The Midrashic Impulse

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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mbuckley3
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Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:47 am

The Midrashic Impulse

Post by mbuckley3 »

There is much enthusiasm in some quarters here for seeing midrash as the key to explaining the creation of some elements of gospel narratives, i.e. the glossing of one scriptural text with another (often out of context) which can create something new as a by-product, something presented as historical fact. It's reasonable to ask if classicists, for example, see the same type of process at work in their texts. The answer is yes, though as this is not rabbinica, let's not call it midrash, rather creation by literary inference. Here's a small example.

According to Philostratus (Vit.Soph.488), during his exile under Domitian the sophist/philosopher Dio Chrysostom "planted, dug, and channeled water for baths and gardens, performing many such menial tasks for a living." We are reminded of Acts 18.3, a throwaway aside that Paul was a tentmaker by trade. It seems like a standard trope and we move on.

But there is a problem. Dio's speeches/essays have many autobiographical passages, and are undoubtedly Philostratus' source. But nowhere in the extensive extant corpus does the refined Dio admit to doing manual labour, poor though he was in exile. Of philosophic exemplars, Philostratus himself (Vit.Ap.5.19) has the exiled Musonius Rufus (Dio's likely teacher) in a chain-gang digging the Corinth canal; Diogenes Laertius (7.168) re-tells the story of Cleanthes being so poor that "by night he drew water in gardens."

But why pick on these particular examples ? Back in 1978, Christopher Jones noted that in Or.12.18, Dio, describing a visit to an army camp post-exile, said he was too weak to dig a ditch (not that he was there to do that). In Or.35.20, describing Indian irrigation systems, Dio continues "..just as 'we' convey the water of our gardens. And there are baths also close by.." Seemingly, out of context citations have pointed to examples which provide narrative events in the account of Dio's life.

Similarly, Philostratus has Dio, on Domitian's death, stop a mutiny at an army camp by imitating the 'big reveal' of Odysseus to the suitors, stripping off his beggar's rags, quoting Homer (while naked) to prove who he really is, denouncing the tyrant but counselling good order. Again, that camp visit (where nothing happened) was in Trajan's reign, with Dio's fortunes restored. Dio does claim to have denounced Domitian in public, but this episode is absent. Dio does compare his exilic appearance, "in the guise of a beggar", to that of Odysseus back on Ithaca (Or.1.50, 33.14-15), but there is no dramatic pay-off. Philostratus has joined the dots to make a plausible fiction. We have no need to posit lost written sources, or a 'rich oral tradition', (except in so far as previous readers of Dio could have made the connections which Philostratus took up - oral tradition doesn't have to start in the lifetime of the subject).


What then of Paul the tentmaker (σκηνοποιός) ? If we are convinced by F.C. Baur et al that the author of Acts is 'in dialogue' with Paul's letters, a joining of dots provides a rational explanation. Paul is insistent that he works with his hands, profession unspecified (1Cor.4.12). He metaphorically describes himself as a master-builder, the building seeming to be a temple/ναός (1Cor.3.10-17). Acts can hardly describe Paul as a ναοποιός, but (2Cor.5.1 etc) Paul helpfully also uses the word σκηνος ('tabernacle', but basically 'tent') as an equivalent to ναός. So you quickly end up with Paul the distinctly artisanal σκηνοποιός, a textually 'justified' answer to a (very) minor question, what was Paul's day-job ?
Secret Alias
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Re: The Midrashic Impulse

Post by Secret Alias »

Personal correspondence with I R M Boid of Monash University an expert in Samaritanism:
The Dosithean reformer Sakta [= 'booths'], who can be dated to just after John the Baptist, set up a booth on the Balata Meadow. It is known that a pun was made on his name or title Sakta and the very similar Hebrew and Aramaic words meaning a booth. It is recorded that he declared the Mountain to be profane without the Tabernacle. This is only a repetition of the essential Dosithean dogma. He then said “From this booth we will go up to Mt. Gerizim”. A variant in the mss. has “Whoever has this booth will go up to Mt. Gerizim”. The text is an Arabic translation from Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek, from an old document fragments of which were known to Origen secondhand or thirdhand. Graphically in Arabic the two sentences are nearly the same. Without having collated all the mss.in regard to this passage yet, my first impression is that the second form is the original. Either way, what is meant is that he and his followers will be able to go up to Mt. Gerizim because the sacred place will have become holy or will be about to become holy. The significance of the booth is (a) that it is not a stone building; (b) That it is not an enclosure; (c) that being in it is a prerequisite for the manifestation of the Tabernacle on the Deuteronomic sacred place, or for the manifestation of the Vessels, which can be put in a newly made Tabernacle. Now it is known that all Samaritan denominations regarded the title “the Gate of Heaven” as belonging to the most holy part of the Mountain, the higher of the two peaks, said to be only fifteen cubits (exactly twenty-two and a half feet or fifty steps of convenient height) from the lowest heaven. Modern orthodoxy says Jacob’s words “This is the House of God and this is the Gate of Heaven” mean that the House of God is the designated place for the Sanctuary on the Mountain, near where where Jacob was standing (but not exactly the same place), and the Gate of Heaven is the top of the higher peak. The two are not the same place, otherwise Jacob would have said “This is the House of God and Gate of Heaven”. Obviously putting Jacob on the mountain goes against the implications of the text. Any natural reading must set him and Bethel on the Meadow with the steep slope of the mountain just before him. This means that some people could have maintained they had a prooftext for locating the Unique Place on the Meadow, and identifying Bethel with the Unique Place. This would explain the roofless sanctuary seen by the source behind Epiphanios. My guess is that we now have confirmation of a statement in old but undatable Samaritan sources, that there was a false Bethel set up by Jeroboam, and a true Bethel on the mountain. It would be natural to suppose this other Bethel to have been on the Meadow, where the narrative most naturally puts Jacob. I therefore take back my naming of the sanctuary described by Epiphanios as Dosithean, because what the Dositheans had on the Meadow was deliberately and symbolically a temporary structure. They clearly located the Unique Place on the Mountain. The warning to Jacob in Jubilees, that the place is indeed sacred but not to be enclosed because it is not the Unique Place, could be Jewish in origin, but is more naturally seen as written by a Samaritan warning against the error of setting up the enclosure on the Meadow still standing in the first c. A.D. and described secondhand by Epiphanios. Both the Dositheans and their opponents would have agreed on the form of the warning. It would not have been written by a Jew because a Jew would not have thought it necessary to make the statement or put the statement in the form of a warning. A Jew would have been thoroughly aware of what was claimed for the Mountain, but would not naturally have thought about any sanctuary on the Meadow. Besides, the wording is abrupt. A more detailed statement with a reference to the future after the time of the Judges would be expected if the author had been a Jew, and some kind of supporting statement elsewhere in the book and connected with Moses would have been expected. I get the impression the author didn’t want to speak at all about the sanctuary on the Meadow, and says as few words as he can manage.
perseusomega9
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Re: The Midrashic Impulse

Post by perseusomega9 »

Peter: let's build 3 booths.

Jesus: you f-ing idiot.
perseusomega9
Posts: 1030
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2014 7:19 am

Re: The Midrashic Impulse

Post by perseusomega9 »

Great post btw mbuckley!
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