The Sabbath As a Day of Worship

THE SABBATH AS A DAY OF WORSHIP: t h e E v id e n c e P r io r t o 2 0 0 c e A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Glasgow by Heather A. McKay, BSc, MSc, BD in September 1992 © Heather A. McKay 1992 ProQuest Number: 13834073 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13834073 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 GLA.SGOiy” ? LIBRARy Y I Cop^tj 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 3 Summary 4 Abbreviations 8 Introduction 9 1. Methods and Criteria 20 2. Sabbath and New Moon: The Hebrew Bible 39 3. Sabbath as Supreme Holy Day: Intertestamental Literature 80 4. Sabbath as Day of Rest and Study of the Law: Philo and Josephus 106 5. Sabbath as a Domestic Celebration: Graeco-Roman Non-Christian Sources 140 6. Sabbath in Controversy: New Testament Sources 195 7. The Debate over Keeping the Sabbath: Graeco-Roman Christian Sources 254 8. Sabbath as Day of Rest and Reading the Torah: The Mishnah 283 9. The Unobtrusive Sabbath: Archaeological Data, Inscriptions and Papyri 294 10. Conclusions 344 Bibliography of Works Consulted 350 Appendix of Texts for Chapter 5 382 Appendix of Texts for Chapter 6 395 P r e fa c e My interest in this topic arose out of the title of a prize essay: ‘Prophecy and the Sabbath!’, and researching for that essay led me to see how slight is the actual information available about the sabbath praxis of Jews in ancient Israel, and also how varied are the constructions built on that evidence. I have received great encouragement from friends in The Society for Old Testament Study and in the Society for Biblical Literature, since I began this project in 1987, and wish to express my thanks to them for all their stimulation of my research by their varied questions and by their attitudes ranging from intrigued curiosity to outright disbelief. In particular I would like to thank Robert P. Carroll, for his powerful yet restrained supervision of my work, and David J.A. Clines, Loveday A.C. Alexander and A. Graeme Auld for the undoubted benefit of in-depth discussion on the possibilities and pitfalls of working within such a wide-ranging subject area. Without their encouragement and genuine interest, my interest would not have maintained its steady level throughout. Members of my family have provided a more uncritical support, but that has nonetheless been of inestimable value to me, and I would like to state my gratitude to them also. 3 T h e S a b b a t h a s a D a y o f Wo r s h ip ; T h e E v id e n c e p r io r t o 20 0 ce i i I S u m m a r y This thesis reports what may be known about the sabbath activities of Jews prior to 200CE, using as sources the Hebrew Bible, Apocryphal and Deutero-canonical works, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the works of Philo and Josephus, the New Testament, the Mishnah and also Graeco-Roman texts from both secular and Christian backgrounds. Evidence from archaeological data, inscriptions and papyri is also presented. A crucial point made is that sabbath observance and sabbath worship are not synonymous, one denoting sabbath rest and inaction, and the other indicating a purposive, communal activity in which Jewish people address God, and do so particularly because it is the sabbath. The Hebrew Bible supplies no evidence of sabbath worship for ordinary worshippers, insisting only on sabbath rest. The texts do, however, indicate priestly activities in the Temple on the sabbath. Among the Apocryphal and Deutero-canonical works from the last two centuries BCE, Judith, Maccabees and Jubilees display more interest in the holiness of the sabbath, the writers viewing the sabbath as a holy entity that conditioned the behaviour of Jews. But they give no details of religious events on the sabbath, and other works from the same period, namely Tobit and Ben Sira, do not mention the sabbath at all. 4 The Dead Sea Scrolls, from a similar date, come from a community that concentrated its life on the religious sphere and therefore contain more rigorous prescriptions for conduct on the sabbath. That community kept a religious year of numbered sabbaths on which particular songs were sung. The works of Philo and Josephus yield a picture of Jewish activities on sabbath and of Jewish worship assemblies on other days. The mood of the sabbath gatherings has less religious fervour than that revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Instead, civil unrest and in group disputations characterise the sabbath activities of the Jews in their prayer-houses (rcpoaeuxal). Study of the Law, political and philosophical discussions took place there on the sabbath, and the prayer-houses were also the locus for religious veneration of the Roman imperial house. As far as worship is concerned, Philo and Josephus refer to prayers on weekdays, but they describe neither sabbath worship services nor prayers on the sabbath. The only Jews described by Philo who did carry out communal worship activities were the Therapeutae (daily) and the Essenes (on sabbaths), particularly religious-minded groups of Jews in Alexandria. Josephus refers to sabbath worship only by reference to pre-70 CE sacrifice in the Temple. He refers to no current sabbath worship. Of crucial importance is the fact that the word synagogue has two meanings, the group of Jews who met together and organised the religious life of the community, and the building in which these groups met. Philo uses the term synagogue only once, when he refers to the Essenes’ name for their sacred place. Josephus uses the word 5 synagogue in similar contexts to prayer-house (7cpoaeu%al), but never uses both words of any one particular building. In the New Testament, synagogues are described as administering community justice, as well as initiating teaching, and on the sabbath providing the locus for the reading and expounding of the Law and, in the case of Luke’s Jesus, also the prophet Isaiah. But no worship services are described. Jesus and Paul are likely to have attended sabbath gatherings, like those Philo and Josephus describe. But since gatherings that were liable to beat and expel Christians, such as are described or threatened in the gospels, cannot have happened in the lifetime of Jesus, awareness of the time gap between events and records and the resulting alteration of perspective, leads to a tempered interpretation of the New Testament data. The synagogues, whether groups or buildings, described in the Gospels and Acts are later than Philo, Jesus and Paul. The writings of Latin and Greek authors prior to 200CE provide a useful background against which to read the religious texts. They know of sabbath as a day that is celebrated in the Jewish home, beginning with the Friday lamp-lighting and evening meal and they describe Jewish prayer-houses in Rome as buildings with courtyards, from the beginning of the second century CE. A comparison of that with Philo’s description of many prayer-houses in Rome suggests a development in the number and size of the prayer-houses between about 40 CE and 130 CE. This gives an indication of change in the visibility of Jewish prayer-houses during the time range of the New Testament writings. 6 A further comparison is provided by the writings of the Christian apologists. The points they argue with Jews about are keeping the Law, circumcision and keeping the sabbath. There is no reference as to any disagreement over the mode and timing of the worship of God. Justin does speak out against the Jews’ cursing of Christians in the synagogues, but there is no association of that with sabbath gatherings. Sabbath worship is not mentioned at all. The Mishnah gives a great many restrictions on sabbath behaviour, but has little to say about sabbath assemblies. The details given about prayers and scripture reading apply to Mondays and Thursdays as well as Saturday, and the sabbath is distinct only in having more readers, not more worship practices. The archaeological data on the earliest Jewish meeting houses show that prayer-houses were common in the Diaspora, but synagogues, as buildings, have left no certain first-century CE remains in Palestine. Many inscriptions from all over the eastern Mediterranean area show that synagogues were groups of Jewish men with civic power and influence active in their communities. In conclusion, the Jewish sabbath was in transition from being originally a day of rest, to being a day of study and discussion during the period covered by this study. But there is no evidence that it had become a day of worship by the time of writing of the literature surveyed here. Only the Essenes, as described by Philo, and the Jews of the Dead Sea community congregated for worship on the sabbath. 7 A bbreviations AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages A N R W Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies BK Biblischer Kommentar CBC The Cambridge Bible Commentary CUP Cambridge University Press DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert EKK Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar

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