Mandate to Witness

I picked up a cheap copy of Leander Keck's Studies in the Book of Acts over Christmas, and read it on Monday in preparation for teaching the Book of Acts this fall.

Keck's aim was 'to promote a fresh and vital study of Acts' (9) for a church after Christendom. I found myself least convinced by arguments based on a construal of ancient Judaism because the field has undergone a revolution since 1964, when the book was published. The contemporary issues Keck addresses--the American civil right movement and the cold war--are of course dated too. But the book is perhaps the best discussion I have read on the contemporary significance of Acts.

For example, the final chapter on church-state relations anticipates C. Kavin Rowe's "new" take on Acts, and reminds me of Michael Gorman's recent work on Revelation:

[T]he Christian's attitude toward his government is not determined by the government's attitude toward Christianity, but rather by his own faith in the lordship of Jesus. (146)

Because Jesus is next to God, faith in Jesus is really a commitment to him as an absolute authority, a supreme sovereign. ... Whoever holds this belief firmly enough to commit his life to the consequences, finds that every other allegiance must be secondary to this one....Christianity is a totalitarian faith. (147)

We must not always assume that the gospel is a pacifier for mankind to suck in times of distress. It is also a fire and a sword. We must not interpret Acts to mean that Christians are always politically quiet simply because the church is not a revolutionary party. Just the opposite is true: Because the church is not a political party, its impact is not restricted to the realignment of the government, but affects the economy as well. (150)

We Christians also face real danger if the West should win [the cold war], and we face it right now as we struggle to survive. This danger consists of being made into the state religion, of waking up to learn that, like the priests of pagan Rome, we are expected to perform the rituals of the church in order to preserve the state. (151) 

In short, we are in danger of thinking that we are living in times characterized by Romans 13, when actually we are slipping into the era marked by Revelation 13. Already the land is being filled with priests, pagan and Christian alike, who bid us worship the beast....All around us are forces that demand that the church shout "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!"--that is, that ministers go into the pulpits Sunday after Sunday to proclaim the American God and their hatred of communism. Such men are unwitting priests of the state who bid us put incense on Caesar's altar because Caesar is putting incense on ours through tax exemptions and slogans on dollar bills. (152-3)

John's Gospel reports that during Jesus' trial, the Jerusalem crowd bellowed its patriotism by shouting, "We have no king but Caesar." The Book of Acts shows the Christian alternative: "There is another king, Jesus." Here the Christian must take his stand, "come Hell or high water." In our time, he may face both. (153)

Prophetic words. Vintage Keck.

Second Year Hebrew in "Second Life"

My friend, Charles Grebe, the creator of animatedhebrew.com and the director of Briercrest College and Seminary's Distance Learning program, will be teaching 2nd year Biblical Hebrew this fall in a "Second Life"-like virtual world hosted by Reaction Grid. The course will be taught live and offered for credit. I'm a big fan of Charles's approach to teaching the language, and I can't think of a better way for those who don't have access to a regular classroom setting to complete a second year of Biblical Hebrew. Check out this article for more information on what the course will be like. There are more pictures of the virtual classroom environment here. The registration deadline is Sept 5.

Jesus' Mother Tongue Part 2: The Supposed Dominance of Aramaic in First Century Galilee

My aim in this post is not to demonstrate that Hebrew rather than Aramaic was the dominant language in the first century or that Jesus taught in Hebrew rather than Aramaic, but to raise some questions about the nature of the evidence.

(1) As I mentioned in part 1, it is often claimed that the Greek words Hebrais and Hebraisti should be translated "Aramaic" instead of "Hebrew." In response I will simply quote from Ken Penner, whose argument I find persuasive:

In summary, all the anomalies to the otherwise consistent ancient distinction between Hebrew and Aramaic can be accounted for: First, John's Rabbouni can be considered a Hebrew word. Second, Josephus and Philo's Pascha and sabbata are taken directly from the Septuagint, and Asarta has a final alpha to aid pronunciation. Third, John's three place names called Hebraisti, namely Bethzatha, Gabbatha, and Golgotha should not be given much weight in the light [of] the resistance of proper names to translation. Thus all the apparently Aramaic words cited could easily have been used in Hebrew speech. Finally, Philo's claim that the Bible is written in chaldean is insubstantial, given that he probably knew neither Hebrew nor Aramaic. To refute the claim in the lexicon that Hebrais "refers to the Aramaic spoken at that time in Palestine," only one of the following three premises must be conceded. I have demonstrated the first two: First, Hebrais(ti) normally means Hebrew; second, Hebrais(ti) never certainly means Aramaic; and third, Hebrew was a spoken language in first century Palestine. This last premise has also now been generally conceded . . . (p. 10)

(2) Scholars who accept that both Aramaic and Hebrew were widely used often suggest that Aramaic was more common in Galilee, while Hebrew was more common in Jerusalem and its environs:

• Chaim Rabin* concluded in 1976 that "while in Jerusalem mishnaic Hebrew was a home language and probably already also a literary language, and Aramaic a lingua franca, in Galilee Aramaic was a home language and mishnaic Hebrew the upper language of a diglossia" (1036).
• Michael Wise** agrees, though he is less confident about the use of Hebrew: "The fact that the region [of Galilee] came under Jewish control only after some centuries of government by Aramaic and Greek-speaking rulers suggests that Hebrew was much less well known in Galilee than it would have been in Judea. . . . With the passage of time Aramaic became the most widely spoken language in Syria and Palestine, and, presumably, among the Jews, with the possible exception of the Jews of Judea" (437).
• Mark Roberts refers to the "fact" that Aramaic was "the official language of Galilee": "It makes sense that residents of Nazareth spoke Aramaic, given the fact that Aramaic became the official language of Galilee from the sixth-century B.C. onward. Thus, it seems likely that ordinary residents of Galilee, including Nazareth, spoke Aramaic as their first language. This was the language of common discourse among Jesus' family and friends."

The problem with Roberts' assertion, in particular, is that Galilee came under Jewish/Judaean Hasmonean control in the second century BCE. Since there is strong evidence for Hasmonean preference for Hebrew, it is at least possible that Hebrew spread widely during this period among the Jews in Galilee. To be sure, this is an argument from silence. Wise** notes that written evidence for the use of Hebrew applies "only to Judea. . . . Similar evidence for Galilee is entirely lacking" (437). But Wise cites no epigraphic evidence that Aramaic was spoken in Galilee either. (There are inscriptions from late antiquity, but I know of no Galilaean Aramaic inscriptions dated to the Second Temple Period. I confess my ignorance: are there any? Scratch that: According to this article by Mark Chancey, there are perhaps two Galilaean Hebrew or Aramaic inscriptions from the Second Temple period. If there is little or no written evidence, both sides argue from silence--at least with respect to written evidence.

(3) Scholars now rightly avoid citing Rabbinic literature without further ado as evidence for first century usage. The reason is simple: Literature written after 200 CE must be examined first for what it says about the time in which it was composed (or compiled); it cannot be read as direct evidence for speech and practice hundreds of years earlier. It is worth noting, however, that the earliest Rabbinic literature (the Mishnah, the Tosefta) is preserved in Hebrew not Aramaic.

(4) As Wise** explains, the evidence from the Gospels about the language of Jesus is extraordinarily difficult to assess. In a bilingual context "Aramaic words might appear, for example, in the course of a conversation conducted mainly in Hebrew or vice versa; such phenomena are commonly observed in the speech of modern bilinguals" (442). Apart from the Aramaic command recorded in Mark 5:41,

"The other verbal sentences recorded as Jesus' direct speech . . . [Mark 7:34; Mark 15:34 and Matt 27:46] . . . are problematic as to language. . . . Thus it is impossible to be certain whether on these occasions Jesus spoke Hebrew or Aramaic. As a result, based on Mark 5:41 one can only say that Jesus certainly spoke Aramaic on occasion. This much was to be expected on the basis of our knowledge of the dominant language among the Jews of Galilee" (542).

I would merely add that "our knowledge of the dominant language among the Jews of Galilee" rests on inference; it seems not nearly as well-founded as is commonly supposed.

In the end I remain agnostic about Jesus' mother tongue. I assume Jesus was at least bilingual; he may well have taught in both languages. (I am not persuaded by arguments that Jesus taught in Greek.) I'd like to think he taught primarily in Hebrew, but see no way of knowing for sure. When I talk about Jesus' original language, I refer to "Hebrew/Aramaic" just to be safe.

Bibliography:

*Rabin, Chaim. “Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century.” Pages 1007-1039 in The Jewish People in the First Century: Section One: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, cultural and Religious Life and Institutions. Edited by Shmuel Safrai and Menahem Stern. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976. 

**Michael O. Wise, "Languages of Palestine." Pages 434-44 in The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP: 1992).

See also David Goodblatt, "Constructing Jewish Nationalism: The Hebrew Language." Pages 49-70 in Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.  

Jesus' Mother Tongue

That Jesus' mother tongue was Aramaic, not Hebrew, is one of those "assured" results of modern scholarship that has filtered down into popular consciousness--assisted, no doubt, by the Aramaic script to Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ as well as by modern English translations. BDAG, the standard Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, explains that although the noun ἑβραΐς (hebrais) means "the Hebrew language," it is used to "refer to the Aramaic spoken at that time in Palestine." The lexicon entry shows how firmly entrenched this view is in New Testament scholarship; it also contributes to its continued dominance. Among modern translations, the NIV, TNIV, NLT, NET, follow the lexicon's lead by translating ἑβραΐς by Aramaic instead of Hebrew when it appears in the New Testament (Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14; cf. the adjective, Ἑβραϊστί [hebraisti] in John 5:2; 19:13, 17, 20; 20:16; Rev 9:11; 16:16).

It may come as a surprise, then, to discover that scholars of post-exilic Hebrew and Aramaic agree that Hebrew continued as a spoken language until the 3rd century AD:

• Moshe Bar-Asher*: "Research has further shown that Hebrew was spoken in Palestine until roughly 200 CE. The view is generally accepted that the Hebrew preserved in Tannaic literature reflects living speech current in various regions of Palestine" (568). "The theory was once proposed that MH had never been a living language, but an artificial creation, and that the Jews in the Tannaic period had spoken Aramaic exclusively. This view has now been universally abandoned" (586 n. 74). (See below for full bibliography.) 
• Yohanan Breuer**: "Today . . .  everyone agree[s] that Hebrew speech survived in all walks of life at least until the end of the Tannaic period (beginning of the third century CE)" (598).

I suspect most pastors and more than a few scholars simply repeat what they learned when they were in school--namely, that the Jews of Jesus' day spoke Aramaic rather than Hebrew and therefore that Jesus taught in Aramaic. This view rests on the outdated scholarship of past giants such as Gustaf Dalman, who wrote before the great manuscript discoveries of the 20th century (the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bar Kokhba letters).

The standard position among those who actually study the question has changed, however. As the quotations from Bar-Asher and Breuer show, scholars of the linguisitic setting of first century Palestine agree that both Hebrew and Aramaic were spoken languages. To be sure, there is debate about how common each language was. On one side, Joseph Fitzmyer*** concluded that Aramaic was the vernacular, and that even Greek was more common than Hebrew: "pockets of Palestinian Jews also used Hebrew, even though its use was not widespread" (46). As far as I can tell, most linguists of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic now give more prominence to Hebrew than Fitzmyer did in 1970, and the standard view is now that most Palestinian Jews in the first century--including Jesus--would have been bilingual in Aramaic and Hebrew, at least to some extent, and possibly trilingual in Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek.

This, of course, does not prove anything about Jesus' mother tongue or his normal language of instruction. The majority of scholars still seem to conclude that, as a Galilaean, Jesus' mother tongue was Aramaic and that he most likely taught primarily in Aramaic. This is the conclusion of Mark D. Roberts in a fine recent blog series (scroll down and begin reading at the bottom; most of the series is also collected here) as well as Michael O. Wise****, who concludes wisely: "In view of all the unproven assumptions and complexities involved with the question of Semitic sources behind the Gospels, it is no exaggeration to say that even after 150 years of scholarly effort, research is still at a very early stage" (444).

For my part, I am impressed with how little evidence there is for Aramaic dominance in Galilee, and I am convinced by my friend Ken Penner's excellent paper  (online here) that both ἑβραΐς (hebrais) and Ἑβραϊστί (hebraisti) should be translated "Hebrew" when they appear in the New Testament. But more on this in part 2.

_________

Bibliography:

*Moshe Bar-Asher, "Mishnaic Hebrew: An Introductory Survey," in The Literature of the Sages: Second Part: Midrash, and Targum; Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism; Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science and the Languages of Rabbinic Literature  (Fortress, 2007), 567-595.
**Yohanan Breuer, "The Aramaic of the Talmudic Period," in The Literature of the Sages: Second Part: Midrash, and Targum; Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism; Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science and the Languages of Rabbinic Literature  (Fortress, 2007),597-625.
***Joseph Fitzmyer, "The Languages of Palestine in the First Century A.D." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 32 (1970): 501-31, reprinted in A Wandering Aramaean (Scholars Press: 1979; Eerdmans: 1997), 29-56.
****Michael O. Wise, "Languages of Palestine." Pages 434-44 in The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP: 1992).

Other sources:

Rabin, Chaim. “Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century.” Pages 1007-1039 in The Jewish People in the First Century: Section One: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, cultural and Religious Life and Institutions. Edited by Shmuel Safrai and Menahem Stern. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976. 

I haven't yet read these two essays mentioned by Jeffrey Garcia: Shmuel Safrai, “Literary Languages in the Time of Jesus”; Hanan Eshel, “Use of the Hebrew Langauge in Economic Documents from the Judeaen Desert” in Jesus’ Last Week (eds. S. Notley, M. Turnage, and B. Becker; Leiden; Brill, 2006).

Wanted: A Kindle DX with tricks, for cheap

Every time I visit Amazon, I see an ad for the 6'' Kindle e-reader for only $189. I confess I want one.

Although I expect I would seldom buy new books, I really like the idea of downloading a library of public domain books or reading PDF journal articles and apparently blog feeds without being tied to my computer. I like the e-ink technology, free access to wikipedia, and email anywhere.

Here's the thing: (1) I have a hard time justifying the purchase of something I can't quite convince myself I need. (One of my friends from college days likes to remind me of the time he gave me a Toonie and forced me to spend it...on candy.) (2) I'd much rather have the larger 9.7'' screen Kindle DX edition, but I don't want to pay $279 for it. (3) I'd also like to have access to a searchable library of original language biblical texts, but the Kindle apparently doesn't work with Hebrew yet. (4) This report from a Reed College pilot project suggests that the Kindle isn't ideal for the sort of reading I need want it for. (5) This "poor man's Ipad" looks like it has what I want (reading capability on a big screen), and is closer to my ideal price range.

All this reminds me that about five years ago I wanted a Palm Tungsten E2 personal data assistant. Remember them? In addition to managing addresses and appointments, the Palm played music, displayed pictures and videos, and came equipped with a PDF viewer and software that could display and edit Microsoft Office documents. Best of all was Bible+, a free add-on for which you could download original language versions of the Bible (Greek and Hebrew), Josephus, Philo, and Homer in Greek and English, the Apostolic Fathers, and so on. All this for $199 (or free, in my case--a long story). On the down side, entering data with a stylus was slow, the 3'' screen was too small for comfortable reading, and with a laptop and a five minute commute to work I simply don't need a personal data assistant.

I still charge up my Palm and take it along to academic conferences because it is nice to have ready access to Greek, Hebrew and English Bibles. During slow moments at graduation ceremonies I pull it out of my gown and drill Hebrew vocab. But most of the time it sits in a drawer as a mute reminder that today's big item will be tomorrow's landfill.

Still, I wouldn't mind playing around with one of those Kindles...

Bonhoeffer on Quality

"Quality is the bitterest enemy of conceit in all its forms. Socially it implies the cessation of all place-hunting, of the cult of the 'star'; an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one's more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dissipation to recollection, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation. Quantities are competitive, qualities complementary." 

 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (London: SCM, 1953), 144.

Paul and the Marginal Imperial Cult

A few years ago I expressed my reservations about recent attempts by N.T. Wright and others to read Paul against a pervasive imperial cult. I began to think I was wrong, however, because everyone else seemed to be jumping on the imperial band-wagon (often citing Simon Price's book, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor, which I have not read).

One of my main concerns was that much of the archaeological evidence for the imperial cult post-dates Paul. In a recent article, Colin Miller reviews the archaeological evidence in detail and has the same concern:

"[M]y aim in this article is to explore which of the cities in which Paul worked, in Paul's time, had some relation to the imperial cult, and what that relation was. Is it true that the emperor cult permeated life and helped make up the very fabric of reality in Paul's world? Is it true that in the time of Paul's mission the emperor cult held the empire together? Is it, more basically, true that "[i]n any city that Paul visited, evidence of emperor worship appears repeatedly in present excavations?" [quoting Crossan and Reed] I argue that all our evidence points to a negative answer to these questions. The archaeological evidence reveals that, in the cities Paul visited, in Paul's time, the emperor cult was marginal. In more than half of Paul's missionary cities there is no evidence of the imperial cult at all. In the others, I will show, the emperor was only one cult alongside many others." (Colin Miller, "The Imperial Cult in the Pauline Cities of Asia Minor and Greece," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 72.2 (April 2010): 314-332, here 316)

Looks like an important article!