First Glance

004

Although the Dead Sea Scrolls do not include any books of the New Testament, this does not mean they have nothing to tell us about Christianity. The scrolls actually reveal a lot about the roots of Christianity and its relationship to Jewish sects at the turn of the era, as James C. VanderKam continues to explain in the conclusion of his two-part article, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity—What They Share.” In December, VanderKam showed how the scrolls can illuminate the translation of some New Testament expressions; how they can provide possible sources, or at least parallel uses, of certain Christian phrases and concepts; and how they foreshadow the baptism ritual. In this issue, VanderKam discusses some of the practices and beliefs shared by Christianity and the authors of the scrolls, including their eschatological outlook, a sacred meal of eschatological significance, a messianic title and the dualistic language of their doctrines.

A member of the official Dead Sea Scroll editing team, VanderKam has been assigned the manuscripts of the Book of Jubilees found in Cave 4. A scholar of remarkable linguistic facility, he is fluent in five modern languages and ten ancient languages. VanderKam serves as professor of Old Testament at the University of Notre Dame and chairs the Ancient Manuscripts Committee of the American Schools of Oriental Research. The author of Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (Catholic Biblical Association, 1984) and The Book of Jubilees (Peeters, 1989), VanderKam is now working on several books simultaneously, including an introductory textbook to the intertestamental period. His “The People of the Scrolls: Essenes or Sadducees?” appeared in the April 1991 BR. VanderKam will lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls at a BAS seminar in Chicago on September 26–29, 1992.

The Book of Esther is filled with drama, a sense of impending disaster, palace intrigue, even romance. It is also an anomaly in two striking ways: It is the only book of the Hebrew Bible set in the Jewish Diaspora, and nowhere in its ten chapters is there any mention of God. In this issue we examine both anomalous features. The first, the book’s setting, naturally raises the question of whether or not Esther is accurate in its historical details. Was there ever a mighty King Ahasuerus, a beautiful Queen Esther, an evil Haman, a wise Mordecai, or were they merely fanciful creations? Michael Heltzer, in “The Book of Esther—Where Does Fiction Start and History End?” utilizes what we know of ancient Persian history and language to separate fact from myth and concludes that the book’s author was often—but not always—remarkably true to history in his account. Heltzer concludes his investigation by proposing both a time and a motivation for the book’s composition.

Born in Tallinn, Estonia, Heltzer studied Semitics and Near Eastern history, completing his doctorate in the socioeconomic history of ancient Ugarit. He immigrated to Israel in 1972. Heltzer is now a professor at the University of Haifa, specializing in West Semitic inscriptions, the history of Canaan and Ugarit, and biblical and Jewish history of the Persian period. His hobbies are cooking, studying political memoirs of the last two centuries and aiding new immigrants from the Soviet Union to resettle in Israel.

To explore the seeming absence of God from the Esther story, Rachel B. K Sabua spins a new midrash—a technique first used by the rabbis of the Talmud to elaborate on possible meanings within a text—to discover “The Hidden Hand of God,” in the Book of Esther. Focusing on six examples of odd spellings in the Hebrew text, Sabua shows that God can be understood to have been a “behind-the-scenes” player on six occasions when the Jews of Persia acted to save themselves from destruction. Sabua, the pseudonym of a student of Near Eastern religions, takes her name from the woman who married Rabbi Akiba, the second-century scholar, on the condition that he devote himself to the study of Torah and who once even sold her hair to support the two of them.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” begins the hymn of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11. The hymn goes on to praise several Hebrew Bible figures for their faith, among them the matriarch Sarah. But the hymn uses an extremely puzzling phrase regarding Sarah: When translated literally, it says Sarah received the power to emit semen. To avoid the problem, some scholars translate the 005phrase to mean that she received the power to conceive or that the phrase was meant to apply to Abraham. Pieter W. van der Horst confronts the question “Did Sarah Have a Seminal Emission?” and, using classical Greek, rabbinic and early Christian ideas regarding conception shows that the phrase in Hebrews means exactly what it says.

Van der Horst studied classical philology and theology at the University of Utrecht, where he is now professor of New Testament and of the Jewish and Hellenistic milieu of early Christianity. Of his 80 articles and 10 books on the world of the New Testament, the most recent are Essays on the Jewish World of Early Christianity (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1990) and Ancient Jewish Epitaphs (Kok-Pharos, 1991). When not working on his current project as part of an international team of scholars producing the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Brill, forthcoming), van der Horst enjoys listening to modern Jazz.

Although the Dead Sea Scrolls do not include any books of the New Testament, this does not mean they have nothing to tell us about Christianity. The scrolls actually reveal a lot about the roots of Christianity and its relationship to Jewish sects at the turn of the era, as James C. VanderKam continues to explain in the conclusion of his two-part article, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity—What They Share.” In December, VanderKam showed how the scrolls can illuminate the translation of some New Testament expressions; how they can provide possible sources, or at least parallel uses, […]