The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity EvA MroczEk 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mroczek, Eva, author. The literary imagination in Jewish antiquity / Eva Mroczek. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-027983-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Jews—History—70-638. 3. Judaism—History—Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.–210 A.D. I. Title. BS1171.3.M76 2015 221.6—dc23 2015031602 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan, USA In memory of my grandmothers Hanna Dmochowska-Mroczek (1930–1991) and Genowefa Rafałowicz (1935–2010) contEnts Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Beyond Bible and Book 3 1. The Mirage of the Bible: The Case of the Book of Psalms 19 INTRODUCTION: MILTON’S VIAL AND THE UNCONTAINED TExT 19 BIBLICAL SPECTACLES 22 WHY THERE WAS NO “BOOK Of PSALMS” IN THE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD: MANUSCRIPTS AND THE IMAgINATION 25 PSALMS WITHOUT PSALTERS: RETHINKINg PSALMS TraDITIONS BEYOND “BIBLE” AND “BOOK” 38 CONCLUSION: BIBLIOgraPHIC SURPRISES IN EARLY JUDAISM 45 2. The Sweetest Voice: The Poetics of Attribution 51 INTRODUCTION: WHAT DID ANCIENT AttRIBUTION CLAIM? AESTHETICS AND AUTHORSHIP 51 CHAraCTERS IN SEARCH Of STORIES: AUTHORITY, PSEUDONYMITY, AND POETICS 53 THE PSALM SUPERSCRIPTIONS AND DAVIDIC VOICE 58 SINfUL KINg TO ANgELIC BARD: THE MAKINg Of THE SWEET SINgER Of ISraEL 71 CONCLUSION: THE LIfE Of THE WRITER 84 3. Like a Canal from a River: Scribal Products and Projects 86 INTRODUCTION: THE POETIC “I”: HISTORICAL OR LEgENDARY? 86 THE fIRST JEWISH AUTHOR? BEN SIra AND THE AUTHORIAL NAME 90 viii Contents WHAT IS “THE BOOK Of BEN SIra”? OPEN BOOKS AND AUTHENTIC TExT 103 THE AfTERLIVES Of BEN SIra AS TExT AND CHAraCTER 110 CONCLUSION: METAPHORS AND MANUSCRIPTS 112 4. Shapes of Scriptures: The Nonbiblical Library of Early Judaism 114 INTRODUCTION: “COLLECTINg, If POSSIBLE, ALL THE BOOKS IN THE WORLD” 114 MENTAL ARCHITECTURE AND THE SHAPE Of THE SACRED LIBraRY IN EARLY JUDAISM 118 fROM fORgERY TO ExEgESIS: THE NONBIBLICAL LIBraRIES Of MODERN PUBLISHINg 128 JubIlees AS BIBLIOgraPHY: A NATIVE HISTORY Of WRIttEN REVELATION 139 CONCLUSION: BIBLIOgraPHY AND TOTALITY 154 5. Outside the Number: Counting, Canons, and the Boundaries of Revelation 156 INTRODUCTION: WHEN HAILE SELASSIE fINISHED THE BIBLE 156 QUALITATIVE NUMBERS: TWENTY-TWO AND TWENTY-fOUR BOOKS IN JOSEPHUS AND 4 ezra 161 BEYOND PSALM 150: WHEN KINg DAVID fINISHED THE PSALTER 171 CANONS, CLOSURE, AND THE INSUffICIENCY Of SCRIPTURE 180 CONCLUSION: REVELATION OUT Of REACH 182 Conclusion 184 Notes 191 bibliography 233 Index o f Ancient sources 257 Index o f Modern Authors 262 Index o f subjects 265 AcknowLEdgMEnts The image on the cover of this book is by Montreal artist guy Laramée, whose carved book sculptures speak of the containment and shaping of written knowl- edge. In Laramée’s works, discarded dictionaries, encyclopedias, and even Bibles are no longer vessels for verbal communication: they are shaped into landscapes made of hidden words. In this piece, five stacked volumes, their spines still intact, have become a stark rock face dotted with caves. To the scholar of early Judaism, the landscape evokes the hills of Qumran, which, for two thousand years, con- cealed the Dead Sea Scrolls. As the hills revealed their secrets, we came face to face with textual forms and literary landscapes vastly different from our own. Carving up books seems sacrilegious to bibliophiles. But the accumulation, erosion, and reshaping of knowledge that we see in Laramée’s work reflects our own dynamically changing textual history. That history moves more slowly than Laramée’s power tools, but both the physical forms of writing and the way people have conceptualized literary worlds and religious texts continue to take new shapes. This book takes up these questions from the perspective of Second Temple Jewish literature, asking how it appeared to its creators and earliest audiences—before the concepts of “book” and “Bible,” which structure our own literary imagination, were available to think with. I thank guy Laramée and his representation, Jayne Baum of JHB gallery, New York, for permission to use this image. Even more, I thank him for creating work that insists we undo our assumptions about how writing is supposed to look. My own thinking about the contours of early Jewish literature began in grad- uate school at the University of Toronto. Parts of this book originate in my PhD dissertation, completed there in 2012. My doctoral supervisor, Hindy Najman, drew me into the field with her inimitable energy and imagination, and showed me how to listen to ancient texts on their own terms. But she also helped me find—and trust—my own voice as a scholar. She continues to be my mentor, ix