214 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Judaica 215 of the text. Included are such works as the Infancy Gospel of James (Protevan-
gelium oflames), Gospel of Pseudo-Thomas (Infancy Gospel of Thomas), and the Acts of Pilate (Gospel of Nicodemus), for which students have long been dependent on the edition of Constantine Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha:
adhibitis plurimis codicibus graecis et latinis maximum partem nunc primum consultis atque ineditorum copia insignibus, 2d ed. (Leipzig, 1876). But all later editions of apocryphal gospel texts attest the permanence of Tischen- dorf’s work. The discovery of a papyrus text of the Infancy Gospel of James, published by Michel Testuz, Papyrus Bodmer V: Nativite de Marie (Cologny- Geneva: Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1958), led to one of the few extensive revi- sions of Tischendorf’s work. Relentless in pursuit of resolutions for problems raised by variations in textual tradition forms, Emile de Strycker corrected some errors in Testuz’s edition in an endeavor to offer a “provisional” early form of the text, La forme la plus ancienne du protevangile de Jacques:
Recherches sur le Papyrus Bodmer 5 avec une edition critique du texte grec et une traduction annotee, Subsidia Hagiographica 33 (Brussels: SociCte de Bollandistes, 1961).
An extraordinary treasure-trove for understanding the New Testament in the light of Jewish thought and experience in the Hellenistic world is the out- put of the great Jewish thinker Philo Judaeus, available in the standard edition by Leopold Cohn, Paul Wendland, and Siegfried Reiter, Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt, 6 ~01s. and index vol. by Hans Leisegang (Berlin, 1896- 1930). Leisegang’s index to Philo’s vocabulary is less complete than G. Mayer’s Index Philoneus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974). Those who use German have a translation available in Die Werke Philos von Alexandria in deutscher Obey- setzung, ed. L. Cohn, 5 ~01s. (Berlin, 1909-29). The French offer Roger Arnaldez, et al., eds., Les oeuvres de Philon d;4lexandrie, 35 ~01s. (Paris: Cerf, 1961-73). An English translation of the works of Philo, begun by Francis Henry Colson (d. 1943) and George Herbert Whitaker, reached completion in 1962 in ten volumes and two supplementary volumes, ed. Ralph Marcus (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). A few treatises in Armenian still await translation. Secondary entry to Philds mind can be made through Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), or via J. Danielou, Philon d;4lexandrie (Paris: A. Fayard, 1958). The more ambitious will find Philo quite compelling in E. R. Goodenough, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1940; 2d ed. rev.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)!i u On a Latin text of Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum, an anonymous work that was erroneously attributed in the course of time to Philo of Alexandria, see Daniel J. Harrington, “Philo, Pseudo-,’
ABD, 5:344-45. Harrington, et al., also edited the text, accompanied by J. Cazeaux’s French translation, Pseudo-Philon: Les Antiquites bibliques, 2 ~01s. (Paris: Cerf, 1976). For studies on Philo, see Roberto Radice and David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria: An Annotated Bibliography
1937-1986, 2d ed. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992).
216 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Judaica 217 enlarged edition (New York: Judaica Press, 1964). The work, titled Mish-
nayoth, embraces seven very readable volumes, but does not antiquate Canon Herbert Danby’s excellent translation, The Mishnah (London: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1933), complete with introduction and brief explanatory notes.
Students skilled in Hebrew will welcome Chanoch Albeck and Henoch Yalon,
“The Six Orders of the Mishnah Explained and Pointed,” as the Hebrew title (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Bialik Institute, 1952-59) is rendered. Especially attractive for novices because of its more literal rendering of the Hebrew and a glossary of mishnaic terms is Jacob Neusner’s The Mishnah: A New Transla- tion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). Nevertheless, for sustained study of the Mishnah it is necessary to consult Karl Heinrich Rengstorf and Leonhard Rost, eds., Die Mischna: Text, Ubersetzung und ausfiihrliche Erkliirung (Berlin: Tijpelmann, 1910-), which offers the Hebrew text, a German translation, and informed comment. For further adventurous explora- tion of mishnaic labyrinths it is necessary to use a basic tool such as Thesaurus Mishnae: Concordantiae verborum quae in sex Mishnae ordinibus reperiuntur, compiled by Chayim Yehoshua Kasovsky, 3 ~01s. (Jerusalem, 1956-58; 2d ed., 4 vols., Jerusalem: Massada, 1967). For a grammar of mishnaic Hebrew see Segal’s work (p. 166, above).
In 1939 Gerhard Kittel and K. H. Rengstorf began a double-level collec- tion, Rabbinische Texte, which includes German translation and comment on the tannaitic Midrashim and the Tosefta. The latter is an anthology of tannaitic texts parallel to the Mishnah but without canonical status and larger in scope. The first complete and unabridged English translation of the Midrash Rabbah, a large collection of fact, legend, and sermonic material, appeared in ten volumes, edited by Harry Freedman and Maurice Simon (London:
Soncino, 1939). For samples of contents and for light on the Midrashim, see Jacob Neusner, A Midrash Reader (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).
The first translation of the “entire” Talmud in English was published by the Soncino Press of Great Britain under the title The Babylonian Talmud (London, 1935-52). The thirty-five attractive volumes were capably edited by Isidore Epstein. Far more ambitious in scale is this editor’s parallel-text version, Hebrew-English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud (London: Soncino Press, 1960-). Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, J. Neusner accepted editorial responsibility for a production through Scholars Press that is to number 36 volumes in the Brown Judaic Studies series under the title The Talmud of Babylonia: An American Translation, whose first volume appeared in 1984 (Atlanta: Scholars Press). Navigation on the “Sea of Talmud,” as that reservoir of rabbinic learning and lore is often called, can gain steerage through use of ;nln’, PllTM, Subject Concordance to the Babylonian Talmud, compiled by Lazarus Goldschmidt (1871-1950) and edited by Rafael Edelmann (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1959). Goldschmidt’s purportedly exhaustive subject index, which may be considered a fitting climax to the career of this
Orientalist and bibliophile to whom we owe a scholarly edition of the text and a German translation of the Babylonian Talmud, 9 ~01s. (Berlin, Leipzig, The Hague: by various publishers, 1897-1935), orders key words in context according to subject.
Somewhat closer to the New Testament in time (ca. A.D. 450) is the forma- tion of the Palestinian Talmud. Parts of this Talmud became available for the first time in German in August Wiinsche’s translation, Der jerusalemische Talmud in seinen haggadischen Bestandtheilen zum ersten Male in’s Deutsche iibertragen (Zurich, 1880). More ambitious in scope is the cooperative transla- tion enterprise headed by Martin Hengel, ijbersetzung des TalmudJerushalmi, with the first volume appearing in 1980 (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Siebeck]).
The first volume of an English translation of the Palestinian Talmud, The Talmud of the Land of Israel, appeared in 1982 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), with some translations done by the editor, J. Neusner.
Since the Babylonian Talmud contains much material that postdates the period of formation of New Testament documents, especially careful use of its contents, as noted below on the use of Billerbeck’s commentary, is man- datory for the student who makes judgments about Jewish matters in the New Testament.
In Talmud and Apocrypha (London: Soncino Press, 1933) Robert Travers Herford compares and contrasts talmudic and apocryphal writings as he attempts documentation of their emanation from a common source in post- captivity Judaism. Haggadic amplifications of biblical accounts wait to fasci- nate and inform in Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Bible (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), a shorter version of his seven-volume The Legends of the ]ews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909-38). A Rabbinic Anthology (New York: Macmillan, 1938; reprint, New York: Meridian Books, 1960), translated and edited by Claude Joseph Goldsmid Montefiore and Herbert Martin James Loewe, offers a topical sampling of rabbinic wisdom.
The interpretive possibilities of the rabbinic writings for the understanding of the New Testament are exploited and correlated in many excellent publica- tionsJ2 Claude J. G. Montefiore’s The Synoptic Gospels, 2d ed. rev., 2 ~01s.
(London: Macmillan, 1927), contains much helpful comment. His Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings (New York: Macmillan, 1930) supplements his study of the Synoptics. In Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1924), Israel Abrahams com- pares the doctrine of the rabbis to the teachings of Jesus. An apologetic tone stiffens his determined defense of Pharisaism.
In The Teachings of ]esus: Studies of Its Form and Content (Cambridge, l2 On the history of rabbinic studies and their application to problems of New Testament interpretation, see Jan Willem Doeve, Jewish Hemeneutics in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts (Assen:
Van Gorcum, 1954), 5-51.
218 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Judaica 2 1 9
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1931; 26 ed., 1935; reprints, 1951, 1955), and The Sayings ofJesus (London: SCM Press, 1949), Thomas Walter Manson makes brilliant use of rabbinic materials throughout, but especially to expose the deep and adventitious root system, which finds its apex in the concept of the fatherhood of God!3
The German Moravian and later Lutheran Gustaf Hermann Dalman has drawn many a student into his debt with a pair of incisive works elucidating New Testament concepts and incidents against the elaborate background of rabbinic materials, Die Worte Jesu (Leipzig, 1898) andJesus-Jeschua (Leipzig, 1922). The first was translated into English by David Miller Kay as The Words of]esus (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902); the second by Paul Philip Levertoff as Jesus-]eshua (New York: Macmillan, 1929). Bo Reicke, in his Neutesta- entliche Zeitgeschichte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965; 3d ed., 1982), sketches the broader Hellenistic landscape; Werner Foerster, in From the Exile to Christ:
A Historical Introduction to Palestinian Judaism, trans. Gordon E. Harris (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), the Jewish milieu, in which the ministry of Jesus takes on fresh perspective. In Die apostolische und nachapostolische Zeit (Gottingen, 1962), the first part of a promising four-volume manual edited by Kurt Dietrich Schmidt and Ernst Wolf and titled Die Kirche in ihrer Geschichte, author Leonhard Goppelt discusses factors that helped shape the postapostolic church.
Of historical interest is Joseph Gedaliah Klausner, ardent Zionist, prolific writer, and even candidate for the presidency of Israel in 1949, who rendered opinions on the birth of Christianity as seen from the ward of Judaism. Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching, trans. Herbert Danby (New York:
Macmillan, 1925 ), was composed originally in modern Hebrew and published in Jerusalem in 1922. In it Klausner defended the classic contention of Julius Wellhausen that Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. In his second notable work, From ]esus to Paul, trans. William F. Stinespring (New York: Macmillan, 1943), Klausner brands Paul the culprit responsible for the establishment of Christianity separate from Judaism. In The Messianic Idea in Israel: From Its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah, trans. W. F. Stinespring (New York: Macmillan, 1955), Klausner endeavors to turn the weight of prophetic realism against authoritarian materialism in Zionist social policy. Needless to say, his tracing of the evolution of Christianity is based mainly on Jewish sources, many of which definitely merit the attention of Christian scholars.
For balance, read William David Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (London: SPCK, 1948; 2d ed., 1955).
13 The Sayings of Jesus was originally published as the middle portion of The Mission and Message of Jesus: An Exposition of the Gospels in the Light of Modern Research (New York:
E. P. Dutton, 1938), of which the other contributors were Henry Dewsbury Alves Major and Charles James Wright. The 1949 edition of The Sayings of Jesus contains additional notes.
For detailed critical analyses of the use of rabbinic materials relative to New Testament interpretation, the student should consult Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels, Journal of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 6 (Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1951); Jan Willem Doeve,]ewish Hermeneutics in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1954);
and Edward Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957). These books are important for understanding the basic exegetical principles used by Paul and other New Testament writers in their approach to the Old Testament and its interpretation.
Other standard discussions include Paul Fiebig’s study of parables, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu im Lichte der rabbinischen Gleichnisse des neutesta- mentlichen Zeitalters (Tubingen, 1912), and his investigation of miracles, Jiidische Wundergeschichten des neutestamentlichen Zeitalters (Tubingen: J.
C. B. Mohr [Siebeck], 1911). His Jesu Bergpredigt (Gdttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1924) sheds light on numerous expressions in the Sermon on the Mount. Ismar Elbogen, Derjiidische Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Frankfurt am Main, 1913; 3d ed., 1931; reprint, Hildesheim, 1962), contributes notably to the history of liturgy.
Final mention is reserved for Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kom- mentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 5 ~01s. (Munich:
C. H. Beck, 1922-28; 2d ed., 4 ~01s. in 5, rabbinic index, and index of scribes with geographical index, 1954-61), abbreviated Billerbeck, since Billerbeck was chiefly responsible. This work is not for amateurs, but when used with awareness of its distortions of Jewish perspectives, lamentably weak documen- tation of tannaitic sources, and assumption that relatively late rabbinic materials are reliable indicators of first-century Judaism, Billerbeck can offer some interesting parallels to New Testament data!4
Among the ancient sources for Jewish history are the fragments of Jewish writers found especially in Josephus and Eusebius and collected by Felix Jacoby in Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrHist) (Berlin and Leiden, 1923-). Important also are the thoughts collected from antiquity in Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, with introductions, translations, and commentary, 3 ~01s. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974-)
i4 G. F. Moore’s evaluation remains beyond challenge: “For vast collections made for a wholly different purpose the reader may resort to Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch . . . ; but he should be warned that the critical sifting of this miscellany devolves upon him who uses it for any particular purpose” uudaism, 3:viii). In a number of works, E. P. Sanders echoes Moore.
220 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Judaica 2 2 1