The Early Reception of the Torah (Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies Book 39)

BarbaraS chmitz &K ristin De Troyer tory used of statues in the Greco-roman world and compares the divinatoryu se of the texts of the lawt ot he statues and argues for the similarity between the book of the lawa nd the statues as aw ay of consulting divine knowledge. One of the most crucial concepts in Judaism is thatofthe sabbath. Although the Sabbath is part of the Toraha nd its laws, Gerbern S. Oegema focusses on how the sabbathw as perceiveda nd interpreted duringt he time of the Maccabean revolt and at the end of the first century CE, using the appropriate texts from 1a nd 2M accabees, Jubilees, 1E noch, Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus and the New Testament.H ep oints to what he calls earlyw itnesses of an Oral Torah, even if that concept is not yetd eveloped and notes thatt herew ereavariety of interpretations and practices duringt he Second Temple period. In her contribution on 4Maccabees, Tessa Rajak studies the interpretation of the death of the seven martyred boys and their mother,esp.the wayinwhich the mother recalls her husband'st eachingf rom the Lawa nd the Prophets. Rajak studies the structure of 4Maccabees, focussing on the philosophical framework, the rhetoricale xpressions,i ts deliberate highlighting of instruction while ad-dressingGreek ethics. The mother,argues Rajak, becomes ateacher of Torah. Although Greek in colouring, 4Maccabees aims to convince the reader that the ultimate schooling is that in Jewish nomos! The book of Enoch is part of the Bible of the Church of Ethiopia -as such it can be considered abook which needs attention in avolume on the reception of the Torahindeuterocanonical and cognateliterature. But,how preciselycan one describet he relation between the Mosaic lawa nd the book of Enoch. Michael Langlois takes on this difficult issue and attemptstoanswer the question whether there was frontal opposition to the lawinthe book of Enoch, or wholehearted acceptance. In his contribution, he first takes on the perceivedr ivalry between Moses and Enoch, then movest od iscuss the possibilityo fs eeing these figures as complementinge ach other,a nd finally,n otes traces of reception of Enoch in the Mosaic Torah, points to overlaps in their respective redaction history, and acknowledgesr eception of Mosaic Torahi nt he book of Enoch. The book of Jubilees is filled with demons, evil spirits and the famous (Prince of)Mastema.These beingsseem to have developed between the Biblical books, the Dead Sea Scrolls and earlyChristian literature. These harmful beings seem to take on some responsibility for what goes wrongi nt he world. Ryan Stokes focusses in his contributions on these harmful beingsa nd considers how Jubilees appeals to pneumatology and demonologya nd how these beings function in these views, in order to promoteT orah observance. First,S tokes examinest he texts dealing with the role of evil spirits in Jubilees and how people can protect themselvesa gainst deceptive spirits. Then, he asks the question in how far the threats of these evil spirits werec onsidered real threats. Table of Contents 5 List of Abbreviations 7 Introduction 11 Inheriting, Developing, and Debating within Tradition: Abraham’s Torah Observance in Second Temple Judaism 15 Massah and Meribah Re-interpreted: Biblical Accounts, Judith, and Josephus 33 Emotion and Law in the Book of Baruch 63 The Torah in the Diaspora: The LXX Esther and Tobit as Test-cases 85 Fearing the Lord God: The Reception of Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic Torah Tropes in Tobit 95 Re-Examining Torah in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Was Hellenistic Wisdom Torahised? 107 Searching the Book of Law: Jewish Divination in 1 Maccabees 3:48 135 The Sabbath: From Biblical Commandment to Halakhic Discussion 153 Torah in the Fourth Book of Maccabees 169 Moses versus Enoch? On the Reception of the Mosaic Torah in the Book of Enoch 185 Mosaic Torah and Defense against Demons in the Book of Jubilees 199 List of Contributors 211 Index of Names 213 Index of Subjects 217 The series Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies (DCLS)is concerned principally with research into those books of the Greek Bible (Septuagint) which are not contained in the Hebrew canon, and into intertestamentary and early Jewish literature from the period around the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE. The series was launched in 2007 in collaboration with the ""International Society for the Study of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature"". It provides a logical extension to the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook, which has been published since 2004 This volume contains the papers presented at the 2017 meeting of the SBL Program Unit on Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature in Boston, MA. The theme of the sessions was the interpretation of Torah in deuterocanonical literature. The contributions cover a variety of concepts and themes related to Torah and trace these through the Hebrew Bible, into the Septuagintal deuterocanonical books and other relevant and cognate literature.