THE STAFF of MOSES and the MERCY of GOD: MOSES' FINAL INTERCESSION in PSEUDO-PHILO 19 Judith H. Newman Emmanuel College, Unive
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THE STAFF OF MOSES AND THE MERCY OF GOD: MOSES’ FINAL INTERCESSION IN PSEUDO-PHILO 19 Judith H. Newman Emmanuel College, University of Toronto When it comes to the history of interpretation, all biblical verses are not created equal. Some passages have commanded frequent attention from generations of interpreters while others remain comparatively obscure. The so-called “divine attribute formula” in Exod 34:6–7 can surely be considered in the former category. Within the Hebrew Bible itself, the attribute formula is prominent.1 A partial listing of attributes occurs again in Num 14:18 in an intercession uttered by Moses, and 1 My perspective on the composition and delineation of scripture has evolved over the years, and also since an earlier version of this essay was presented at the SBL meeting in November 2001. At present, I understand both oral and written textual traditions to comprise “scripture”, or perhaps the better word is simply “torah”, that is, authoritative traditions for a community. The precise contours of the “Bible” when Pseudo-Philo composed this work during the fi rst century CE are quite diffi cult to discern, witnessed by the pluriformity of text types among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and given the variety of versions and languages in which Israel’s narrative appeared, but it is the working assumption of this paper that Pseudo-Philo did have a sense of a stable written text at minimum including the Pentateuch and the former prophets. The inherent possibility for some fl uidity in the term notwithstanding, I understand Pseudo-Philo to have been working with good knowledge of a Hebrew text that is not the same but may not be greatly different from the Masoretic text; see the comments of D. J. Harrington, “Pseudo-Philo” OTP 2:298–301. In any case, it seems clear that the text of the Pentateuch was stable by the fi rst century CE. On the complex issue of biblical text in Pseudo-Philo, see also the discussion of Howard A. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum with Latin Text and English Trans- lation (AGAJU 31; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 254–256 and Bruce N. Fisk, Do You Not Remember? Scripture, Story and Exegesis in the Rewritten Bible of Pseudo-Philo ( JSPSup 37; Sheffi eld: Sheffi eld Academic Press, 2001) 40–41. Whether the text was internalized by the author or he worked from a written text it is impossible to say, but he knew the sequence of events narrated in it from the account of creation to Saul’s death. The author’s perspective on such a text’s “author- ity” vis à vis other textual traditions, I cannot ascertain, but clearly the author was creating an alternative to the biblical narrative, just as the Chronicler crafted a version of Israelite history that was both knowledgeable of and reliant on a textual form of the Deuteronomistic history and departed from it in signifi cant ways refl ecting the author’s Tendenz. Thus, departures from the biblical narrative and additions to it can be explained as refl ecting the author’s desire to craft an alternative view of Israel’s early 138 judith h. newman numerous times in the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars have commented on its inner-biblical recurrence.2 Much less attention has been paid to its equally frequent use in post-biblical literature, where the attributes appear mainly in prayers.3 Indeed, the formula proved important in the development of Jewish and Christian penitential liturgical texts. Ismar Elbogen argued that the Thirteen Attributes, the traditional Jewish term to refer to Exod 34:6–7, became the nucleus of all prayers for atonement, serving as a refrain continually repeated in all the seliot, history. For heuristic purposes, I use the terms “biblical”, “Bible”, and make citation references to biblical passages throughout this paper with the preceding caveats to be born in mind by readers. 2 See J. Scharbert, “Formgeschichte und Exegese von Ex. 34:6f und seiner Paral- lelen”, Biblica 38 (1957) 130–150 and Robert C. Dentan, “The Literary Affi nities of Exo XXXIV 6f ”, VT 13 (1963) 34–51. More recent treatments are those of Thomas B. Dozeman, “Inner-Biblical Interpetation of Yahweh’s Gracious and Compassionate Character”, JBL 108 (1989) 207–223. Michael Fishbane Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985). The work of Matthias Franz on the formula is confi ned to a philological and comparative Ancient Near Eastern treatment of the passage and does not concern its Nachleben, Der barmherzige und gnädige Gott: Die Gnadenrede vom Sinai (Exodus 34, 6–7) und ihre Parallelen im alten Testament und seiner Umwelt (BWANT 160/20; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003). Within the Hebrew Bible, the attribute formula or por- tions of it appears in Num 14:18, Jer 32:18, Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah 1:3; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Neh 9:17; cf. also Pss 111:4, 112:4; 116:5, Neh 9:31; 2 Chr 30:9. The divine attribute formula fi gures large in the biblical theology of Walter Bruegge- mann who identifi es this passage in the center of the Sinai tradition as claiming a unique and particularly vital form of theological testimony, which, originally appearing as part of a theophany, then becomes an important affi rmation within biblical nar- rative in the mouths of Israelites. Though I would disagree with Brueggemann that theology should be constructed from a putative “most characteristic divine speech”, found solely within a canonical framework, he is right to point to the extensive reuse of this formula in many different contexts and genres. See his essay, “Crisis-Evoked, Crisis-Resolving Speech”, Biblical Theology Bulletin 24 (1994) 95–105, as well as the related discussion in his volume, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997) 213–228. 3 James Kugel draws attention to the interpretive motifs associated with this passage in Traditions of the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998) 721–741. Cf. 1QH 11:29–30, T. Sim. 4:4; 2 Bar. 77:7; Apoc. Ab. 17:12; Gr. Apoc. Ezra 1:10–18; Sir 2:11; Pr Man 7; T. Zeb. 9:7. At Qumran, consider: 1QH 12:14, 16:16; 1 QS 4:4, 5. Compare also 1 Clem. 60:1–2 and AposCons 7.33.3; 7.35.1; 8.6.8; 8.41.2 See also John 1:14, 17 in which “grace and truth” make reference to Exod 34:6, on which see the discussion of George J. Brooke, “The Temple Scroll and the New Testament”, in his book The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2005) 105..