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Ausgabe: | Januar/2024 |
Spalte: | 55-56 |
Kategorie: | Altes Testament |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Schulz, Sarah |
Titel/Untertitel: | Joschua und Melchisedek. Studien zur Entwicklung des Jerusalemer Hohepriesteramtes vom 6. bis zum 2. Jahrhundert v. Chr. |
Verlag: | Berlin u. a.: De Gruyter 2023. ca. 463 S. = Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 546. Geb. ca. EUR 109,95. ISBN 9783110793413. |
Rezensent: | James C. VanderKam |
After the introduction (1–21), Sarah Schulz’s Habilitationsschrift (Friedrich-Alexander Universität) is divided into three major parts. The first deals principally with Joshua in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8 (22–141), the second with Melchizedek in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110:4 (142–299), and the third with the development of the office of high priest in Jerusalem during the Persian and Hellenistic periods (300–392). A short concluding section follows (393–402). The appendix (403–53) offers images of fragments from the Aramaic Levi Document (from the Cairo Geniza and Qumran) and of various types of coins, a translation of passages from Zechariah 4, 3, and 6:9–14, Genesis 14, and Psalm 110 (with indications in various fonts of how she has divided them into basic layers and redactions), an extensive bibliography arranged under several subheadings, and an index. It will be possible here only to sketch the main features of her multi-faceted argument.
S.’s thesis is that the politicization of high priesthood is not attested until the Seleucid period, especially when the Hasmoneans (beginning in 152 BCE) held the top political and cultic positions. The first of the Hasmonean high priests, Jonathan, attained the positions because of his previous accomplishments, not because the secular headship was already absorbed into the high priesthood.
She begins her analysis of the evidence with the material in Haggai-Zechariah as well as with Ezra 1–6. Through a lengthy examination she uncovers redactional elements in Zechariah 3 and 6 that grant royal traits to Joshua the high priest and make him responsible for rebuilding the temple. Some of these are shared with Sirach (e. g., the term ףינצ for his headgear; a crown for the priest), a fact which suggests to her that this redactional layer and Sirach are from the same circle of scribes and thus contemporary. The Zerubbabel-Branch passages in Zechariah, as well as the messianic one in Hag 2:20–23, counteract this picture and make him responsible for temple building. They too are late and are directed against the non-davidic Hasmoneans and their claim to political authority.
The Ezra material is subjected to similar analyses. In Ezra 1–3 an autonomous people (priests, Levites, laity) begin building the temple. Additions placing Joshua and Zerubbabel in ch. 3 (altar building) reflect the situation in the present form of Haggai-Zechariah with the two leaders side-by-side. The temple building chronicle in Ezra 5–6, also using Haggai-Zechariah, modifies them by showing that prophetic mediation was required to bring the project to a successful conclusion. This Aramaic temple building chronicle dates from the Hellenistic period. Ezra 1–6 adds nothing to clarify political relations in Persian times.
Schulz continues this line of argument in the Melchizedek section. She finds that Gen 14:18–20, which centers on Abram’s payment of the tithe to Melchizedek, is post-P and addresses difficult economic situations such as the ones pictured in Nehemiah 5 and 11 and in Isaiah 61. The message is that the tithe must be paid to the priest in the temple for blessings to flow to the people. Psalm 110:4, which stands out from what precedes and follows, is inserted into a prophetic message to the Davidic king and attributes a Melchizedekian kind of high priesthood to him. As the Hasmoneans may have appealed to Melchizedek to justify one person holding both offices, this too is anti-Hasmonean, attacking their lack of a Davidic pedigree. Schulz believes that Ps 110:4 exploits the opening left by 1 Macc 14:41 (Simon will hold his offices until a true prophet arises) by providing such a prophetic message. Additions to Jubilees 30–32 and passages in the Aramaic Levi Document highlight the genealogical essence of priesthood; it is not given for zealous deeds as in the case of Phinehas (the Hasmoneans appealed to him as a precedent, 1 Macc 2:54) but by heredity from Levi. None of the Hebrew Bible texts studied here and none of the other texts that claim to or actually do reflect Persian and early Helle- nistic circumstances (e. g., Elephantine correspondence, coins, Hecataeus, Josephus’s stories, documents from Antiochus III, the Tobiad Romance) evidences a politically influential high priesthood.
S. should be congratulated for her thorough research and careful argumentation in handling a large, complicated subject. She offers in-depth coverage of the relevant ancient literature and the scholarship on it as she delineates her own understanding of what they entail. While admiring very much the meticulous scholarship that she displays in the book, it was surprising (at least to me) to see texts such as parts of Haggai-Zechariah and Ps 110:4 dated to the second century BCE. She bases much of her argument on redaction-critical analysis, a procedure widely used but also highly subjective; its application to these texts (and to Ezra 1–6) yields rather dubious conclusions. For example, one text that is important in her case for a redactional layer in which Joshua is given royal attributes and is responsible for building the temple is Zech 3:9 where a stone is placed in front of him. Schulz understands this to symbolize his responsibility for constructing the sanctuary (see Zech 4:7), but a strong case can be made that it is a part of his high-priestly vestments and has nothing to do with building the temple. Zechariah 6 assigns temple-building duties to Joshua only if one first removes the lines that clearly make the Branch the party in charge of construction (the familiar problems in Zech 6:9–15 may be more text-critical in nature than redactional). The argument that royal features given to Joshua resemble ones in Sirach are not very convincing.
Whether the Hasmoneans appealed to the figure of Melchizedek to support their combining political rule with the high priesthood is not clear. It is true that later sources (not 1 Maccabees) report that the Hasmonean high priests were called »priest of El-Elyon«, as was Melchizedek, but, as Schulz recognizes, it was not the Hasmoneans’ claim to the high priesthood that needed bolstering in the face of opposition but rather their political rule (see, for example, Psalms of Solomon 17 which highlights their lack of a Davidic genealogy so that the promise of his line did not apply to them). And there is no evidence they sought support for their obtaining the civil office in the priest-king of Salem. Indeed, if they did make an unattested appeal for such backing, would this not entail that it came after the Hasmoneans began claiming the kingship (ca. 100 BCE)? That would require dating the biblical texts even later than Schulz suggests, if they addressed this issue.
In the final analysis, Schulz is correct in concluding that we lack firm evidence for a strongly politicized high priesthood before Seleucid/Hasmonean times. We simply do not have enough documentation for the preceding centuries, and the texts and coins relating to them are too problematic to support such a thesis, although if the Simon of Sirach 50 is Simon I and not Simon II, the picture would change somewhat. Given how little relevant information has survived, I remain unconvinced that anything in Haggai- Zechariah or Ps 110:4 is directed toward circumstances in the second century BCE.