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b-greek-digest V1 #591
b-greek-digest Tuesday, 28 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 591
In this issue:
Killing of the Prophets
UNSUBSCRIBE ME PLEASE!!!
Re: Killing of the Prophets
author's introduction
Re: Luke
Impact of the Bible on literature
Re: Impact of the Bible on literature
Re: Killing of the Prophets
Killing the Prophets
Re: Killing the Prophets
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From: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 95 9:24:12 GMT
Subject: Killing of the Prophets
I'm looking for background information for an exegesis of Luke 11:47-49
and Acts 7:52.
Specifically I'm looking for information regarding the murder of the
prophets. Thus far I've a list
of the following biblical references:
1 Ki 18:13;
1 Kings 21:8-13;
2 Chronicles 4:21 (Zechariah the Priest)
Neh 9:26;
Jer 26:20-23 (Uriah brought from Egypt and killed by King Jehoiakim)
Mat 23:34, 37;
Romans 11:3
I've added "Vitae Prophetarum" from Charlesworth's "OT Pseudepigrapha" of
course and a few
articles. Most notably "The Killing of the Prophets: Unraveling Midrash"
by Betsy Halpern
Amaru.
My concerns are that the tradition of the prophets being murdered is NOT
reflected in the
biblical texts but probably finds greater witness in rabbinic stories and
legends. (There's some
question recently raised by David Satran in his 1992 article in the
festschrift for D. Flusser
_Messiah and Christos_ about whether the "Vitae Prophetarum" is so clearly
Jewish in it's origins.
He suggests it is Christian.) Is this true? What are these rabbinic
sources? Where are these
legends AND can they be dated? Who ARE these prophets "your fathers"
killed? Jezebel was not
a Jew. So the charge can't be placed against her. Zechariah seems to have
been a priest; not a
prophet. At first glace this would leave only Uriah. But the charge is
put in the plural. You see
my point? Where does this tradition come from?
Is there anyone on the list who could offer some direction to me? The
commentators on Luke
and Matthew make hardly a comment. I'd be very grateful for any help.
Thanks,
Bill Burton
Gregorian University
Rome
------------------------------
From: "Mr.A.Wilson" <eia018@comp.lancs.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 08:35:20 GMT
Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE ME PLEASE!!!
I hate to have to post this to the list, but mails to "owner-b-greek"
and the list administrator do not seem to have worked. Please would
someone unsubscribe me!!!!
Thanks,
Andrew Wilson
------------------------------
From: Pat Tiller <ptiller@husc.harvard.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 05:36:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Killing of the Prophets
On Mon, 27 Feb 1995 W.Burton@agora.stm.it wrote:
> I'm looking for background information for an exegesis of Luke 11:47-49
>
> and Acts 7:52.
> Specifically I'm looking for information regarding the murder of the
> prophets.
...
> Jezebel was not
> a Jew. So the charge can't be placed against her. Zechariah seems to have
> been a priest; not a
> prophet. At first glace this would leave only Uriah. But the charge is
> put in the plural. You see
> my point? Where does this tradition come from?
>
According to 1 Enoch 89.51-52, "And the owner of the sheep called some
from among the sheep, and he sent them to the sheep, and the sheep began
to kill them. But one of them escaped safely and was not killed. And it
<rose up> [Eth: "leapt away"] and cried out against the sheep, and they
wanted to kill it, but the owner of the sheep rescued it from the sheep
and brought it up and caused it to dwell with me."
In this allegorical review of the history of Israel, the owner = God; the
sheep = Israel; me = Enoch (now in paradise or the mountain of God or some
such place). The verses I have quoted refer to events just after the
reign of Solomon. Since the sheep that escaped is pretty clearly Elijah
who escaped from Jezebel and was subsequently translated to heaven, I
would say that "the sheep began to kill them" probably refers to Jezebel's
killing of the prophets. According to 1 Kings 18:4, "... Jezebel was
killing off the Lord's prophets ...."
Apparently the writer of book 4 of 1 Enoch thought that Jezebel was close
enough to being Israelite that she could be called a "sheep," a term
which clearly refers only to Israelites in this text.
I don't know where traditions about the murder of the prophets began, but
we have it here in a text from about the time of the Macabbean revolt.
Pat Tiller
Harvard Divinity School
------------------------------
From: GLStevens@aol.com
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 10:10:44 -0500
Subject: author's introduction
Hello!
My name is Gerald Stevens. I am the author of the new Greek grammar, *New
Testament Greek*, and the associated workbook recently published by
University Press of America.
I am on sabbatical in the Richmond area, studying at Union Theological
Seminary as a Research Fellow. A graduate student at Union referred me to
this electronic conference, indicating that my grammar had been mentioned in
discussion here. I thought I would drop in for a while to participate, as
well as answer any questions about my grammar that might be helpful.
My electronic address is: GLStevens@AOL.com.
------------------------------
From: Greg Carey <CAREY@library.vanderbilt.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 09:33:27 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Luke
If I were teaching Luke to undergrads, I'd use a variety of
perspectives and questions. I might use one basic commentary (I like
Luke Johnson's narrative-theological approach) with a few other books
and articles:
Jack Sanders, _The Jews in Luke-Acts_
R Cassidy, _Jesus, Politics, and Society_
Jane Schaberg's artice from _The Women's Bible Commentary_
articles from Neyrey, ed., _The Social World of Luke-Acts_
In my opinion, one best teaches undergrads by engaging issues they
care about. These readings raise concerns about Jewish-Christian
relations, economics and politics, gender, and social-historical
matters. By engaging these "interesting" issues, students might be
motivated to do their own work with Luke's text itself. Throughout
the course, I'd press questions of how Luke's religous-theological
program (to which Johnson is highly sensitive) interacts with other
aspects of his agenda.
*******************************
Greg Carey
Graduate Department of Religion
Vanderbilt University
carey@library.vanderbilt.edu
------------------------------
From: gorazd.kocjancic@uni-lj.si
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 16:36:59 +0100
Subject: Impact of the Bible on literature
Could someone on list suggest me where to find a good
bibliography of studies on impact of the Bible on
western literature?
Thank you in advance,
Gorazd Kocijancic, Ljubljana, Slovenija
gorazd.kocjancic@uni-lj.si
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 11:29:21 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Impact of the Bible on literature
On Mon, 27 Feb 1995 gorazd.kocjancic@uni-lj.si wrote:
> Could someone on list suggest me where to find a good
> bibliography of studies on impact of the Bible on
> western literature?
For enormous amounts of information, see now David L. Jeffrey (Gen. Ed.),
_A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature_ (Eerdmans,
1992), which has a few hundred articles on specific biblical items
(figures, ideas, phrasing, etc.) "traditioned" in English Literare from
Piers Plowman to the present, plus major bibliographies on the Bible,
Bible as Lit., Bible in Lit., etc.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: Kenneth Litwak <kenneth@sybase.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 95 10:42:52 PST
Subject: Re: Killing of the Prophets
While I can't offer the same of sort of helpful comments that Pat
Tiller made concerning Enoch, I would add two comments. I don't have
the reference down for sure, but I think that The Ascension of Isaiah
)or perhaps The Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs -- it's been a while
since I read this stuff and don't have my own copy of Charlesworth)
records a tradition about Isaiah being sawn in two, also apparently
alluded to in Hebrews 11.
In addition, there seem to be some cases in the Nebrew Bible of
someone put to death that we might not necessarily regard as a prophet
per se, but 1sr cent. Jews may have. It depends on what constitues one
as a prophet.
Ken Litwak
Emeryville, CA
------------------------------
From: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 95 20:7:12 GMT
Subject: Killing the Prophets
Kind respondents, it has been pointed out to me that my request for
information about Luke
11:47-49 and Acts 7:52 regarding the murder of the prophets was somewhat
vague. Where the
charges occur in the Christian scriptures (Lk 11:47-49; Mt 23:34-37 and
Acts 7:52) the
narrative gives no evidence of anyone contradicting the charge; whether
made by Jesus or by
Stephen. No one, not even the pharisees against whom Jesus is railing,
claims the charge is false.
I'm trying to locate any information or studies about the tradition that
Jewish prophets were
murdered by Jews. I've cited, in my first message to the list, the texts
from the Hebrew scriptures
which I've found that seem pertinent. But it is these same texts which
indicate that the tradition
that prophets were murdered by Jews is NOT biblical. These texts offer
only ONE case of a
Jewish prophet being killed by a Jew (notwithstanding Jezebel - with a nod
to Pat Tiller's helpful
observation about book 4 of 1 Enoch considering Jezebel a Jew.).
Other than the _Vitae Prophetarum_ are there any other texts (Jewish,
Christian, Gnostic -
anything at all) that give evidence of a tradition that Jews murdered
their prophets?
Thanks to all who have responded.
Bill Burton
Gregorian University, Urbe
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 13:30:21 -0600 (GMT-0600)
Subject: Re: Killing the Prophets
Whether or not you are open to the Q hypothesis, you might find some very
helpful information for your purposes in Arland D. Jacobson, _The First
Gospel: an Introduction to Q_, Polebridge, 1992, in particular a section
entitled "The Theological Basis for the Literary Unity of Q," pp. 72ff.,
where Jacobson argues for this passage especially and several other
passages that Luke and Matthew have in common derive from and reflect an
interpretation of the Deuteronomistic theological tradition concerning
Israel's repeated rejection of God's word through the prophets. There are
several sources from intertestamental literature cited there; one of the
key books cited in the notes on these pages is:
Odil H. Steck, _Israel und das gewaltsame Geschick der Propheten.
Untersuchung zur Ueberlieferung des deuteronomistischen Geschichtsbildes
im Alten Testament, Spaetjudentum und Urchristentum_. WMANT 23.
Neukirchener Verlag, 1967.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #591
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