneans restored to Israel the glories of Solo- mon’s reign. The standard modern history of the Second Temple period, which has certainly no axe to grind in this matter, comments: Following his ancestors’ advancement of Jewish territory as far as the sea by means of the acquisition of Joppa and Gazara and other conquests in the west, Hyrcanus had, by new conquests in the east, south and north, and by ensuring his independence of Syria, created a Jewish state such as had not existed since the dispersal of the ten tribes, and perhaps not since the partition of the kingdom after the death of Solomon.23 And even the Talmud mentions the great extent of wicked Yannai’s kingdom and speaks of its fertility in terms normally reserved for the Land in the messianic era.24 But I suspect that the most decisive influence on the Targum at this point was external—a growing interest among rabbinic Jews in the festival of Óanukkah, and with it a redis-

22. Herod gets a uniformly bad press in rabbinic texts. He was the slave of the Hasmoneans who usurped power, and even his magnificent restoration of the Tem- ple was undertaken at the suggestion of one of the Sages and was atonement for his murder of the scholars. See Nadich, Jewish Legends, pp. 104-106. 23. Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, I (ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Black; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973), p. 215. 24. Yannai had 60 myriads of cities: b. Gi†. 57a; Yannai’s kingdom was amaz- ingly productive and fertile: b. Ber. 44a. 116 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) covery and re-evaluation of the Second Temple period of Jewish history. Óanukkah is perhaps the most puzzling of all the festivals in the Jew- ish religious calendar. It was established by the Hasmoneans to per- petuate the memory of their victories over the Greeks, and there is no doubt that it was actually observed in late Second Temple times.25 But in Talmudic sources it is treated as of minor importance. Certain pre- scriptions about kindling the Óanukkiyah are discussed in passing, and the famous story of the cruse of oil is recorded (see b. ⁄ab. 21aÐ22a), but little attention is paid to the festival, and few traditions about it are reported. The contrast with is, in this respect, instructive, and reveals, I would suggest, a certain amount of rabbinic unease about Óanukkah. The book of , the story of Purim, was included, against some opposition, in the rabbinic canon of Scripture. The Mish- nah devotes to this festival a whole tractate, which is extensively anno- tated in the two . Purim and Óanukkah are broadly similar—a point constantly made within Jewish tradition by cross-referencing from one to the other: both are stories of how the Jews were miraculously saved from their enemies and Judaism preserved. By the early middle ages Óanukkah has become a popular folk-festival to rival Purim, and its story, in the form of the Scroll of Antiochus, has de facto been canonized (a point to which I shall return presently). Why, then, do the Talmudic sources not pay more attention to Óanukkah? Why do they seem to be pushing Purim at Óanukkah’s expense? The answer is, I think, fairly simple. There is a profound difference between Purim and Óanukkah: Purim represents a Jewish triumph in the diaspora, Óanuk- kah a Jewish triumph in Eretz Israel, which leads to the re-establish- ment of a Jewish state and the rededication of the Jewish Temple. Óanukkah, therefore, has potential political and messianic resonances which are absent from Purim, and this worried the Talmudic period Rabbis. Rabbinic ambivalence towards Óanukkah has continued down to modern times.26 Halakhically it remains a minor festival: one can work on Óanukkah, though not when the lights are kindled (hardly a major imposition, since this occurs after dark). And, as Elbogen notes,

25. 1 Macc. 4.59; Jn 10.22. 26. This is, of course, in part related to the assimilation of the festival to Christ- mas, with the introduction of ‘Father Óanukkah’, the ‘Óanukkah bush’ and the giving of presents. But this is by no means the only basis for rabbinic concern. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 117

‘the influence of this holiday on the liturgy is not especially great’:27 its liturgy is decidedly thin. Yet the people have massively appropriated the festival, and in fact it is now one of the most popular and widely observed festivals in the Jewish calendar. Its underlying political, even militaristic, message has come to the fore with the rise of Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel, which have led to a complete revamping of the image of the Hasmoneans.28 The Rabbis also seem to have sensed its potential glorification of militarism when they pre- scribed as the Haftarah for the first of the festival Zech. 2.14Ð 4.7, which ends with the warning, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts’—a warning, as we have seen, echoed in our Targum. Classical rabbinic interpretation of the festival has tend- ed to stress its spiritual message, centred around the symbolism of light and oil.29 All the evidence, then, suggests that Óanukkah was of marginal im- portance for rabbinic Jews in the Talmudic period. But, as we have noted, by the early Middle Ages it has become a popular folk-festival to rival Purim, and is celebrated with enthusiasm within rabbinically dominated society. Its heightened profile is clearly signalled by the fact that no less a rabbinic luminary than Saadya translated the Scroll of Antiochus into Arabic and provided it with an introduction. The Scroll of Antiochus is crucial to our story. As we mentioned earlier, it played the same role in the celebrations of Óanukkah as the Scroll of Esther played in Purim. It was publicly read in many synagogues, and trans- lated into many Jewish languages. It was de facto canonized. There are some interesting parallels between our Targum and the Scroll of Anti- ochus. Compare, for example, Targ. Cant. 6.8, ‘Then the Greeks arose and gathered together 60 kings from the sons of Esau, clad in chain- mail and mounted on horses, and cavalry, and 80 commanders from the

27. I. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (trans. R.P. Scheind- lin; New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1993), p. 109. 28. See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, ‘Hanukkah and the Myth of the in Zion- ist Ideology and in Israeli Society’, Jewish Journal of Sociology 34 (1992), pp. 5- 23; Yaacov Shavit, Athens in Jerusalem: Classical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the Modern Secular Jew (Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997), pp. 314-19. 29. See further S.M. Lehrman, A Guide to Hanukkah and Purim (London: Jewish Chronicle Publications, 1958), pp. 7-49; Philip Goodman, The Hanukkah Anthology (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976). 118 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) sons of Ishmael, riding on elephants’, with the Scroll of Antiochus 46– 47, ‘Therefore send letters to all the provinces of your kingdom, and let the captains of the armies come, and all the nations with them, and the elephants clad in coats of mail. Then the word was acceptable in the eyes of King Antiochus, and he sent and called the captains of the armies; and they brought all the nations, and with them the elephants clad in mail.’ The Seleucid war-elephants made a lasting impression on the Jewish imagination,30 so too much should not be read into this one parallel. However, it is perfectly plausible to explain the Targum at this point as an adaptation of the Scroll of Antiochus in the light of the underlying biblical verse. There is scant agreement as to the date of the Scroll of Antiochus. The problem is complicated by the fact that, as a popular text, it was worked and reworked, and now exists in a variety of recensions. Proposals as to its date range from the second to the eighth or ninth centuries CE. I would suggest that there are grounds for dating it to the seventh or eighth centuries, and assigning it to the same broad milieu as Targum Canticles. There are two main reasons for this suggestion. (1) The language of the Scroll of Antiochus is a mixture of both Galilaean Aramaic and the dialect of Onqelos. It cannot, therefore, be in a vernacular, but must be in a literary register of Aramaic. A not dissimilar literary mixture of Galilaean and Onqelos-type Aramaic is characteristic of a number of Jewish writings of the seventh to eighth centuries CE, for example, Tar- gum Pseudo- to the Pentateuch, Targum Chronicles and Tar- gum Canticles. The language of the Scroll of Antiochus can broadly be classified along with these texts as Late Literary Jewish Aramaic.31 (2) A revived interest in the Hasmoneans in the seventh to eighth cen- turies would fit in well with the upsurge of messianic speculation at this period provoked by the Persian invasion of Palestine and the arrival of

30. See 1 Macc. 6.30, 34-38; 2 Macc. 13.2; 3 Macc. 5.1-2; Sefer Yosippon 20.4 (Flusser [ed.], The Josippon, p. 89); 23.9 (Flusser [ed.], The Josippon, p. 100). 31. The fullest analysis of the language of the Scroll of Antiochus is M.Z. Kad- dari, ‘The Aramaic Megillat Antiochus’, Bar-Ilan 1 (1963), pp. 81-105; 2 (1964), pp. 178-214 (Heb.), but his conclusion that the work linguistically dates between the second and fifth centuries CE does not seem to me correct. The appearance of Onqelos-type Aramaic (which is fundamentally Standard Literary Aramaic of the late Second Temple period) in these early mediaeval texts has been plausibly linked to the repatriation of Onqelos to the west by migrating Babylonian scholars. For Babylonians in the west at this period see Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine 634Ð 1099 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 495 and passim. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 119

Islam as a political and spiritual force on the middle eastern stage. This revival of messianism, which produced the late Hebrew apocalypses such as Sefer Zerubbavel, seems to have generally heightened Jewish interest in Jewish writings and traditions of the Second Temple period, an interest perhaps mostly obviously reflected in Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer. I have set out the evidence for this Jewish rediscovery of Second Temple literature elsewhere,32 and need not repeat the arguments here. However, some additional evidence pertinent to the present case is worth considering here. One of the works apparently rediscovered was Megillat Ta‘anit. There is little doubt that Megillat Ta‘anit is basically a Second Temple period document. It survived into the Talmudic period: the Talmud records a third-century debate as to whether or not its prescriptions should be annulled (y. Ta‘an. 66a; y.ÊMeg. 70c; b.ÊRo¡ Ha¡. 18b; b. ⁄ab. 13b). However, in the post-Talmudic period it was taken up again and provided with a set of Hebrew scholia, many of which are dependent upon Talmudic tradition. Eleven dates in Megillat Ta‘anit are related, or taken by the scholiast as related, to Hasmonean history, and, since the Hasmonean dates in the Scroll largely recall Has- monean victories, its overall effect is to project a positive image of the Hasmoneans similar to what we find in the Scroll of Antiochus and in Targum Canticles. It should be noted, however, that the scholiast had little fresh ‘historical’ information at his disposal, and he still registers a negative report on Yannai.33 A curiously positive reference to Yo˙anan the High Priest is embed- ded in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Deut. 33.11, ‘Bless, O Lord, the sacrifices of the House of Levi, those who give the tenth from the tithe,

32. P.S. Alexander, ‘The King Messiah in Rabbinic Judaism’, in John Day (ed.), King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (JSOTSup, 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 456-73. 33. Fasting and mourning are forbidden on the anniversary of Yannai’s death (2 Shevat). Note also the reference in the scholion to 17 Adar to King Yannai’s attempt to murder the Sages. It is possible that in some of our sources Yannai is not thought of as one of ‘the Hasmoneans’, this title being effectively restricted in some writers’ minds to Mattathias and his immediate sons. However, note Talmudic texts such as b. So†. 49b, where kings as late as Hyrcanus and Aristobulus are recognized as ‘kings of the Hasmonean house’, b. Ro¡ Ha¡. 18b, where Yo˙anan the High Priest is recognized as a Hasmonean, and the story in b. B. Bat. 3bÐ4a, which speaks about the last member of the Hasmonean house in the time of Herod. The mediae- val chronographers certainly have no doubt that they are all ‘Hasmoneans’. 120 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) and receive with pleasure the offering from the hand of , the priest, which he offered on Mount Carmel. Break the loins of Ahab, his enemy, and the neck of the false prophets who rose against him. As for the enemies of Yo˙anan the High Priest, may they not have a leg to stand on.’ Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a curiously mixed work, both linguistically and aggadically. It cannot have been finally redacted before the seventh century CE,34 yet it also contains some very old traditions, such as the reference to Yo˙anan the High Priest.35 On bal- ance I think these old elements in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan are not evidence that it preserves at its core an old Second Temple period Targum which has been later reworked. Rather, they result from the rediscovery of Second Temple period traditions in the post-Talmudic period, and were introduced into the Targum then. The problem re- mains as to why a reference to the enemies of Yo˙anan the High Priest would have had any meaning in the seventh century CE. It is possible that the tradition was anti-Samaritan, and was perceived as such (after all, John Hyrcanus captured Samaria and razed it to the ground). Such

34. Note the allusion to a wife and daughter of Mu˙ammad at Gen. 21.21. There is probably more anti-Islamic polemic in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan than is usually supposed. For example, the dispute between Ishmael and Isaac which opens its treat- ment of the Aqedah can be read very effectively against an Islamic background. 35. The compiler of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan appears to have known parts of the Enoch cycle. Thus he states that ‘Enoch ascended to heavenÊ…Êand his name was called Metatron, the Great Scribe’ (Gen. 5.24). The positive evaluation of Enoch here contrasts with the negative evaluation of him in classic rabbinic sources. Enoch as the heavenly scribe is well known in the earlier Enochic literature, but the name Metatron is late and recalls the 3 Enoch traditions. See further, P.S. Alex- ander, ‘From Son of to Second God: Transformations of the Biblical Enoch’, in M.E. Stone and T.A. Bergren (eds.), Biblical Figures outside the Bible (Har- risburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), pp. 87-122. So too in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. 6.4, two of the fallen angels are named as Shem˙azai and ‘Aza’el, as in the book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 63.7). This last element well illustrates the problem of these Second Temple traditions in Pseudo-Jonathan. We should not assume that we have here an old stratum of Targum, because there is evidence that in the early Middle Ages Jewish scholars had got hold somehow of traditions related to the Enochic Book of Giants, and this is probably the source of the names here: see Midrash Shem˙azai ve-‘Aza’el (J.D. Eisenstein, Ozar Mid- rashim, II [Biblioteca Midrashica, 1913], pp. 549-50 [hereafter Eisenstein, OM]; J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976], pp. 321-39). ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 121 anti-Samaritan polemic could have had as much resonance for Pales- tinian Jews in the seventh century CE as in Second Temple times. The references to the Hasmoneans in the Midrash of the Ten Exiles,36 which may have originated in the ninth century, but was later reworked, should also be noted, as should Pesiqta Rabbati, which probably dates from the sixth or seventh century and which enthusiastically promotes Óanuk- kah and the Hasmoneans.37 None of this, of course, amounts to proof, but it lays bare converging lines of evidence and points to a nexus of ideas, literary inter-relationships and (to an extent) language belonging to the seventh to eighth centuries CE, into which both the Scroll of Anti- ochus and Targum Canticles would neatly fit. The rather peculiar political circumstances reflected in Targum Canti- cles point to a narrow chronological window within which the work can be dated. Such a learned rabbinic work in Aramaic is most likely to have been composed in Palestine, Babylonia or (possibly) Syria. Unlike 3 Enoch (late sixth century CE) and Sefer Zerubbavel in its earliest form (early seventh century CE), which envisage a world divided politically between Rome and Persia, Targum Canticles’ world is ruled by Esau (Christendom) and Ishmael (Islam) (1.7; 6.8). This suggests he lived after c. 640 CE, when Palestine, Babylonia and Syria had fallen to the Muslims and significant Jewish populations had come under Muslim control. Yet—and here is a conundrum—although he himself was pre- sumably living under Muslim rule, he still speaks of the present exile as the exile of Edom, that is, Christendom (7.12; cf. 2.15). The only solution I can see to this puzzle is to suppose that he wrote shortly after the Muslim conquest of Palestine, during the honeymoon period when the Jews, like other oppressed minorities, still saw the Muslims as lib- erators, and hoped, as the Midrash of the Ten Kings puts it, that the Kingdom of Ishmael would usher in the salvation of Israel.38 The memory of Byzantine rule (Edom) was still fresh; Byzantium was still seen as the main oppressor of the Jews (many of whom still lived under Byzantine domination); and the need was not yet felt to designate a new exile, the exile of Ishmael.

36. Eisenstein, OM, II, pp. 433-39. 37. See Appendix B, n. 7 for references. 38. Midrash of the Ten Kings (Eisenstein, OM, II, p. 465b, top). 122 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999)

Targum Canticles and Rabbinic Historiography There is one final point which I would like very briefly to explore. Raphael Loewe refers to Targum Canticles as a Heilsgeschichte.39 The description is very apt, but we should not forget the Geschichte element here. It raises the question of the relationship of the Targum to rabbinic historiography. If my date for Targum Canticles is correct, then it is one of the earliest examples we have of a rabbinic scenario of history. (That the Targum arose in a rabbinic milieu, as we have seen, is beyond question: its glorification of the rabbinic schools makes that abundantly clear.) It has often been noticed that the Talmudic period sources are little interested in historiography.40 This is not simply because they belong to other literary genres (legal and exegetical). The reason lies deeper. It is because, as Jacob Neusner has persuasively argued,41 they are interested primarily in creating civil society in the here and now. They are, therefore, only minimally concerned with the past, and hardly at all with the future. This is why there is little messianism in classic rabbinic sources. It was the domestication of messianism within the rab- binic tradition in the late Amoraic period that stimulated Geschichte, albeit Heilsgeschichte, because it provided history with a teleology, and offered a way of imposing a meaningful pattern on the flux and chaos of historical events. Apocalyptic has been described as the ‘father of theology’. It could equally be said to be the ‘father of historiography’.42

39. Loewe, ‘Apologetic Motifs’, p. 169. 40. Classic Midrash does from time to time present a schematization of history based on Daniel’s four empires, identified as Babylonia, Persia/Media, Greece and Rome, with the Messianic kingdom as the ‘fifth monarchy’: see, e.g., Lev. R. 29.10, ‘The Holy One, blessed be He, showed Abraham the ram [Gen. 22.13] tearing itself free from one thicket and getting entangled in another. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham: In a similar manner are your children destined to be caught by the nations and entangled in troubles, being dragged from empire to empire, from Babylon to Media, from Media to Greece, and from Greece to Edom, but they will ultimately be redeemed through the horn of the ram’ (cf. y. Ta‘an. 65d). But this schema is always very rudimentary, and it is interesting to note that it is not closely followed by Targum Canticles. On the four empires in rabbinic sources see Nadich, Jewish Legends, pp. 9-16; Cohen, The Book of Tradition, pp. 223-62. 41. J. Neusner, Messiah in Context: Israel’s History and Destiny in Formative Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. ix and passim. See further Alexan- der, ‘The King Messiah in Rabbinic Judaism’, pp. 468-71. 42. The other ‘father’ of rabbinic historiography is genealogy—the attempt to ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 123

For antecedents to the Targum’s scenario of history we have to reach a long way back into Jewish literary history. There are broad similarities to the historical Psalms (e.g. Ps. 106), but some of the best parallels are in the schematic outlines of history that abound in Second Temple apo- calyptic, notably in the books of Enoch (see, e.g., the Apocalypse of Weeks in 1 En. 93.3-10; 91.11-17, and the Zoomorphic History of the World in 1 En. 86Ð88). There are, indeed, some general parallels to Targum Canticles’ messianic schema in later Jewish tradition, for example, in the Midrash of the Ten Songs, with which the Targum itself opens,43 in the Midrash of the Ten Exiles, in the Midrash of the Ten Kings,44 in the Apocalypse of Hannah in Targum Jonathan to 1ÊSam. 2.1-10 (which contains, in v. 4, a positive reference to the Hasmo- neans), in the Apocalypse of Moses in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Deut. 34.1-4 (though the schema there is somewhat confused), and in the depiction of the future history of the world which the archangel Metatron shows to Rabbi Ishmael embroidered on the heavenly Curtain in the third book of Enoch (3ÊEn. 45), though this is so formalized as to be almost lacking in concrete ‘historical’ detail. All these texts, how- ever, with the possible exception of the Midrash of the Ten Songs and Targum Jonathan to 1 Sam. 2.1-10,45 probably date from around the establish the pedigree of important families (e.g. the family of the Exilarch), impor- tant institutions (e.g. the Babylonian schools), or the chain of authentic Rabbinic tradition. The two types of historiography—the messianic and the genealogical— are not incompatible and are actually often combined in our sources. 43. It is hard to tell whether the Midrash of the Ten Songs pre-dated the Tar- gum, and was incorporated whole by the Targumist. I am inclined to believe that it did, and that it actually provided the inspiration for the Targum. A similar Midrash is found in the Mekilta, Shirta, and the Mekhilta to Rabbi Shim‘on b. Yo˙ai. The other attestations of the Midrash (e.g. Midrash ha-Gadol to Exod. 15.1; Leqa˙ Tov to Exod. 15.1; Aggadat Shir ha-Shirim; Yalqut Shim‘oni, Beshalla˙ ¤242; Yalqut Shim‘oni, ¤20) are all roughly contempoary or later in date than Targum Canticles. However, that this Midrash arose in the context of exegeting Cant. 1.1 is probable. Note Origen’s seven songs in his commentary in Canticles. 44. to Est. 1.1; PRE 11; Sefer Ma‘asiyyot; and in a greatly expanded version in Eisenstein, OM, II, pp. 461-66. 45. I am not suggesting that messianism and messianic scenarios of history did not exist among Jews in the Talmudic period, only that these ideas were not central then to the rabbinic world-view. On the Targum and the Synagogue liturgy (e.g. the Amidah), both basically non-rabbinic sources, as the bearers of messianic doctrine in the Talmudic era, see Alexander, ‘The King Messiah in Rabbinic Judaism’, pp. 471-72. 124 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999) time of Targum Canticles (seventh to eighth centuries CE) and are, like it, products of the messianic and apocalyptic revival. There was an upsurge of interest in rabbinic circles in historiography in the Gaonic and mediaeval periods—as is evidenced by works such as the Seder ‘Olam Zuta,46 the Scholia to Megillat Ta‘anit, the Letter of Sherira, the Sefer Yosippon and Ibn Daud’s Sefer ha-Qabbalah and his little monograph on the second commonwealth entitled Divrei Malkhei Yisra’el be-Bayit Sheni. Some of these works, of course, look very dif- ferent from Targum Canticles, and are getting close to what might be called serious, academic historiography. We should not, however, divorce ‘serious’ and ‘theological’ historiography too sharply. ‘Serious’ historiography, as Gershon Cohen has rightly insisted, also has a strong, if less overt, theological agenda and is equally concerned with ‘the sym- metry of history’.47 And this ‘serious’ historiography might not have been possible if theological texts such as Targum Canticles had not raised the historical consciousness of rabbinic circles and pioneered a historical perspective.

Appendix A

Translation of Targum Canticles 6.7-12 7. Your brow is like a slice of pomegranate Behind your veil As for the royal house of the Hasmoneans, they are as full of precepts as a pome- granate, not to mention Mattathias the high priest and his sons, who are more righteous than all of them and [who] enforce the commandments and the words of the Torah with zeal.

46. I hesitate to include here the Seder ‘Olam Rabbah. This work was known in some form to the Rabbis of the Talmudic period, who attributed it to the Tanna Yose ben Óalafta (c. 160 CE) (see b. Yeb. 82b; b. Nid. 46b; b. ⁄ab. 88a). The core of the work may be even older. However, the Seder ‘Olam Rabbah seems to have been taken up with renewed interest in the post-Talmudic era, and the forms in which we now have it probably all date from this time. The case may be similar to that of Megillat Ta‘anit—another early text ‘rediscovered’ in post-Talmudic times (see above). The dating which the Seder ‘Olam Rabbah advocates begins to be adopted by Jews from the ninth century onwards. On the Seder ‘Olam Rabbah see G. Stemberger, Introduction to Talmud and Midrash (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2nd edn, 1996), pp. 326-27, particularly the writings of Chaim Milikow- sky listed there. 47. Cohen, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, pp. 189-222. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 125

8. Sixty queens [were] they, And eighty concubines, And maidens without number. Then the Greeks arose and gathered together 60 kings from the sons of Esau, clad in chain-mail and mounted on horses, and cavalry, and 80 commanders from the sons of Ishmael, riding upon elephants, not to mention the rest of the nations, peo- ples without number, and they appointed the wicked Alexander as head over them, and they came and waged war against Jerusalem. 9. My faultless dove is one; She is one to her mother; She is pure to her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her happy; The queens and the concubines, and they praised her. At that time the Assembly of Israel, which is likened to the perfect dove, was wor- shipping the Lord of the World with one heart, and [was] cleaving to the Torah and engaging in the study of the words of the Torah with a perfect heart, and her merits were as pure as on the day when she went out from Egypt. So when the sons of the Hasmoneans and Mattathias and all the people of Israel went out and waged war against them, the Lord delivered them into their hands. When the inhabitants of the regions saw [this], the kingdoms of the earth and the rulers called them happy and praised them. 10. Who is she that looks like the dawn, Beautiful as the moon, Bright as the sun, Terrifying as the camps with their standards. ‘How splendid are the deeds of this nation - like the dawn! Her young men are as beautiful as the moon, her merits are as bright as the sun, and the fear of her is on all the inhabitants of the land, as in the day when her four camps marched through the wilderness’. 11. I went down to my nut-garden, To look at the green plants of the valley, To see whether the vine had budded, And the pomegranates were in blossom. The Lord of the World said: I caused my Shekhinah to reside in the Second Tem- ple, which had been built at the hands of Cyrus, to see the good deeds of my people, and to see whether the Sages, who are compared to the vine, would be fruitful and multiply, and [whether] their blossoms would be full of good deeds like pome- granates. 12. Before I knew [it], my soul set me In the chariots of my noble people. 126 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999)

And when it was revealed before the Lord that they were righteous and were en- gaging in the study of the Torah, the Lord said through his Memra: I will not again crush them, nor shall I make a total end of them, but I will take counsel with Myself to do them good, and to make them exalted in the chariots of kings, for the sake of the merits of the righteous of this generation, who resemble Abraham their fore- father in their deeds.

Appendix B

Major References to the Hasmoneans in Talmud and Midrash

1. General 1. M. Mid. 1.6; b. Yom. 16a; b.‘Abod. Zar. 52b: the sons of the Hasmoneans hid away in a chamber on the Temple Mount the stones of the altar which the Greek kings had defiled (cf. 1 Macc. 4.44-46). 2. B. Ta‘an. 18b: Judas and the Hasmoneans defeated the Greek general Nicanor. In y. Ta‘an. 66a and y. Meg. 70c the same story is told about an unnamed Hasmonean, ‘a member of the Hasmonean house’ (cf. 1 Macc. 7.26-49; 2 Macc. 15.1-26; Josephus, Ant. 12.402-412). 3. B. Meg. 6a: the Hasmoneans capture the fortress of Shur. 4. B. Meg. 11a: ‘Neither did I abhor them (Lev. 26.44)—in the days of the Greeks, when I raised up for them Simeon the Just and Hashmonai and his sons, and Mattathias the High Priest’ (textual variants). 5. B. Ro¡ Ha¡. 18b: the Sages forbid the practice of using the name of God in commercial documents after the Hasmonean victory (cf. n. 15 below). 6. B. Qid. 70b: anyone claiming descent from ‘the royal house of the Has- moneans’ is in reality a slave (implies some families in Babylonia were claim- ing to be of royal Hasmonean descent). Cf. b. B. Bat 3bÐ4a: the last female descendant of the Hasmonean house commited suicide rather than marry Herod. 7. B. ⁄ab. 21b: the Hasmoneans found an untainted cruse of oil which burned for eight days. B. ⁄ab. 21aÐ22a is the major Babylonian text giving the regula- tions for Óanukkah. The major western texts are Pesiqta Rabbati, esp. 2 and 6 (2.1; 2.2; 2.6; 3.1; 4.1; 6.1; 6.5; 8.1; 15.25), and Soferim 20. 8. B. Men. 28b; Pes. R. 2.1; b. Ro¡ Ha¡. 24b; b.‘Abod. Zar. 43b: the Hasmoneans made a make-shift Menorah out of eight iron spits to replace the one stolen from the Temple by the Greeks. 9. Gen. R. 99.2: it was appropriate that the Greeks should have been humbled by the Hasmoneans of the House of Levi. Cf. Gen. R. 97: Moses pitted the tribe of Levi against the Greek empire, because the Hasmoneans were of the tribe of Levi; Gen. R. 99.2: By whose hand will the Greek kingdom fall? By the hand of the Hasmoneans, descended from Levi. ALEXANDERÊÊFrom Poetry to Historiography 127

10. Exod. R. 15.6: comment on Ps. 19.7: Mattathias the priest and his sons stood firm against the Greeks (quotation of 4.10).

2. Yo˙anan the High Priest 11. M. So†. 9.10; m. Ma‘as. ⁄. 5.15; t. So†. 13.9-10; b. So†. 47bÐ48a: The enactments of Yo˙anan the High Priest: ‘Yo˙anan the High Priest brought to an end the confession made at the presentation of the tithe; he also abolished the “wakers” and the “knockers”; up to his days the hammer used to be struck in Jerusalem; and in his days there was no need to inquire about demai’. 12. M. Par. 3.5: Yo˙anan the High Priest prepared the ashes of the . 13. T. So†. 13.7; b. So†. 33a; Cant. R. 8.9 §3: ‘Yo˙anan the High Priest heard a Bat Qol issue from the announcing, The young men whom you sent to wage war against Antioch have been victorious’. The same voice was heard by Simeon the Just. 14. b. Ber. 29a: ‘Yo˙anan the High Priest served as high priest for 80 years and in the end became a min. Abaye said: Yo˙anan is the same as Yannai. Rava said: Yo˙anan and Yannai are different; Yannai was originally wicked and Yo˙anan was originally righteous’. Cf. b. Yom. 9a: Yo˙anan the High Priest served for 80 years. 15. b. Ro¡ Ha¡. 18b: business documents were dated ‘in the year so-and-so of Yo˙anan, High Priest of God Most High’.

3. King Yannai 16. M. Suk. 4.9; t. Suk. 3.16: unnamed priest who poured libation water on his feet was pelted by the people with citrons. Josephus, Ant. 13.372 tells the same story about Alexander Jannaeus. 17. B. Ber. 48a: after King Yannai had put the Sages to death he had no one to say grace for him and his queen. Cf. Gen. R. 91.3. 18. Y. Ber. 11b; y. Naz. 54b; Gen. R. 91.3; Eccl. R. 7.12 §1: Shim‘on ben Sheta˙ tricked King Yannai into supplying offerings for a company of . 19. B. Sanh. 107b; b. So†. 47a: when King Yannai put the Sages to deathÊ…Ê Joshua ben Pera˙iah fled to Egypt. Similar stories in y. Óag. 77d and y. Sanh. 23c make no mention of Yannai or of any murderous Hasmonean king. 20. B. Qid. 66a: Judah ben Gedidiah impugned King Yannai’s right to be high priest. Yannai massacred the Sages. Josephus, Ant. 13.288-92, tells a similar story about John Hyrcanus (Yo˙anan the High Priest). 21. B. Yom. 18a; b. Yeb. 61a: Martha the daughter of Boethus bribed King Yannai to nominate Joshua ben Gamala as one of the high priests. 22. B. Sanh. 19a-b: King Yannai corrupted the judicial process when his slave was tried for murder before Shim‘on ben Sheta˙. 23. B. Ber. 44a: King Yannai used to have a tree in the King’s Mountain from which they used to take down 40 se’ahs of young pigeons from three broods every month. 128 Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999)

24. B. Git. 57a: King Yannai had 60 myriads of cities in the King’s Mountain. Y. Ta‘an. 69a and Lam. R. 2.2 ¤4 also speak of 60 myriads of cities in the King’s Mountain, but do not mention Yannai. 25. B. So†. 22b: King Yannai said to his wife: Fear not the Pharisees nor the non- Pharisees, but fear the hypocrites who ape the Pharisees 26. Num. R. 22.1: 2000 towns belonging to King Yannai were destroyed because their people swore true oaths.

4. Hyrcanus and Aristobulus 27. B. So†. 49b; b. B. Qam. 82b; b. Men. 64b: when the kings of the Hasmonean house fought one another, Hyrcanus was outside Jerusalem and Aristobulus was within. The besiegers sent up a pig in a basket to serve as the daily offer- ing in the Temple. Y. Ber. 7b and y. Ta‘an. 68c tell basically the same story but place it ‘in the days of the Greek kingdom’, without any mention of the Hasmoneans.