Narkissos, Pole....Thanks for the digression. It keeps the thread alive a little until I come back. I'm in Death Valley and it is all flooded out with rain...pretty amazing sight, actually. Anyway, I'm in a library in Nevada right now to get a little internet, but I hope you all found the material interesting....I was thinking a little more about similar literary re-uses of traditions, and one very good example of this is how the story of Jonah is dependent on the Elijah-Elisha cycle -- practically plagiarizes from it in its verbatim wording in places. And the Elisha stories themselves are likely dependent on earlier Canaanite stories (see my post on parallels between the Aqhat legend and the Elisha cycle).
The Nativity Traditions of Jesus
by Leolaia 27 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Narkissos
LOL. I once visited Qumran and Masada under the pouring rain...
Enjoy, and come back soon to tell us more about Elisha and Jonah (sounds promising).
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gumby
Leolaia,
I didn't read all your thread nor any post after.....but what I did read I want to thank you for. You did an awesome job as usual, and I found this thread strikingly intresting with arguments that in my opinion, would make a christian apologist shudder. The similarities of the two saviors are a bit more than coincidental when honestly considered.
I'll tell you what facinates me though. The authors and copiest and editors of this book, did one HELL of a job in compiling this book to have the amazing seemingly consistancies that it has in arriving at an intended theme ( a jewish savior/god ). It takes much study to undermine many aspects of this book or it would not be a #1 seller in the enlightened and civilized part of the planet.
I guess what I am saying is.....the bible writers did a pretty good job in taking their history through a 2000 year time period, and making that history seem divinely guided and ending in a world savior. Your story of the paralells confirm this at least to me.
Gumby
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Pole
Leolaia,
I was thinking a little more about similar literary re-uses of traditions, and one very good example of this is how the story of Jonah is dependent on the Elijah-Elisha cycle -- practically plagiarizes from it in its verbatim wording in places.
This should be interesting. The internal intertextuality of Bible books demonstrated in liguistic terms usually makes a lot of sense to me.
Narkissos,
Thanks for the clarification. -
Leolaia
Narkissos....It was a rather interesting experience. The day after the rains stopped I went out to the middle of the valley and there had formed a large lake...Death Valley Lake, I guess. We walked out to the lake and the ground was extremely muddy and slippery...we had to step very carefully and walked through muddy stream beds with flowing water and on top of bushes. This was supposedly the driest place in the United States but it sure was wet and muddy that day! Here is a panoramic picture I took of the lake:
gumby....I agree that the Gospels are literary masterpieces of fiction, insofar as their narratives are concerned. It is also striking that they specifically utilize the Greek OT and not the Aramaic (as attested in the Targums) or Hebrew, and their mistakes in native Judean geography further indicate that they were written by Greek-speaking Christians of the Hellenistic world. Why did they need to depend on OT exegesis so much to tell the story of Jesus' life (even peripheral characters such as Judas and the story of the arrest and trial are heavily dependent on the Greek OT)? Why was so little apparently known? Is it that they were simply ignorant of the story of Jesus' life and tried to fill in the gaps with OT antitypes or is it that Jesus himself was a literary creation? I personally don't know which way I lean on this question...
Pole....The discussion on Elijah-Jonah comes from Dale Alison's great book. In Jonah 1:5, the prophet is described as fleeing and then lies down and falls asleep (wyskb wyrdm). In 1 Kings 19:5, another prophet, Elijah, who is also fleeing, lies down and falls asleep (wyskb wyysd). More importantly, the previous verse in 1 Kings (v. 4) is also utilized in Jonah almost word for word:
1 Kings 19:4: Elijah "went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die saying (wys'l 't-npsw lmwt wy'mr), 'It is enough; now, O Yahweh, take away my life for ('th yhwh qch npsy ky) I am no better than my ancestors".
Jonah 4:3: "And now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me, for ('t-npsy mmny ky w'th yhwh qch-n') it is better for me to die than to live".
Jonah 4:8: Jonah "asked that he die, saying (wys'l 't-npsw lmwt wy'mr), 'It is better for me to die than to live".
Aside from the close verbal correspondence, the situations being described are very similar: both Elijah and Jonah are disappointed prophets who sit underneath a plant giving them shade, pray to God, and ask him to take their lives away. There are also numerical correspondences between the two stories. Elijah begins by taking a day's journey into the wilderness (1 Kings 19:4), and then a 40-day journey (1 Kings 19:8), whereas Jonah fortells Ninevah's destruction 40 days after a one-day journey into the city (Jonah 3:4). There are also more subtle matters that Alison mentions that confirm the literary relationship between the two stories. The author of Jonah here utilized a collection of motifs and even dialogue from one story to construct a different story about someone else. A rather similar process is at work in the Gospel narratives. In fact, the story of the Jesus cursing the fig tree in Mark 11:12-22 shows multiple similarities with Jonah 4:5-10 (LXX).
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Leolaia
More on Jonah.
As my last post showed, ch. 4 of Jonah is dependent on 1 Kings 19. There is further evidence of influence from 1 Kings 13. There we encounter in v. 14 a "man of God" who was "sitting under a terebinth" (cf. Jonah 4:5-6, in which the prophet "sat under [a shelter]" and later under the castor-oil plant), and who "defied Yahweh's command and not obeyed the orders" that Yahweh had given him (1 Kings 13:21). Similarly, Jonah was given a divine command in Jonah 1:2 but ran away and failed to obey his orders (v. 3). When this man of God "went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him" (v. 23, 24; cf. v. 26), and similarly when Jonah was running away from Yahweh, and found himself cast into the ocean, Yahweh "had arranged that a great fish should be there to swallow Jonah" (Jonah 2:1). In both cases, an man-eating animal attacks a prophet who has disobeyed Yahweh in rejecting his orders. The similarity is less impressive than in ch. 19 (where the parallels include verbatim wording), but the similarity is there nonetheless.
Jonah's prayer in ch. 2, meanwhile, is a pastiche of material drawn from the Psalms. Cf. especially Jonah 2:3a = Psalm 120:1, 130:1; Jonah 2:3b = Psalm 116:3; Jonah 2:4 = Psalm 42:7; Psalm 2:5a = Psalm 31:22; Psalm 2:5b = Psalm 5:7; Jonah 2:6 = Psalm 69:1; Jonah 2:7b = Psalm 30:3, 16:10; Jonah 2:8 = Psalm 5:7; Jonah 2:10 = Psalm 22:25, 116:18, 3:8. The author of Jonah also apparently twice used ch. 26 of Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 26:3, 15: "Perhaps they will listen and turn from his evil behavior (wysbw 'ys mdrkw hr'h); if so, I shall relent (wnchmty 'l-hr'h) and not bring the disaster upon them which I intended ('sr 'nky chsb l'swt lhm) for their misdeeds...But be sure of this, that if you put me to death, you will be bringing innocent blood (ky-dm nqy) on yourselves, on this its citizens, since Yahweh has truly sent me to you to say all these words".
Jonah 1:14: "The sailors ... then called on Yahweh and said, 'O Yahweh, do not let us perish for taking this man's life; do not hold us guilty of innocent blood (dm nqy')' ".
Jonah 3:10: "God saw their efforts to turn from their evil behavior (ky-sbw mdrkm hr'h). And God relented (wynchm h'lhym 'l-hr'h), he did not bring upon them the disaster which he had threatened ('sr-dbr l'swt-lhm wl' 'sh)".
The parallel with ch. 26 of Jeremiah is also significant because Jeremiah is there given the duty to prophesy Jerusalem's destruction, just as Jonah was given the charge to warn of Ninevah's doom: "I will treat this Temple as I treated Shiloh and make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth...This city will be desolate and uninhabited" (26:6, 9). Jonah similarly warns the Ninevahites: "Only forty days more and Ninevah is going to be destroyed" (Jonah 3:4). Like Jeremiah, he offers them a chance for repentence (Jonah 3:7-9 = Jeremiah 26:3). When the city does repent, "God relented, he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened" (3:10). This is exactly the situation that Jeremiah mentions in the case of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah:
"Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all of Judah put him [Micah] to death for this [e.g. prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem]? Did they not rather, fearing Yahweh, entreat his favor, to make him relent and not bring the disaster on them which he had pronounced against them?" (Jeremiah 26:19).
Jonah is thus clearly dependent on ch. 26 of Jeremiah. There is also strong evidence that Jonah alludes to ch. 26 and 27 of Ezekiel, in this case an oracle on the destruction of another city -- Tyre:
Ezekiel 26:16-17: "The rulers of the sea (nsy'y hym) will all come down from their thrones (yrdw m'l ks'wtm), lay aside their robes (hsyrw 't-m'ylyhm) and take off (ypstw) their embroidered robes (w't-bgdy). Dressed in terror (chrdw) they will sit on the ground ('l-h'rts ysbw) unable to stop trembling, terrified (smmw) at your fate. They will raise a dirge and say to you, 'You are destroyed ('bdt) then, that which is inhabited by seafaring men ('bdt nwsbt), the renowned city that was in the sea (mymym h'yr hhllh).' "
Ezekiel 27:12-13, 25-31, 33-34: "Tarshish (trsys) was your client, profiting from your abundant wealth. People traded (ntnw) silver and iron, tin, and lead for your merchandise. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech traded (ntnw) with you; for your merchandise (m'rbk) they traded men and bronze wares ('dm wkly nchst ntnw).... The ships of Tarshish ('nywt trsys) were your caravans for your merchandise (m'rbk), and you were replenished, and were made very glorious in the heart of the seas. Your rowers brought you into great waters; the east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas (rwch hqdym sbrk blb ymym). Your riches, and your wares (w'zbwnyk), your merchandise (m'rbk), your mariners (mlchyk), and your pilots (chblyk), your caulkers, and the dealers in your merchandise, and all your soldiers that are in you, with all your company that is on board shall fall into the heart of the seas (yplw blb ymym) in the day of your ruin. At the cry of your pilots (chblyk) the coasts shall shake. And all the oarsmen, the mariners (mlchym), and all the pilots of the sea (chbly hym) shall come down from their ships (wyrdw m'nywtyhm) and shall stand upon the land ('l-h'rts y'mdw), and shall cause their voice to be heard over you, and shall cry (wyz'qw) bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads. They shall wallow themselves in the ashes (b'pr ytplsw); they shall shave their heads for you and put sackcloth (wchgrw sqym) around their waists... When your wares went forth into the seas (bts't 'zbwnyk mymym), you satisfied many people, you made the kings (mlky) of the earth rich with your excess of wealth and merchandise (wm'rbyk). Now you are broken (nsbrt) by the seas (mymym), your cargo and crew shall fall into the depths of the waters (bm'mqy-mym m'rbk wkl-qhlk btwkk nplw)".
Jonah 1:3: "He went down to Joppa (yrd ypw) and found a ship going to Tarshish ('nyh b'h trsys); he paid his fare (wytn skrh) and went aboard and went with them to Tarshish, to get away from Yahweh".
Jonah 1:4-5: "But Yahweh sent out a great wind (rwch-gdwlh) into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea (s'r-gdwl bym), so that the ship was about to be broken (wh'nyh chsbh lhsbr). Then the mariners (mlchym) were afraid (wyyr'w), and cried (wyz'qw) every man to his god, and cast out the wares that were in the ship into the sea ('t-hklym 'sr b'nyh 'l-hym), to lighten it."
Jonah 1:6: "So the pilot (hchbl) came to him..."
Jonah 1:15-16: "So they lifted up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea (wytlhw 'l-hym), and the sea stopped raging forth. Then the men were astonished at Yahweh (wyyr'w h'nsym yr'h gdwlh 't-yhwh)".
Jonah 3:4, 6: "And Jonah began to enter into the city ('yr), making a day's journey. He preached in these words, 'Only forty days more, and Ninevah will be destroyed (nhpkt)'...The news reached the king (mlk) of Ninevah, who rose from his throne (wyqm mks'w), took off his robe (wy'br 'drtw), put on sackcloth (m'lyw wyks sq) and sat down in the ashes (wysb 'l-h'pr)".
A great many motifs in Jonah are traceable to the Tyre oracle in Ezekiel. These include the ship ('nyh) bound for Tarshish (trsys), Jonah paying his fare (ntn "pay" is the same word as "trade" in Ezekiel), the mariners (mlchym) and pilots (chbly) in the crew, the merchandise and wares (kly) aboard the ship, the wind (rwch) at sea creating the tempest, the ship breaking (sbr), the wares falling into the sea, people falling into the sea, people being terrified and crying out (wyz'qw), a city ('yr) that is prophesied as becoming destroyed in the future, a king or ruler coming down (yrd) from his throne (ks'w) and taking off his robes ('drt or bgd), and donning sackcloth and sitting (ysb) or wallowing in the ashes ('pr), and so forth.
So it looks like Jonah was inspired by the short note in 2 Kings, with the story itself composed with material from 1 Kings, Jeremiah 26, and Ezekiel 26-27, and Jonah's prayer in ch. 2 being inspired by various Psalms.
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Leolaia
In his commentary, Driver mentions several other striking verbal parallels between Jonah and other earlier writings. Here are some allusions to Joel in Jonah:
Joel 2:13-14: "Now return to Yahweh your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in grace, and relenting of calamity (ky-chnwn wrchwm hw' 'rk 'pym wrb-chsd wnchm 'l-hr'h). Who knows whether he will not turn and relent (my ywd' yswb wnchm) and leave a blessing behind him".
Jonah 3:9: "Who knows whether God may turn and relent (my ywd' yswb wnchm h'lhym) and withdraw his burning anger so that we will not perish".
Jonah 4:2: "In order to forstall this, I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in grace, and one who relents concerning calamity (ky 'th 'l-chnwn wrchwm 'rk 'pym wrb-chsd wnchm 'l-hr'h)".
Note that the same passage is utilized in two different places in Jonah, indicating secondary use. There are also verbatim parallels to Exodus:
Exodus 32:12, 14: "Withdraw your burning anger (swb mchrwn 'pk) and relent of this calamity against his people.... So Yahweh relented of the calamity that he declared he would do to his people (wynchm yhwh 'l-hr'h 'sr dbr l'swt l'mw)".
Jonah 3:9-10: "Who knows whether God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger (wsb mchrwn 'pw) so that we will not perish. When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil ways, then God relented of the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them (wynchm h'lhym 'l-hr'h 'sr dbr l'swt-lhm), and he did not do it".
Interestingly, Jonah 3:9-10 combines the Joel, Exodus, and Jeremiah passages (cf. also Jeremiah 18:7-8).
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Leolaia
I just thought I'd add the following link to a great parody of conservative defenses of the historicity of the gospels:
Top 10 Reasons to Accept the Infancy Gospel of Thomas as Historically Reliable
Enjoy!