Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania [updated 13 Sept 2001]

[based on a presentation made at the SNTS Congress in TelAviv, Israel, in August 2000;
an earlier version is scheduled to appear in Journal for the Study of Judaism 32.4 (2001) 371-395]

1. Introduction

As those who know me well will understand, I am not usually in favor of simply reading formal prepared papers to groups of informed scholars as a way of advancing study of the topics at hand.\1/ I think that such an uninterrupted public oral approach often is ineffective, and in any event may be an irresponsible use of available time and resources. Thus I propose to follow up on the excellent general opening remarks made earlier by Dan Harlow, to present some additional ideas about the topic, and to encourage input and discussion from the group as we proceed. Perhaps then we can make better progress towards identifying issues that call for closer attention.

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\1/The primary background for this discussion is my article drafted for the 1976 SNTS meeting at Duke University a quarter century ago which is now available both in hardcopy and on the internet: "The Pseudepigrapha in Christianity," in John C. Reeves (ed.) Tracing the Treads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (SBL Early Judaism and its Literature 6; Atlanta: Scholars, 1994), 55-86; for a slightly updated electronic version that will continue to be updated, see my home page and especially my "Electronic Publications" link at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html (Netscape works better than some other browsers with these "gopher" files). In what appears below, I'm especially grateful for the comments and suggestions from the participants of the 2000 SNTS Seminar, most notably from Jan Willem van Henten, and subsequent to the Seminar from Ross S. Kraemer and Marinus de Jonge. The central point(s) that I want the reader to take from this presentation are that the subject is extremely complex, and in many respects the surface of scholarly research has barely been scratched. In what follows, I attempt to examine various facets of the situation, from various vantage points, and with particular focus on the methodological problems encountered. Relevant literature in the subject area is vast, and I do not try to do much more here than to give some pointers to recent research. I apologize for the repetitions, which reflect my frustrations in finding effective ways to approach the complex subject.

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As usual, my focus is on method -- on selfconscious and consistent approaches to the subject, exercising as much "control" as possible, by which I mean operating from the more securely known aspects to the more problematic.

With most of the materials of interest for this study -- "Jewish sources" -- our main avenue of discovery starts in Christian contexts. That is, with rare exceptions provided mainly by discovery of ancient manuscripts (most notably the Dead Sea Scrolls) and by continuous Jewish transmission, our knowledge of "Jewish sources" relating to the period of Christian origins comes through Christian interests and transmission. While this fact is widely recognized, it is not always taken seriously in the study of those materials. For example, while we are often warned - quite appropriately -- that the rabbinic Jewish sources are relatively "late" in their preserved forms and therefore can only be used with great care and caution in the study of Christian origins, the same sort of methodological circumspection seldom is voiced with regard to the use of the "pseudepigrapha" and related materials, which are often also relatively "late" as we find them in their preserved forms, and have come to us through clearly Christian hands and interests. (For examples see further below.)

This does not mean that it is impossible to use such materials to "get back" to the earlier period that may be the focus of our interest, any more than the rabbinic sources should be considered irrelevant or impervious for such purposes. What it does mean is that similar care is necessary in determining how to use these materials responsibly. They are, first of all, "Christian" materials, and recognition of that fact is a necessary step in using them appropriately in the quest to throw light on early Judaism. I call this the "default" position -- sources transmitted by way of Christian communities are "Christian," whatever else they may also prove to be.

This is not a new insight, as is clear from reading many of the pioneers of the study of these materials (e.g. Batiffol, M.R.James, Harnack).\2/ But it is an insight that tends to get lost as scholarly confidence grows in our ability to recognize what is "Jewish" (or otherwise non-Christian) in the sources. Yet that ability, as with all historical research, is not something static. New discoveries and new insights change the playing field in various ways, sometimes almost imperceptibly, sometimes quite radically, so that what were once considered to be clear and firm results of scholarship require re-evaluation in the light of more recent information and approaches. This is what I sometimes refer to as the "methodological spiral" with which we operate -- it is not a circular argumentation\3/insofar as each new piece of evidence can modify our understanding so that we can ask the same questions from a slightly (or sometimes radically) different vantage point.\4/ For our present study, for example, the meanings of "early Jewish" and of "Christian" are in some ways significantly different from what they may have been the last time around on the spiral of responsible and informed research.

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\2/See Pierre Batiffol, "Le Livre de la Prière d'Aseneth," in Studia patristica: Études d'ancienne littérature chrétienne, vol. 1.2 (Paris: Leroux, 1899-90), 1-115; Montague Rhodes James, "Introduction" to R.L. Bensley's edition of The Fourth Book of Ezra (Texts and Studies 3.2; Cambridge, 1895); Adolf Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius I: die Überlieferung und der Bestand 2 (Leipzig, 1893; 2nd ed. reprinted Leipzig: Hindrichs, 1958); "Übersicht über die von den Christen angeeignete und zum Theil bearbeitete jüdische Literatur," 845-865.

\3/ For example, it would be circular to argue (and also begs the question) that a certain text that shows concern for the fate of Jerusalem must be Jewish since we know from such texts that concern for the fate of Jerusalem was a characteristically Jewish feature (and presumably would not be of interest to Christians)!

\4/ In our example, if the text at hand shows interest in the fate of Jerusalem and comes to us by way of Christian transmission, this suggests that some Christians may indeed have had an interest in that subject and that the text (and others like it) may even have originated in such a milieu.

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The bottom line, at this point in the discussion, is that with reference to sources preserved and used by the Christian traditions, the "default" position is that they must first be understood within their Christian contexts as the starting point for attempting to use them responsibly for purposes of determining their possible contributions to our knowledge of earlier Jewish contexts. The burden of proof lies with claims of Jewishness, and the route to establishing the probability of early Jewish connections is complex and fraught with problems both regarding definitions/assumptions (method) and regarding reliable information (data).

2. Framework of the Seminar Discussion

In an attempt to provide a detailed overview of the issues, I presented a preliminary grid on the large chalkboard in the seminar room. It called attention to three main areas of concern -- (1) methodological issues in modern scholarship, (2) types of early Christian treatment of "Jewish" materials, and (3) types of relevant ancient sources (as well as recent studies) available for the investigation. Further observations were invited from the participants:

1. Methodological Issues: motivations/interests
                          definitions/assumptions
                          controls
                          analogy

2. Types of Treatment:    faithful & complete
                          faithful selections
                          revisions
                          new compositions

3. Types of Sources:     "scriptural"
                          apocalyptic
                          prophetic/oracular
                          hymns/prayers
                          commentary
                          hagiographic
                          homiletic
                          chronographic
                          ethical

2.1. Methodological Issues

With reference to modern research and researchers, why do we care about these issues and materials? Some of us may be looking for clues about early Judaism and are impatient about the process by which such information is uncovered. Others may want to concentrate on early Christian interfaces with Judaism (positive, negative, or neutral), and are content to focus their investigations on that period, without much reference to what may have preceded or followed. Still others may be mainly interested in the adoption and adaptation of these materials into ongoing Christianity, long after the period of presumed origins and of initial tensions with Judaism has passed. Our conclusions are often dictated to some extent by our interests, although we may not always be self-conscious of that fact.

The related problem of definitions and assumptions was explored briefly by the group. Arguments are often determined in advance by how one defines such terms as "Christian," "Jewish," "original text," "recension," etc. Sometimes the categories, even when carefully defined, can overlap in confusing ways (see below on Boyarin's recent discussion of martyrology!). Assumptions about attitudes to "scriptural" authority, or to the establishment of "the canon" often color arguments unduly (and anachronistically). If we really believe that Christians appropriated their selection of Jewish scriptures and saw themselves as legitimate owners and protectors -- as standing and participating in that tradition -- why should it be difficult to believe that Christians could produce "Jewish" sounding supporting materials?

A third area of methodological concern is the search for firm evidence on which to base arguments, and the appropriate use of analogies to extend arguments beyond the firm controls. For example, we have the plethora of Dead Sea Scroll materials that al most certainly come from a halakhically rigorous apocalyptically oriented early Jewish milieu in Palestine, and that include fragments of some writings otherwise known only from much later Christian copies and/or translations (e.g. the Enoch materials, Jubilees, Tobit, Epistle of Jeremiah). Can we legitimately argue from such control cases that other similar writings that are not represented among the surviving DSS probably were, by analogy, also present in that sort of Jewish Palestinian milieu?\5/ Or how comfortable can we be with sociological arguments about millennial communities in the early Jewish and early Christian worlds being analogous in certain otherwise unattested regards to apparently similar groups that exist in the modern world and have been studied directly by modern scholars?\6/ It is important to be aware of the types of evidence available as well as the sorts of arguments used to move beyond the details to synthetic reconstructions.

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\5/Albert Sundberg, for example, in his essay "'The Old Testament of the Early Church' Revisited" (Festschrift in Honor of Charles Speel, edited by Thomas J. Sienkewicz and James E. Betts, published by Monmouth College Illinois, 1996: also available online at http://department.monm.edu/classics/Speel_Festschrift/) comments that "Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha utilized by early Christians but not found at Qumran include: Apocrypha: 1, 2 Esdras, additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, Prayer of Azariah, Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1, 2 Maccabees; Pseudepigrapha: Letter of Aristeas, the Books of Adam and Eve, the Martyrdom of Isaiah, the Sibylline Oracles, the Assumption of Moses, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Baruch, Greek and Syriac Apocalyses of 4 Ezra, Psalms of Solomon, 4 Maccabees." Other titles could be added to the list as well.

\6/See note 12 in my "Pseudepigrapha" article for references to such approaches, including more recent literature to about 1990.

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2.2. Types of Early Christian Treatment of "Jewish" Materials

With regard to early Christian treatment of "Jewish" materials, a range of theoretical possibilities exists and sometimes can be verified in the preserved texts. Clearly there were faithful copies made and transmitted for centuries of some Jewish writings including but not limited to canonical Jewish scriptures. There also exist some "composite" Christian productions that include discrete segments of Jewish sources, juxtaposed with other materials (e.g. the "Odes" anthology that circulated alongside the scriptural Psalms);\7/ these are also "faithful" copies, but have been incorporated into new contexts. Examples of originally Jewish writings that have been revised to include Christian interests also are almost certainly represented -- the evidence ranges from relatively minor textcritical adaptations to more extensive "recensional" activity (e.g.

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\7/These Odes are normally included with the biblical Psalms in editions of the LXX/OG -- e.g. in A. Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, vol. 10 of the Goettingen Septuagint (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1931 [corrected edition 1967]), and in the 2 volume Septuaginta edited by Rahlfs (1935 and subsequent corrected editions from the Wuertt. Bibelanstalt in Stuttgart).

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Assumption of Isaiah, Paraleipomena Jeremiou, Didache's Two Ways section, parts of Sibylline Oracles).\8/ What is more difficult to illustrate is the end of the spectrum that would identify "original" Christian compositions of an apparently "Jewish" sort. Perhaps, at least, some works of prayer and/or praise would be obvious candidates.

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\8/Recent studies of these works include: Enrico Norelli, L'Ascensione di Isaia: Studi su un apocrifo al crocevia dei cristianesimi, Origini / CISEC, Centro interdipartimentale di studi sull'ebraismo e sul cristianesimo antico, Universita degli studi di Bologna, nuova ser. 1 (Bologna: EDB, 1994); Mauro Pesce (ed.), Isaia, il diletto e la chiesa : visione ed esegesi profetica cristiano-primitiva nell'Ascensione di Isaia, Atti del convegno di Roma, 9-10 aprile 1981 (Brescia: Paideia, 1983); Mauro Pesce, Il "Martirio di Isaia" non esiste: l'Ascensione di Isaia et le tradizioni giudaiche sull'uccisione del profeta (Centro Stampa Baiesi, 1984). Jens Herzer, Die Paralipomena Jeremiae: Studien zu Tradition und Redaktion einer Haggada des frühen Judentums, Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum 43 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994); Bernd Schaller, Paralipomena Jeremiou, JSHRZ 1/8 (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1998) 659-777; JSP Issue 22 (2000) [entirely devoted to Par.Jer.]; A. Momigliano, "From the Pagan to the Christian Sibyl," in A.C. Dionisotti, Anthony Grafton and Jill Kraye, The Uses of Greek and Latin: Historical Essays, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts 16 (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1988), 3-18; H.W. van der Sandt and D. Flusser's volume on the Didache in the CRINT series is in the press.

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2.3. Types of Relevant Ancient Sources

As for the presumably ancient data itself and its transmission history, recent studies help illustrate how little we really know. Clearly there were many varieties of early Christian groups (as also of Jewish groups, not to mention Christian/Jewish groups, and of course individuals who may or may not conform to any group), each perhaps with its own attitudes towards Jewish materials. We have little information on the dynamics that may have existed within and between such groups, including any motivation to appropriate, adapt, or even formulate "Jewish" materials. Some recent studies that suggest fresh approaches to some of these problems will be noted in more detail below.

We can identify various streams of traditions of Jewish pedigree that flourish, or at least survive, in Christian circles alongside of what comes to be considered "scriptural." Should we attempt to develop and apply different criteria to the study of each? We find apocalyptic continuities (e.g. 4 Ezra, 2-3 Baruch, 6 Ezra), prophetic and oracular pronouncements (e.g. 5 Ezra, Sibylline Oracles), hymnody and prayers (e.g. "extracanonical" Psalms, Apostolic Constitutions 8), scriptural interpretation (e.g. Philo), hagiography/martyrology (e.g. 4 Maccabees, Lives of Prophets), homilization and storytelling (e.g. on Joseph and his asceticism, Jeremiah's fate, tales of the patriarchs), attention to chronography and antiquity (e.g. Jubilees, Josephus), ethics (e.g. the "Two Ways" traditions), perhaps even "magic."\9/ The Christian development of "Dialogues with Jews" claims to connect to Jewish source materials but seems to take on a life of its own; its history may provide some clues to how some Christians treated Jewish sources. What are we to do with Epiphanius' bold claims about the Jewish convert to Christianity, "count" Joseph, and the Jerusalem Hebrew archives he allegedly accessed? What sorts of texts were available in the Jewish Christian communities mentioned by Jerome?

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\9/Some of these genres and/or themes have received some attention recently: e.g. apocalyptic and prophetic materials -- T. Bergren, Fifth Ezra: the Text, Origin, and Early History (Atlanta, Georg.: Scholars Press, 1990) and Sixth Ezra: the Text and Origin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); J.W. Marshall on the Book of Revelation (see below, n. 29); Dan Harlow (in this volume); martyrology -- G.W.Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press 1995); Jan Willem van Henten, "Zum Einfluss jüdischer Martyrien auf die Literatur des frühen Christentums (2: Die Apostolischen Väter)," in W. Haase & H. Temporini (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II:27/1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993), 700-23; also "The Martyrs as Heroes of the Christian People: Some Remarks on the Continuity between Jewish and Christian Martyrology, with Pagan Analogies," in M. Lamberigts & P. van Deun (eds.), Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective, BETL 107 (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 303-322 [van Henten is also collaborating with Friedrich Avemarie on a forthcoming monograph on this subject]; D.Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); tales and traditions of various sorts -- Ross S. Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Revisited (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); James Kugel, In Potiphar's House: the Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990) and Traditions of the Bible: a Guide to the Bible as it was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Universtiy Press, 1998); see also n. 8 above on Paralipomena Jeremiou.

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Asking the questions is relatively easy, but developing reasonable approaches to such wide-ranging materials takes much care and effort. As already noted above, it is not only a question of the history of relatively homogeneous and discrete documents, but also of different sorts of collections and compositions, from the fairly mechanically juxtaposed library such as 1 Enoch or the Odes to relatively more amalgamated examples of various sorts. At the level of textual detail, is it sometimes possible to determine when "Christian" scribal activities are responsible for particular phenomena? When we encounter texts that have been translated, can we determine what sort of translators were involved and what they might have contributed to possible transformations of the texts?\10/ And what can be said about those texts that have survived in two or more distinct "recensions"? Can we identify the Jewish or Christian affiliation of certain editors? By what criteria, and with what controls?\11/

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\10/Occasionally we can catch a glimpse of the process, as with the 6th century Syriac translation of the Aseneth materials; see Kraemer, Aseneth, 225. On translation issues more generally, see William Adler, "Ad verbum or ad sensum : the Christianization of a Latin Translation Formula in the Fourth Century," in J.C. Reeves & J. Kampen (eds), Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor of Ben Zion Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, JSOT Sup 184 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 321-348.

\11/See, for example, M.E. Stone, "The Study of Armenian Apocrypha," in B.G. Wright (ed.), A Multiform Heritage: Studies on Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Robert A. Kraft (Atlanta, Georg.: Scholars Press, 1999), 139-148; J.C. Reeves, "Reconsidering the 'Prophecy of Zardust'," in ibidem, 167-182 [with reference to Manichaean materials and traditions]; and on recensional issues, my own essay "Reassessing the 'Recensional Problem' in Testament of Abraham," in G.W.E.Nickelsburg (ed.), Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976), 121-137 [also available electronically through my home page].

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3. In Other Words: A More Orderly Restatement of the Situation

So much for attempting to chart or briefly to identify the main problems. What can be done, or hoped for, from this vantage point?

Christians made various uses of pre-Christian Jewish (and other) materials. By "Christians" I mean people who considered themselves to be adherents of Jesus whom they viewed as God's "Messiah/Christ" and, in the context of religion, the most significant being to have entered the human realm. By "Jewish" I refer to people who saw themselves in continuity with the traditions associated with Moses and ancient Israel and with communities known as "Jewish" in their world. It is not incompatible for a person to be both Jewish and Christian, in this definitional situation, but as persons in Christian communities come to see themselves as more and more distinct from other connections, Jewish or non-Jewish, that aspect of the definitional problem simplifies.\12 /

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\12/Definitions are necessarily arbitrary, and my preference is to focus on self-identifications (when they can be detected) and minimal requirements otherwise. Literature on the subject is vast: for a sampling of struggles with these issues, see my "Judaism on the World Scene", in S. Benko and J. J. O'Rourke (eds), The Catacombs and the Colosseum (Valley Forge: Judson, 1971), 81-98 [also available on my web site]; and more recently, S.J.D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, Hellenistic Culture and Society 31 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Boyarin, Dying for God; John Gager, Reinventing Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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Christians who self-identified as "Jewish" produced literature of various sorts, from the letters of Paul to collections of Jesus traditions (Gospels of the Hebrews, Nazarenes, Ebionites, etc.) to adaptations of apocalyptic materials (e.g. Apocalypse of John, probably), and doubtless various other productions. To the extent that it is possible to identify these Christian Jewish contributions, I will not include them in the following discussion but will try to focus on the afterlife of probably "pre-Christian" or early "non-Christian" materials (while unavoidably slipping here and there).

Many of these pre- or non-Christian Jewish sources were copied and transmitted for centuries in Christian contexts without significant modification. This can be easily verified with regard to Jewish scriptural writings and to many other works such as most of the "apocrypha" and some of the "pseudepigrapha," notably those attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The practice of copying such things faithfully is not only demonstrable from these surviving whole texts for which we have virtually identical pre- or non-Christian copies, but also from the quotations and long excerpts that appear in various contexts, from occasional, almost incidental usage to organized anthologies such as "testimony books" and more substantive efforts like Eusebius' Preparation for the Gospel. Christians also copied and transmitted "pagan" writings of various sorts, which needs to be taken into account when arguments are made attempting to connect the impetus to accuracy in copying with Christian concepts of scriptual authority.\13/

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\13/There are some easy cases. For what I prefer to call "Jewish scriptures," we have non-Christian manuscripts and fragments in Hebrew and Aramaic, and sometimes even in Greek. We can judge how faithful the Christian copyists have been by comparing those copies with the others -- our problem becomes a matter of textual criticism. And on the whole, there is virtually no evidence of overt Christianization in these control cases. Does that fact make it easier to treat similarly, by analogy, other possibly or even apparently pre-Christian Jewish texts for which similar non-Christian evidence is not present? Sometimes, but not always. And how do I determine the most responsible approach?

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Certain texts seem to have sufficiently strong secondary attestation to be treated as carefully copied pre- or non-Christian Jewish writings. The early and sometimes extensive references to Josephus as a source for Jewish history create a presumption in favor of accepting the relatively late and clearly Christian copies of his works as reliable - with allowances, of course, for a suspicious passage here and there. Similarly Philo. And the correspondences between Josephus and most of 1 Maccabees increase the probability that the latter is equally Jewish in origin, if early Christian claims to that effect fail to convince.\14/ The remaining "apocrypha" also find secondary attestation in early Christian sources, even if the extant MSS appear to be from Christian hands, and often very late. Again, clear evidence of Christian textual tampering is difficult to find in these texts, thus underlining the possibility that responsible transmission has occurred in similar, but less well documented, instances.

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\14/On "Josephus and 1 Maccabees," see I. Gafni in L.H. Feldman et al. (eds) Josephus, the Bible and History [Brill, 1989] 116-131.

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Some pre-Christian Jewish sources, such as those included in the Greek "Odes," were rather mechanically placed alongside materials that were revered as characteristically Christian, much as the Jewish "OT" writings came to be juxtaposed with "NT" writings when the mega-codex technology made it possible in the fourth century. The Greek Odes often circulated along with the biblical collection of Psalms; the Odes include poetic passages from the Christian Gospels along with poetic selections from Jewish scriptures. Of course, from the relevant Christian perspective there is probably nothing unusual about this. All such scriptures are considered Christian property. Probably similar attitudes underlie the development of hagiographical sources, where holy people from the amalgamated Jewish-Christian traditions are revered side by side; and similarly with the development of ethical handbooks such as the Two Ways (Barnabas and the Didache) and its relatives and descendants.

Pre- or non-Christian Jewish materials also were reworked in Christian hands in ways that rather clearly betrayed the Christian contribution, through explicit reverence for Jesus, or the mention of characteristic Christian themes such as the trinity. Sometimes this phenomenon occurred in the copying of texts and can be witnessed through textcritical comparisons, where one manuscript or family contains the Christian adaptation while other witnesses do not. A notorious example is the laudatory passage about Jesus in extant Greek MSS of Josephus (Ant. 18.[3].63f), which is lacking in an Arabic witness and is inconsistent with what else we know about Josephus -- although in the 18th century, Whiston could argue that it was authentic and helped prove that Josephus was a Christian.\15/ On a smaller scale, something similar can be seen in 4 Ezra 7:28, where most versions refer to "Messiah," but the Latin has "Jesus." Examples could be multiplied.\16/ This shows that while Christians copied many texts without significant alteration, this was not true of all.

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\15/William Whiston's translation and notes (1736) live on in updated forms (e.g. the Hendrickson edition of 1987) and on the internet. In his "Appendix: Dissertation 1" Whiston argues the case for Josephus as a (Jewish) Christian. The Arabic text that lacks the laudatory wording was published by S. Pines (see my "Pseudepigrapha" note 53 for this and related references).

\16/This and some other examples are discussed in my "Christian Transmission of Greek Jewish Scriptures: a Methodological Probe," in A. Benoit et al. (ed.), Paganisme, Judaisme, Christianisme: Influences et affrontements dans le Monde Antique (Melanges M. Simon) (Paris: De Boccard, 1978), 207-226; [also available on the internet through my web page].

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Pre-Christian Jewish materials also were reworked in Christian hands so that the lines between source and appropriation have become blurred, making it difficult to determine what was old and what newer material. It is clear that the extant recensions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs contain much pre-Christian Jewish material, and even preserve a literary form that is quite ancient. It is equally clear that in the preserved texts, Christian interests sometimes have left their mark, at least in one or another recension, complicating the question of the compositional "origins" of what has survived.

Similar observations can be made with the material now bundled under the title Ascension of Isaiah, or with Paraleipomena Jeremiou, or with the collected Lives of the Prophets, or the Adam/Eve compositions, among other texts.\17/ It is this last category of materials that has especially captured the attention of scholars who attempt to distil as much information as possible from the extant sources about the Jewish settings that produced and/or strongly influenced the early developments in Christianity. One of the issues worth discussing is whether any clearer guidelines have emerged in recent decades for determining what can or cannot be considered as pre- or non-Christian in these situations, or for that matter, what can be considered clearly Christian?

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\17/Relevant literature is voluminous and many of the earlier treatments are listed in my "Pseudepigrapha" article, especially notes 2 (Testaments), 58 (Ascension of Isaiah and related texts), 62 (Adam/Eve traditions), 63 (Lives of the Prophets), and 64 (Paraleipomena Jeremiou). For more recent studies, see above nn. 8-9 and also: Marinus de Jonge, Jewish Eschatology, Early Christian Christology, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Collected Essays, NT Sup 63 (Leiden: Brill, 1991); Robert G. Hall, "The Ascension of Isaiah: Community Situation, Date, and Place in Early Christianity," JBL 109 (1990), 289-306 (see also JBL 113 [1994], 463-484); Jonathan Knight, The Ascension of Isaiah (Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995); Marinus de Jonge, "The Christian Origin of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve," in G. Anderson, M.E. Stone and J. Tromp, Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 347-363, and the literature there cited (especially de Jonge and Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve and Related Literarure [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997]); David Satran, Biblical Prophets in Byzantine Palestine: Reassessing the Lives of the Prophets, SVTP 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1995); Anna Maria Schwemer, Vitae Prophetarum, JSHRZ 1/7 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997) [based on her Studien zu den frühjüdischen Prophetenlegenden Vitae Prophetarum I-II, Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 49-50 (Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1995-1996)].

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4. Some Selected Details -- Towards a Renewed Effort

The following three "exhibits" attempt to provide a sampling of different ways in which some Christians handled Jewish texts they had received.

Exhibit 1: accurate text but improbable interpretation:

Slightly more than a century ago, the description of the "Therapeutae" found in the Philonic tractate On the Contemplative Life was dismissed by Licius (1879) as a late 3rd century Christian forgery in Philo's name in support of the emergence of Christian monasticism. As David Runia reports in his masterful study of Philo in Early Christian Literature, "his thesis received the seal of approval from the eminent triad of German scholars, Zeller, Harnack and Schürer. Even Conybeare's 1895 refutation "did not persuade all scholars (most notably not Schürer),"\18/ yet today this blip on the screen of scholarly repartee goes largely unnoticed. Why? Was there not good reason to question the existence of such a body of monastics in the pleasant rural areas to the west of Alexandria at such an early date? Eusebius had treated this account as proof of early Christian monastic/ascetic presence in Egypt, and even reported that Philo had met with Peter in a trip to Rome. Eusebius concludes: "It is clear to everyone that Philo wrote these things after he had encountered the first heralds of the teaching which accords with the gospel and the customs handed down to the apostles from the beginning" (HE 2.17.24). Eusebius explains at some length just what Christian practices are being mentioned, even what scriptural texts are being read by the Therapeutae. Yet when Eusebius actually gives excerpts from Philo's tractate, they are in agreement with the preserved textual tradition and lacking in any obvious Christianized insertions or manipulations. Can we learn anything useful from this situation?\19/

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\18/D.T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: a Survey, CRINT 3.3 (Assen/Minneapolis: Van Gorcum & Fortress Press, 1993), 32.

\19/Issues worth exploring include: explicit copying in relation to perceived meaning (commentary) in antiquity; the role of perceived historical contexts (what is or is not considered possible) as a basis for modern scholarly evaluation; the influence of modern interests (e.g. in marginalizing monasticism, as has been claimed regarding Licius' motives) on scholarly conclusions. David Runia also reports on how later Christians used Eusebius' report, including various modifications of the content, to emphasize the Christian aspects (227-231). In addition, the fact that all our main MSS of Philo's writings have been transmitted by Christians complicates the matter of evaluating the accuracy of Eusebius' excerpts. It is highly probable that Eusebius knew and used a text that agrees with the later MSS, but it is not demonstrable that there had been no Christian editing of the text before it reached Eusebius.

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Exhibit 2: from margins to text, reshaping in reproducing:

Some relatively early manuscripts of the Song of Songs include headings, rubrics describing the perceived thrust of the following section of text. The interpretation is clearly Christian -- "Christ" is seen as a participation in the drama, and is explicitly named as such. Whether this format reflects an older tradition is discussable.\20/ This is similar to the situation with Eusebius and the Therapeutae, except that it provides a much easier step from the textual "incidentals" to later copies of the text itself. Examples could be multiplied.\21/

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\20/See Jay C. Treat, Lost Keys: Text and Interpretation in Old Greek Song of Songs and its Earliest Manuscript Witnesses (PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania 1996).

\21/More strictly textcritical in nature are examples from the Testament of Asher 7:3 ("concerning the Christ"), which probably attests a move from margin to text in the witnesses that include it; or 4 Ezra 7.28 (mentioned above) where "my son Messiah" becomes "my son Jesus" in the Latin; or Lives of Prophets: 2 Jeremiah, predicting a virgin birth, perhaps deriving from a marginal comment in the manuscript tradition.

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Exhibit 3: creating and recreating:

In the "Greek Apocalypse of Ezra," which is preserved in a relatively late Christian textual form full of ideas and phraseology that have parallels in a wide range of archaic Jewish sounding texts, we find both simple textual issues (e.g. "race of men" GENOS ANWN [abbreviated by overline] sometimes apparently becomes "race of Christians" GENOS XNWN [abbreviated by overline]) and we find passages such as at the start of ch 7: "Hear, Ezra my beloved -- I who am immortal took up a cross, tasted vinegar and gall, and was put into a grave. And I raised up my elect and called up Adam from Hades so that the race of men [would not languish there (?? lacuna)]." This material cries out for careful textcritical attention, but for the moment let it serve as an example of apparently "Jewish" material expanded in clearly "Christian" directions. As has been noted, it is not alone.\22/

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\22/The use of the figure Ezra in medieval Christian circles is fascinating in itself. For a recent convenient introduction to that material, see Michael E. Stone, "A New Edition and Translation of the Questions of Ezra," in Z. Zevit, S. Gitin, and M. Sokoloff (eds), Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 293-294.

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5. The Larger Problem in General: From Jewish Texts to Christian Contexts

Apart from the DSS and some early Rabbinic materials, very few actual manuscripts of Jewish writings have survived from the period prior to the 8th century CE that were not transmitted by Christian copyists and users.\23/ Sometimes the literature transmitted by Christians contains passages that clearly reveal Christian interests or expressions that are not likely to have been possible prior to the advent of Christianity in its various forms and permutations. Sometimes there are problematic passages that some interpreters see as "Christian" while others consider them to be "Jewish." Why care? What is at stake? The answers to such a basic question vary widely, even when posed in an academic scholarly setting such as this.

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\23/There are some Greek biblical fragments (papyri and parchment), and some non-biblical Cairo Geniza fragments also qualify (e.g. Ben Sira, Damascus Document, Sefer ha Razim); possibly also 3 Enoch.

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For those interested in recovering as much as possible about the earliest manifestations of "Judaism(s)," especially in "pre-Christian" or "non-Christian" settings, the payload is obvious. Sometimes the desire to know clouds the process, and materials that for some reason seem essentially "Jewish" are assumed to be so until proved otherwise.

On another curve in the methodological spiral are scholars whose primary interest is in knowing as much as possible about the "Christian" circles that preserved and presumably found some value in such materials, and for such people -- if I may oversimplify for the moment -- the materials are "Christian" until proven otherwise. There are, of course, as we have already noted, various in-between-positions in which one talks about original Jewish sources that are reshaped in Christian contexts (recensions), or about old texts that are "interpolated" somewhat mechanically (textual variation), or the like. Some investigators are interested in continuities, others more in discontinuities or divergences. As is true in such human endeavors, our answers are usually shaped by our motivating interests and by our prior perceptions about how things must have worked. Philo's Therapeutae could not have existed, at least not the way Eusebius understood the materials. But we now understand the report differently.

It should come as no surprise that whatever one's motivating interest may be, the path to convincing conclusions is strewn with nearly insurmountable obstacles. Clear communication even among the most responsible scholars is difficult since such basic terms as "Jewish" and "Christian" are slippery at best and can vary widely over time and in differing cultural and geographical locations. A provocative assessment of the situation can be found in the introduction to Daniel Boyarin's recent studies "Dying for God" (above, n.9). Although he seems to me clearly to overstate the case, Boyarin's emphasis on "the permeability of the borders between so-called Judaism and so-called Christianity in late antiquity" (21) reminds us of the dangers of making simplistic judgments regarding origins, influences and adaptations in the literature that concerns us. Our labels are often inadequate and can be seriously misleading. We don't know what relevant varieties of "Judaism" existed in antiquity, nor do we know the range of early "Christianities"; with rare exceptions, we don't know whether or how such communities drew their "borders" or related to each other. And we know even less about all but a few of the various specific individuals whose activities made it possible for us to speak of "communities." The simple older approach that easily drew distinct lines back from the developed, authoritative "orthodoxies" of the 4th century and later, whether "Rabbinic" Jewish or Classical Christian, has long been known to be in adequate, even if its ghost still haunts us more often than we might like.

6. A Search for Controls

What does this mean in practical terms, for our scholarly interests? Surely there are indicators that by definition must be called "Christian" (even if, with a Boyarin, we might sometimes modify the classification to "Christian Jewish," and for the "transitional period" of Paul and his contemporaries, we might feel very uncomfortable about the arbitrariness of such labeling)\24/ such as clear references to Jesus as Lord and/or savior, or to the miraculous/mysterious birth of Jesus, or to the blessed trinity, or to the categorical perfidy of the "Jews," and the like. But what would constitute clearly "Jewish" indicators, apart from what seem to be polemical anti-Christian materials such as in the Toledot Yeshu? Appropriation of pre-Christian Jewish sources and ideas is clear and demonstrable in later, selfconsciously non-Jewish "Christian" contexts, such as Eusebius and his successors. Part of the question before us is the extent to which selfconscious "Christians" who do not see themselves as also "Jewish" may have produced/originated such apparently "Jewish" materials. Nor is it beyond the pale of possibility that in some instances, originally non-Jewish "Christian" materials may have been modified by (Christian) Jewish hands, just as probably happened to some "pagan" materials (e.g. in the "Jewish" Sibyllines).

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\24/The definitional crisis created by appeal to the participants' self-understanding is unavoidable. Paul understands himself to be Jewish, and deserves to be taken seriously in that context; at the same time, he is also selfconsciously a follower of Jesus as Messiah/Christ in a sense that will become increasingly more difficult to hold in tension as the eschatological end fails to arrive and the various ongoing communities come into greater competition and conflict, for various reasons. There is evidence that a similarly dual selfunderstanding may have survived for a long time in some areas (see Jerome's reports of "Jewish Christians"), but in the Greco-Roman world(s) reflected in most of our surviving sources, it seems to have had less staying power. At the start of this essay, I chose to avoid this area of ambiguity, but it needs to be kept in mind as a further complicating factor. For some recent pertinent studies, see especially the literature on Paul, such as: Alan Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); John G. Gager, Reinventing Paul ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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Amid such complexities, the "safe" approach, if one wishes to be methodologically responsible, would be to start with the extant MSS and work from there. Thus the "default" position would be that MSS transmitted by selfconscious Christians are "Christian" until proved otherwise. And in some instances, it is not at all difficult to prove otherwise. Some Christians were clearly capable of copying pre- or non-Christian texts accurately, just as some Christians were able to reproduce excerpts from earlier materials without interjecting their Christian interests -- even when they did not really understand the material! There are situations in which respect for the text as something to be reproduced is clearly at work, whether that is expressed in quotation formulae, or simply by making a complete copy. Concern for accurate transmission is by no means foreign to the early Jewish/Christian world(s).\25/

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\25/Perhaps Rev 22:18-19 is relevant here, especially as an example of awareness of modification in the context of materials (apocalyptic traditions) that are not noted for being quotation conscious.

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Among the "pseudepigrapha," things get much more murky. The Dead Sea Scroll fragments remove any major questions about the pre-Christian status of Jubilees and most of the collection we call "1 Enoch," although the problem of the origins of the Parables/Similitudes section continues to be debated. If I permit myself to argue from analogy, there is no good reason not to consider that section as also Jewish in origin, but the evidence is not as decisive. And the danger of circularity in argumentation begins to become a factor: I can create a believable non-Christian Jewish context that could have produced this material, but must I do so? Should I do so? It is very tempting to do so, and in the interests of creating and testing hypotheses, it needs to happen, while also kept in perspective.\26/ On the other hand, I don't need to create a context of Christian usage -- that is a given. It is the safe default position. The same sorts of things could also be said of Philo's Therapeutae, since that text also is "Christian" by default! But there, at least, a fairly consistent linguistic corpus exists for close examination and comparison. Philo's On the Contemplative Life does not stand in isolation.

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\26/I am not arguing against such attempts at hypothetical reconstruction, only that they should not take precedence over understanding the text as it comes to us. For an example of this dilemma in another area of study, see J.W. van Henten and A.J. Bij de Vaate, "Jewish or Non-Jewish? Some Remarks on the Identification of Jewish Inscriptions from Asia Minor", Bibliotheca Orientalis 53 (1996) 16-28.

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As we move into more of the collected traditions about Jewish revered figures, things become even more difficult. What shall I do with the "Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs"? I can try to divide and conquer, exercising my source-critical as well as text-critical arguments on this complex body of materials, but I'm still left with relatively late and quite popular texts of Christian provenance, with little guarantee that significant adjustment and enhancement has not taken place in Christian hands. Yes, there may be clearly pre-Christian Jewish examples of the genre, but that is hardly a convincing solution to the complex problem. Similarly with Lives of the Prophets, in which the layers of evolution sometimes seem to be visible and extend to what seems to be clearly Christian activity. With the collections now associated with Isaiah (Testament-Ascension) and Jeremiah (Paralipomena), the argument could be made that the clearly Christian passages have been tacked onto the end of probably Jewish materials in an almost mechanical fashion, although unfortunately, few other similar writings exhibit that precise pattern.\27/

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\27/See J. Riaud, "The Figure of Jeremiah in the Paralipomena Jeremiae Prophetae: his Originality; his 'Christianization' by the Christian Author of the Conclusion 99.10-32)", JSP 22 (2000), 31-44; M. de Jonge, "Remarks in the Margin of the Paper 'The Figure of Jeremiah in the Paralipomena Jeremiae', by Jean Riaud", JSP 22 (2000), 45-49.

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The case can be made that even some writings preserved only in secondary or tertiary translations have survived without significant Christian tampering. Jubilees and the library of 1 Enoch have already been mentioned, but why not also Slavonic Enoch (2 Enoch)? Systematic study of the activities of the Old Church Slavic translators might be rewarding here -- the material on John Baptist in the "Slavonic Josephus" jumps to mind, whether it is viewed as a contribution of the translator or of the manuscript materials being translated or of the subsequent Slavic transmission. The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) and the Latin of Ezra (4 Ezra) also seem relevant here, with the added problem of the prefixed and affixed 5 and 6 Ezra in the Latin tradition (but not in other versions of the Ezra Apocalypse!).\28/ If I treat 4 Ezra as a Jewish apocalypse, does that predispose me to do similarly with 5 and 6 Ezra? Why or why not? Would not the very slight signs of Christian interest in the Latin of 4 Ezra (" my son Jesus" in 7.28) also explain possible "Christian" phraseology in 5 Ezra ("son of God" in 2.47)? Again, it is not difficult to imagine non-Christian Jewish contexts for all of these texts, but does that mean that they should automatically "default" to Jewish in origin?

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\28/On some of the problems of these Ezra texts, see my "Pseudepigrapha" nn. 52 and 65, and the more recent volume by Theodore Bergren on Sixth Ezra (above, n. 9).

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Perhaps. In his 1998 Princeton dissertation, John Marshall argued that the Apocalypse of John that concludes the traditional collection of Christian "New Testament" scriptures should be treated as Jewish.\29/ Boyarin would doubtless applaud (see Dying for God, p. 141, n. 40). The payload here would be that the author of the Apocalypse would not have considered himself to be non-Jewish, and thus his work should be used in our reconstructions of what was possible in first century Judaism. Will this make it easier in the future to restructure our collections of ancient sources so that the Apocalypse takes its place alongside of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, long acknowledged to be close relations? And will this nudge 6 Ezra, with its close affinities to the Apocalypse, into the "Jewish" camp? One of the arugments that led Ted Bergren to consider 6 Ezra as "Christian" was its parallels with the presumably "Christian" Apocalypse (6th Ezra, 15f).

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\29/John W. Marshall, Parables of the War: Reading the Apocalypse within Judaism and during the Judaean War (Princeton University. Dept. of Religion. 1998).

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7. Did non-Jewish Christians Compose "Jewish" Works?

An important factor in this entire discussion concerns the intentions and talents of copyists, collectors, revisers, and authors. Unfortunately, we have little first hand evidence. Seldom do individuals emerge from our sources whom we can interrogate, or even scrutinize as they work. We know that there were collectors of various sorts -- Clement of Alexandria has left us some school notes, Cyprian has collected "testimonies," Eusebius was an avid excerpter, similarly John of Damascus, etc. Each had his reasons, his sources, his techniques. Numerous sermons have survived from various authors and/or recorders. Some of them deal with "Jewish" topics and folkloristic themes -- the asceticism of Joseph, the leadership of Moses, the artistry of David. To what extent did the homilists rely on identifiable sources, and how much did they contribute, de novo, to the resultant presentation? Somewhere in my filing cabinets are notes on some 4th and 5th century Christian sermons, examined with an eye to distinctively "Christian" traits that might betray their origins. Some were obviously Christian, but not all. Why shouldn't a Christian narrator, for whom Jewish scriptures and traditions were also home territory, be expected to produce compositions that bear consistently "Jewish" features?

Similarly, as reverence for saintly persons grew ("hagiography") and liturgical handbooks were constructed to convey relevant information, how can we tell what may be old or new in the presentations? When Christian poets composed their hymns, often echoing prayers and psalms familiar to them from their scriptures, should we be surprised to find very "Jewish" sounding products? The presence in Christian hymnody of numerous psalm-based hymns whose recent origins are known provides an instructive analogy -- the words of Luther's "Mighty Fortress" come to mind, or the "yigdol" as it appears in many Christian hymn books ("The God of Abraham Praise!").\30/

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\30/Ross Kraemer calls my attention to Severus of Minorca's Letter on the Conversion of the Jews [5th century], edited and translated by Scott Bradbury (Oxford, 1996), which includes a wild scene in which the Jews and Christians are parading through the town streets, singing the same hymns! John Chrysostom's invectives against his congregants who also attended Jewish gatherings may also be relevant here (Kraemer, Aseneth, 246). See also the Martyrdom of Pionius 13.1-3 (mid 3rd century or later), discussed by E. Leigh Gibson, "Jewish Antagonism or Christian Polemic: The Case of the Martyrdom of Pionius," JECS 9 (2001) 339-358.

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Some Christians became interested in chronography and world history, which drew them to other sources considered relevant. Materials were selected, summarized, recombined, harmonized, supplemented, and presented without footnotes or overt Christian indicators on every page. When we discover such materials in late medieval manuscripts, how shall we treat them? Christians worried about the weather, about their crops and various vicissitudes of life. Handbooks on interpreting the times or the thunder or other supposed indicators circulated in the names of respected savants such as Ezra (see above, n. 22) or Seth or the mysterious Sedrach. Does the mere attachment of such names produce the presumption of Jewish origins? Reasons other than the will to believe ("wishful thinking") are often difficult to find. The more we learn about the various interests, techniques and products of the various Christian worlds, the more difficult it becomes to assume that late, idiosyncratic sources must derive from early Jewish origins, no matter how "Jewish" they may sound.\31/

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\31/An interesting example is Charlesworth's claims about the calendric "Treatise of Shem" -- from a Syriac 15th c MS; why call it Jewish? Why date it to the 1st c BCE? (OTP 1, 473). I am not suggesting that such conclusions are impossible, only that they are premature without some careful discussion of "astrological" speculations in the world from which the actual text derives.

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An example of such frustrations is well illustrated in the recent study of the Aseneth materials by Ross Kraemer. What sort of evidence can suffice to establish the widely accepted "Jewish" origin of this fascinating text? She concludes that "the arguments for its Jewishness are largely without foundation. Although it could be Jewish, the totality of the evidence is not definitive, and several other identifications ... are plausible. In particular, a strong case can be made for Christian composition and redaction" (ix). Although I might like it to be Jewish, and as Ross says, it could be Jewish, methodological rigor requires me to acknowledge even more strongly the default position, that without much stronger evidence than appears to be available in the current discussion, its identifiable context is Christian. And until we know in more detail who constructed whatever we will consider to be the "original" composition, and how and why, it is difficult to say more on that issue.\32/

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\32/Kraemer summarizes much of the history of recent scholarship on this material, which concerns not only issues of date and provenance, but also of textual recensions and their relative value (the works of M. Philonenko and of C. Burchard are of special note). Other interesting problems are raised by such texts as the Barlaam and Josaphat materials (compare Ahiqar, Aesop), Odes of Solomon, History of the Rechabites. Less problematic, at least in my judgment, are, for example, Testament of Moses, "pseudo-Philo's" Biblical Antiquities, 3 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Psalms of Solomon. The picture with reference to 4 Maccabees is complex and it continues to receive special attention in the context of the study of "martyrdom" -- e.g. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, Boyarin and van Henten, etc. (above, n. 9).

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It is tempting to decide that all of these materials ought to "default" to Judaism at one level or another (source criticism often smooths out any problems by moving quickly to an examination of the compositional ingredients), and that has been the tendency of 20th century scholarship. As should be obvious, I would urge a more cautious approach to the situation, and where controls and clear indications are lacking, start with the historically clearest context, which in most instances will be Christian.

8. Prospects and Conclusions

8.1. More is needed by way of collating and editing texts. Although I have made some bold generalizations about lack of overt Christian influences in the textual transmission of certain books, biblical and non-biblical, I suspect that there is a great deal more evidence of significance to digest. Of course, there is a great difference between the situation in which a book is represented by dozens or even hundreds of MSS and when very few or only one MS has survived. Versional evidence, which is especially important for many of the "pseudepigraphical" writings, also deserves more thorough and more systematic study. I suspect that much more can be learned from this mass of challenging material, especially about the attitudes and outlooks of the Christian reader-copyists at work.

8.2. More studies of control cases are desirable. Control cases are those in which we can be relatively "sure" about the evidence, and thus can argue with greater confidence from analogy and probablity in similar situations (see above, and the Appendix). Unfortunately, with regard to "Jewish" materials, there are too few ancient descriptive accounts of what went on in the transmission process. Accusations are found of opponents tampering with texts (e.g. already in Justin,\33/ on both sides of the process, and we sometimes can witness an attempt to preserve or even restore old forms that had become corrupt, as with Origen's work on the Hexapla. Quotations and excerpts are sometimes given from what to us are extra-biblical allegedly Jewish sources (e.g. Tertullian on the first section of "1 Enoch,"\34/ many others on assorted points of interest), marginal comments sometimes exhibit how various "new" things could become incorporated into subesquent copies, but on the whole we are guessing about the dynamics of the processes.

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\33/Justin, Dialogue 72 and 120; see further my "Pseudepigrapha" n. 24.

\34/Tertullian, De cultu fem. 2-3 (see also De idol. 4 and 15).

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8.3. Recognition of non-Jewish interests and attitudes in transmitting the materials may help us determine what is more or less likely to be older traditional material. Are there identifiable uses to which Christians put the traditions; e.g. in hagiography and martyrology, with a focus on "faith" and faithfulness/endurance, or in ascetic and moral examples, emphasizing celibacy and frugality, or in apocalyptic anticipation, whether cosmic/millennial in nature or more individually oriented? Are there situations in which it is possible that non-Jews produced Jewish-sounding sources, or edited existing sources to sound more Jewish (e.g. to "prove" the antiquity of certain ideas, or to "correct" perceived corruptions)? One of the dangers here is the circularity of argument if it is suggested that something would have been "impossible" in prénon-Christian Judaism, or for that matter, "impossible" as a Christian claim (even when found in manuscripts transmitted by Christians)!\35/

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\35/Examples of how rich this area of exploration can be may be found in some of the essays in A Multiform Heritage (above, n. 11): e.g. Michael Stone notes a very active interest in Jewish writings by some Armenian writers ("The Study of the Armenian Apocrypha"); Ross Kraemer explores possible Samaritan involvement in the production and transmission of the Aseneth story ("Could Aseneth be Samaritan?"); John Reeves demonstrates what can be expected from Manichaean circles, with their interests in apocalyptic materials among others ("Reconsidering the 'Prophecy of Zardust'"); Bill Adler makes us wonder how someone like Julius Africanus might be of relevance for the larger picture ("Julius Africanus and Judaism in the Third Century"); Jackie Pastis looks at aspects of the dialogues material ("Jewish Arguments against Christianity in the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila"); David Efroymson explores the roots of Augustine's anger at Judaism ("Whose Jews? Augustine's Tractatus on John"). And when Islam comes along with its somewhat ambivalent attitudes to both Judaism and Christianity, how is the situation affected?

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8.4. Despite such obstacles, I would argue that it is potentially productive to try to imagine what sort of pre- or non-Christian perspectives ("pagan" as well as Jewish) might have produced the problematic materials -- as long as this is the result of the sort of prior investigation that begins with the evidence where it is preserved (i.e. mostly in Christian contexts), and is not simply assumed as the default position.

Although I am a firm advocate of careful, close textual work, fixation on the texts alone will get us only so far. Seldom do the texts provide their own labels, their own maps of how they relate to other materials under examination, or even their own explications of the author's (or authors') intentions. Our conclusions depend on a variety of judgments, based on what we think we know about historical, conceptual, cultural, literary contexts, on how good our historical imaginations and intuitions may be, on what we consider useful or relevant analogies, and the like.

Is it possible to shed light on the intentions and/or procedures of the copyist-editors by examining various analogous situations? Here are some suggestions in note form (hopefully not too cryptic!) on possible approaches. I apologize for resorting to traditional shorthand with such labels as "heretical" (representing internal debates within Christianity, for the most part), "pagan" (non-Jewish and non-Christian), "barbarian" (non Greek, or non Greco-Roman), and the like.

Test Scenario 1: explicit reproduction:
Christian quotations/excerpts from Jewish works (e.g. Eusebius)

Possible controls/analogies:

Aspects to explore:
--establishing a level of trust in the excerpter's accuracy
--recognizing varieties of perspective, understanding
--adjusting for the excerpter's selectivity (what is omitted?)

On the whole, where excerpting is intentional and relatively uncomplicated by other factors (textual transmission, etc.), it seems relatively reliable -- the intention to reproduce is a key element to ascertain.

Test Scenario 2: transmission of whole works:
Christian copying and/or translating of Jewish works (e.g. Jewish scriptures, Philo, Josephus, etc.)

Possible controls/analogies: