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I was reading you statement on p368a of the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. It raises a question or two.
1. You apparently lift a translation straight from Samuel Lachs’ Rabbinical Commentary on the New Testament:
i) Did you go back and check the primary source, or did you rely on this popular secondary source?
ii) What is the date of the cited text?
iii) In n5, he refers the reader to “Montefiore’s criticism of SB’s citations of this subject ad loc., RLGT, p312.”
How might that affect your citation?
iv) The text says that in the world to come “there is not eating and drinking and, or procreation and childbearing…”
Do you think we should use that to interpret Jesus' statement in Lk 20:35? Do you think glorification eliminates the need for food and drink?
If so, it’s hard to see in what sense the glorified body is still a physical body. Yet the Lukan pericope centers on the resurrection of the body.
2. On Lk 20:36, you say that “as sons of the resurrection,” they are “like angels, and angels neither need food nor marry,” followed by citations from 1 En 15:6; 51:4; 104:4-6, Wis 5:5,15-16; 2 Bar 51:10, plus the DDS.
i) Did you go back and check the primary sources, or did you recopy this from stock citations in standards commentaries? I ask because I don’t see how the citations actually bear our your contention.
ii) Regarding 2 Baruch:
a) Wasn’t that composed sometime after the synoptic gospels? So how would that constitute background material for a discussion which is recorded in the synoptic gospels?
b) Even if we waive aside (a), this is how Charles renders 2 Bar 51:10:
For in the heights of that world shall they dwell, And they shall be made like unto the angels, And be made equal to the stars, And they shall be changed into every form they desire, From beauty into loveliness, And from light into the splendor of glory.
How does that document the specific claim about food and marriage (or the absence thereof)?
iii) Regarding Wis 5:5,15-16, the New Jerusalem Bible renders this passage:
5 How has he come to be counted as one of the children of God and to have his lot among the holy ones?…15 But the upright live for ever, their recompense is with the Lord, and the Most High takes care of them. 16 So they will receive the glorious crown and the diadem of beauty from the Lord’s hand; for he will shelter them with his right hand and with his arm he will shield them.
How does that document the specific claim about food and marriage (or the absence thereof)?
iv) Regarding 1 En 104:4-6, this is how Charles renders that passage:
4 rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you. Be hopeful, and cast not away your hopes for ye shall have great joy as the angels of heaven. 5 What shall ye be obliged to do? Ye shall not have to hide on the day of the great judgement and ye shall not be found as sinners, and the eternal 6 judgement shall be far from you for all the generations of the world. And now fear not, ye righteous, when ye see the sinners growing strong and prospering in their ways: be not companions with them.
Nickelsburg, in his commentary (p512), has a similar rendering.
How does this document the specific claim about food and marriage (or the absence thereof)?
v) Regarding 1 En 51:4, this is how Charles renders that passage:
4 And in those days shall the mountains leap like rams, And the hills also shall skip like lambs satisfied with milk, And the faces of [all].
How does that bear on your claim?
If we include v5a, there is a passing reference to angels: “the angels in heaven shall be lighted up with joy.”
But even that addition doesn’t seem germane.
vi) Regarding 1 En 15:6, here is the verse in context:
3 for you: Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children 4 of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons? And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh and blood as those also do who die 5 and perish. Therefore have I given them wives also that they might impregnate them, and beget 6 children by them, that thus nothing might be wanting to them on earth. But you were formerly 7 spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling.
Nickelsburg’s rendering is similar. This is the only citation thus far that approximates the details of your claim.
However, in the Enochian passage the naturally celibate state of the Watchers (i.e. angels) is set in direct contrast to human beings. And that is grounded in the incorporeal nature of the Watchers, in direct contrast to human beings.
Both Nickelsburg, in his commentary (p272), as well as David Jackson, in Enochic Judaism (p32-33), underscore that antithesis.
So how would that be analogous to the resurrection of the body, which is the point at issue in the dispute between Jesus and the Sadducees? Do you think a glorified body is essentially ethereal, like an astral body? How does that fit the Lukan depiction of the Risen Christ (Lk 24:37-43)?
vii) Was there something in the DDS to document the specific details of your contention?
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Steve:
Here is a brief answer.
The quotation of B Ber 17a is taken from Lachs, who took it from
Montefiore; other translations could have been used, which are not
substantially different. Lachs is handy, more so than Billerbeck, which
is German, and so for the convenience of English readers I used the
Lachs reference.
Of course there is a debate on the use of rabbinic text. There is no
time here to go into that. I do not claim that rabbinic texts "explain"
NT texts: I use them as comparable statements. While "no eating" may
speak against a physical body, "crowns on their heads" can be taken as
implying a physical body.
The main point of comparison was the "neither marry" statement in Luke
20:35.
And yes, I always check primary sources. I resent the suggestion that I
cite primary texts without reading them. The point of the "angel"
references is the description of the resurrected as angels, without
implying that these text speak about eating etc. I do not claim what you
assume.
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Unfortunately for him, he made more specific claims than the evidence he cites seems to justify.
Frankly, I think it's pretty shoddy scholarship to have him quoting Lachs, quoting Montefiore, quoting/translating the original.
Why bother citing alleged parallels unless these help to explain the verse?
Actually, "crowns on their head" could well be stock figurative imagery.
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