T e Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude This page intentionally left blank T e Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude W hat Earliest Christianity Learned f om the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha D AV I D A . d e S I LVA 1 O xford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. I t furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, s cholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. O xford New York A uckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi K uala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi N ew Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto W ith of ces in A rgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece G uatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore S outh Korea Switzerland T ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam O xford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. P ublished in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 1 98 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2012 A ll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, s tored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without t he prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly p ermitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate r eproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the s cope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, a t the address above. Y ou must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. L ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data D eSilva, David Arthur. T e Jewish teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: what earliest Christianity learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha /David A. deSilva. p. cm. I ncludes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. I SBN 978-0-19-532900-1 1 . Apocryphal books—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. O.T. Apocrypha—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. B S1700.D47 2012 2 29´.06—dc23 2 012000909 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 P rinted in the United States of America o n acid-free paper T o our sons, J ames Adrian deSilva, John Austin deSilva, and Justin Alexander deSilva; N o parent could be more pleased. This page intentionally left blank C O N T E N T S A cknowledgments ix I ntroduction 3 1 . R ecovering the Voice of Jesus 1 4 2 . R ecovering the Voices of James and Jude 3 1 3 . I n the School of Ben Sira of Jerusalem 5 8 4 . T e Book of Tobit: Life Lessons from an Edifying Tale 86 5 . T e Book of Enoch: T e Order of God’s Cosmos and the Consequences of Violations 101 6 . M ilitary Messianism and Jesus’ Mission: T e Psalms of Solomon 1 41 7 . J ewish Martyrology and the Death of Jesus: 2 Maccabees and the L ives of the Prophets 158 8 . T e T estaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Legacy of Ethics and Eschatology for a New Generation 1 75 9 . T e T estament of Job: Job Becomes an Example of Patient Endurance 2 37 C onclusion: Jesus, James, and Jude among the Jewish Teachers 2 52 N otes 261 B ibliography 3 07 I ndex of Modern Authors 3 27 I ndex of Select Ancient Texts 331 I ndex of Subjects 3 41 This page intentionally left blank A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S Since long before Luke opened his Gospel and Acts with words addressing his patron, T eophilus, authors have had occasion to acknowledge the networks of support that facilitated their pursuit of their scholarly and literary en- deavors. I gladly continue the tradition, f rst by thanking Professor Dr. James H. Charlesworth of Princeton T eological Seminary for his impact. His course “Sociology of the Early Jesus Movement” and, in particular, his book J esus Within Judaism laid the foundations for my ongoing interest in the literature of the Second Temple period and the formative inf uence of this literature on early Christianity, and his support and encouragement along the way have been of great value to me. I have also prof ted from the work of many scholars researching the historical Jesus, but for this volume none has been so helpful, thorough, and consistent a guide as Professor Dr. John P. Meier of the Univer- sity of Notre Dame through his multivolume work, A Marginal Jew. T e entire guild of biblical scholarship owes him a great debt for this exhaustive and careful investigation of the meaning and authenticity of the traditions attrib- uted to Jesus. M ore immediately, I am grateful to Ms. Cynthia Read of Oxford University Press for her kind reception of my proposal and her guidance at many points along the way of writing this manuscript. T e Alexander von Humboldt Founda- tion kindly provided a resumption of my fellowship, allowing me to accept Prof. Dr. Hermann Lichtenberger’s invitation to return to Tübingen for part of a summer, during which time I was able to pursue research especially for the chap- ters on the T estaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the T estament of Job. I am grateful to the foundation for its continued support and to Prof. Lichtenberger for his sponsorship. Dr. and Mrs. Gottfried and Linda Kiefner most graciously opened up their home to me and my eldest son during this time, welcoming us back to Tübingen like family. I am also grateful to Baker Academic Press for kind permis- sion to incorporate introductory material from the chapters on Ben Sira and Tobit from my Introducing the Apocrypha (2002) into the corresponding chapters here. ix