ABSTRACT Reading Dreams: An Audience-Critical Approach to the Dreams in the Gospel of Matthew Derek S. Dodson, B.A., M.Div. Mentor: Charles H. Talbert, Ph.D. This dissertation seeks to read the dreams in the Gospel of Matthew (1:18b-25; 2:12, 13-15, 19-21, 22; 27:19) as the authorial audience. This approach requires an understanding of the social and literary character of dreams in the Greco-Roman world. Chapter Two describes the social function of dreams, noting that dreams constituted one form of divination in the ancient world. This religious character of dreams is further described by considering the practice of dreams in ancient magic and Greco-Roman cults as well as the role of dream interpreters. This chapter also includes a sketch of the theories and classification of dreams that developed in the ancient world. Chapters Three and Four demonstrate the literary dimensions of dreams in Greco-Roman literature. I refer to this literary character of dreams as the “script of dreams;” that is, there is a “script” (form) to how one narrates or reports dreams in ancient literature, and at the same time dreams could be adapted, or “scripted,” for a range of literary functions. This exploration of the literary representation of dreams is nuanced by considering the literary form of dreams, dreams in the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition, the inventiveness of literary dreams, and the literary function of dreams. In light of the social and literary contexts of dreams, the dreams of the Gospel of Matthew are analyzed in Chapter Five. It is demonstrated that Matthew’s use of dreams as a literary convention corresponds to the script of dreams in other Greco-Roman narratives. This correspondence includes dreams as a motif of the birth topos (1:18b-25), the association of dreams and prophecy (1:22-23; 2:15, 23), the use of the double-dream report (2:12 and 2:13-15), and dreams as an ominous sign in relation to an individual’s death (27:19). The contribution of this research is a more textured or multi-dimensional reading of the Matthean dreams that is lacking in other studies. An appendix considers the Matthean transfiguration as a dream-vision report. Reading Dreams: An Audience-Critical Approach to the Dreams in the Gospel of Matthew Derek S. Dodson, B.A., M.Div. A Dissertation ApprovedA by the Department of Religion w Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Charles H. ~albert,ph.~:, chairperson 57UlJc P% Mikeal C. Parsons, Ph.D. / V' U~8fre~S. Hamilton, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School December 2006 J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Copyright © 2006 Derek S. Dodson All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Previous Scholarship and Present Contribution 2 Methodological Considerations 12 Overview of this Study 16 2. THE ANCIENT, SOCIAL CONTEXT OF DREAMS 18 The Practice of Dreams 18 Dreams and Divination 20 Dreams and Ancient Magic 29 Dreams and Greco-Roman Cults 47 Dream Interpreters 61 The Classifications and Theories of Dreams 72 Conclusion 88 3. THE ANCIENT, LITERARY CONTEXT OF DREAMS, PART I: THE SCRIPT OF DREAMS 89 The Literary Form of Dreams 93 The Rhetoric of Dreams 99 Dreams and Encomiastic Rhetoric 101 Dreams and Rhetorical Style 103 Summary 106 v The Inventiveness of Dreams 106 Literary Imitation of Dreams 108 Homeric Quotes and Echoes 114 The Double-Dream Report 118 Dreams and “Rewritten Bible” 124 Summary 137 Conclusion 137 4. THE ANCIENT, LITERARY CONTEXT OF DREAMS, PART II: THE LITERARY FUNCTIONS OF DREAMS 139 Dreams in Greco-Roman Histories 141 Herodotus’s Histories 141 Josephus’s Jewish War 159 Dreams in Greco-Roman Biographies 168 Acts of the Apostles 169 Plutarch’s Parallel Lives 175 Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars 187 Dreams in Greco-Roman Fiction 192 Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe 193 Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe 199 Acts of Thomas 209 Acts of Andrew 213 Conclusion 219 5. DREAMS IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 220 The Form of the Matthew Dreams 221 The Form of Matthew 1:18b-25 230 The Form of Matthew 2:13-15 240 The Form of Matthew 2:19-20 241 Summary 241 vi The Functions of the Matthew Dreams and Additional Observations 242 The Dream of Matthew 1:18b-25 243 The Dreams of Matthew 2 259 The Dream of Matthew 27:19 269 Summary 277 The Significance of Dreams in Matthew’s Portrait of Jesus 279 Conclusion 282 6. CONCLUSION 283 Summary of Research and Results 283 Implications for Further Research 287 APPENDICES 290 APPENDIX A: The Matthean Transfiguration as a Dream-Vision Report? 291 APPENDIX B: Copyright-Permission Letter 309 BIBLIOGRAPHY 311 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation represents the culmination of my studies at Baylor University, and so my acknowledgments take into account the larger experience of my graduate studies. I would like to subvert the conventional order of acknowledgements and express my deepest gratitude first and foremost to my wife and daughters. My daughters, Kelsey Lynne and Emily Grace, are a true source of joy in my life and constant reminders of the goodness and priorities of life. My wife Sherrie has been a faithful and steadfast companion on this journey. The words “appreciation” and “gratitude” are simply out of place for expressing what she means to me. She is my soul mate, life partner, and truest friend; our life together is truly a means of grace. My indebtedness to and appreciation for the New Testament faculty at Baylor University cannot be sufficiently expressed. Dr. Charles Talbert, who is the adviser for this dissertation, has provided invaluable insight and direction for this research project; I am blessed to have had the opportunity to study under him. I can only hope that this dissertation in some small way honors his scholarship and legacy to New Testament studies. Dr. Mikeal Parsons, who served as second reader for the dissertation, has been a constant mentor and model teacher-scholar for me during my studies at Baylor. He has been especially influential in my academic development. Dr. Naymond Keathley has viii been very encouraging and has provided an essential pastoral presence for me at Baylor. And Dr. Sharyn Dowd has contributed much to the ethos of the New Testament area, exemplifying ideally the integration of the heart and head, of faith and scholarship. I also would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Jeffrey Hamilton, professor of History at Baylor University, for serving as my third reader. He provided a helpful perspective for my dissertation, and his comments were perceptive. I would also like to thank Drs. W. H. Bellinger, Jr., and James Kennedy, professors of Old Testament at Baylor, for reading the dissertation and participating in the oral defense. They have also contributed much to my graduate studies, having taken graduate seminars with both of them. There are several others that need to be properly recognized for their support, assistance and help in this process as wells as my studies at Baylor in general: Andy Arterbury, Derek Hogan, and Eddie Ellis, fellow graduate students who fostered a community of collegiality not competition; Clova Gibson, Academic/Student Support Associate for Graduate Studies in Religion, for her service and “keeping it all together;” Janet Jasek, Borrower Supervisor for Interlibrary Services at Baylor University’s library, for her constant willingness to help in obtaining needed volumes for my research purposes; the congregations of Muldraugh Baptist Church (Muldraugh, KY), Memorial Baptist Church (Waco, TX), and Speegelville Baptist Church (Waco, TX), who blessed me by allowing me to be their pastor and helped me keep a healthy perspective of my ix scholarly endeavors; and finally to the congregation of Seventh and James Baptist Church (Waco, TX), who has provided a spiritual home for my family and a place where I can participate in that sacred task of “faith seeking understanding.” I also would like to acknowledge the editor of Perspectives in Religious Studies for granting permission to use portions of my previously published articles: “Dreams, the Ancient Novels, and the Gospel of Matthew: An Intertextual Study,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 29 (2002): 39-52; and “Philo’s De somniis in the Context of Ancient Dream Theories and Classifications,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 30 (2003): 299-312. x CHAPTER ONE Introduction In a modern, post-Freud age, dreams are understood as manifestations of an individual’s sub-conscious, a kind of window into the psyche of a person. Dreams in antiquity, however, were understood as a means of how the divine communicates to humanity. This is not to say that the ancients did not have some perception that some dreams might come about because of the “thoughts of the day,”1 but this seems to be more of an explanation for those dreams that did not prove to be significant. The primary understanding of dreams in antiquity was that dreams represent some objective experience that connected humanity with the will of the divine. Ancients did not have dreams, they were encountered by dreams. In her study on ancient dreams, Patricia Cox Miller states, “[D]reams were autonomous; they were not conceptualized as products of a personal sub- or unconscious but rather as visual images that present themselves to the dreamer.”2 Thus, ancient dreams had a socio-religious dimension, which in turn influenced the literary representation of dreams in antiquity. 1Herodotus, Hist. 7.16.2; cf. Artimodorus, Onir. 1.1; Cicero, Div. 1.45. 2Patricia Cox Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) 17.