Harvard Theological Review 2009-3.

T
HR
Harvard
Theological
Review
102:3
JULY 2009
ISSN 0017-8160
HTR
Harvard Theological Review

102:3
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Franois Bovon
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From Resurrection to Immortality:

Theological and Political Implications
in Modern Jewish Thought*
Leora Batnitzky
Princeton University
Hans Jonas began his 1961 Ingersoll Lecture by acknowledging the undeniable
fact that the modern temper is uncongenial to the idea of immortality.1 Jonas
nonetheless concluded his lecture by afrming that although the hereafter is
not ours . . . we can have immortality . . . when in our brief span we serve our
threatened mortal affairs and help the suffering immortal God.2 While he may not
have realized it, Jonass words capture what I shall argue is the dominant view of
immortality in modern Jewish thought. Underlying this view is an effort to refute
materialist conceptions of human existence without committing to any particularly
theological or traditionally metaphysical notion of immortality.
Like Jonas, I am deliberately using the term immortality in a very general sense
to refer to the idea that the meaning of human life transcends human nitude or
mortality. This loose conception of immortality suggests that there is some dimension
of an individuals life that endures after death, whether in the form of a soul or the
remnants of the individuals deeds. Thinkers as philosophically and ideologically
diverse as Moses Mendelssohn (17291786), the father of German-Jewish thought
and a theorist of modern liberalism; Samson Raphael Hirsch (18081888), the
intellectual father of modern Orthodoxy; Hermann Cohen (18421918), the neo*
I am very grateful to Dean William Graham to have been given the honor of delivering the 2008
Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard University as well as to Professor Jon D. Levenson for
this invitation and even more so for all that I have learned and continue to learn from his work. I
would also like to thank Carol Bakhos, Lawrie Balfour, Martha Himmelfarb, Robert Lebeau, Elias
Sacks, and Samuel Moyn for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.
1
Hans Jonas, Immortality and the Modern Temper, HTR 55 (1962) 1.
2
Ibid., 20.
HTR 102:3 (2009) 27996
280
HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Kantian, liberal German-Jewish philosopher; Franz Rosenzweig (18861929), the

existentialist Jewish philosopher; and Emmanuel Levinas (19061995), the French
phenomenologist often associated with postmodernism all afrm a minimal but
assured position that the material worldwhether dened by the laws of nature or
by the facts of historical contextdoes not and cannot fully capture the meaning
of our humanity.
My interest is less in the details of various modern Jewish thinkers claims about
immortalitythough I will get into some of these detailsthan in the purpose
that claims about or gestures toward immortality serve in modern Jewish thought.
Insight into modern Jewish views of immortality comes not only from what
modern Jewish thinkers say about immortality but also from what they do not say.
As Jon Levenson has recently reminded us, in premodern (biblical, rabbinic, and
medieval) Jewish thought, the idea of immortality went hand in hand with a belief
in resurrection.3 In contrast, modern Jewish thinkers reject, downplay, or make no
mention of resurrection while nonetheless afrming a conception of immortality.
The question I would like to explore is, why do modern Jewish thinkers retain a
notion of immortality but not of resurrection?
The answer is not, in my judgment, that resurrection is more philosophically
embarrassing than immortality. This may have been a consideration for eighteenthcentury rationalists and late nineteenth-century neo-Kantians (although, as I will
argue, the matter is far more complex in the cases of both Moses Mendelssohn
and Hermann Cohen). In the context of modern philosophical schools such as
existentialism and phenomenology, however, immortality would seem to be as
problematic as resurrection. Yet modern Jewish support for immortality and
rejection of resurrection is less surprising when considered in the context of
the theological-political framework of modern Judaism, in which, like political
modernity more broadly, religion is (at least in theory) divorced from politics. As
modern Europeans debated whether to grant Jews rights of citizenship in the modern
nation state, Jewish thinkers of a variety of ideological stripes were continually at
pains to emphasize that the Jewish community did not and would not constitute a
state within a state.4 The Jewish religion, they argued, did not demand any sort of
political loyalty that would be in tension with the loyalty required by the state. In
making this argument, these diverse Jewish thinkers all equated politics with the
modern nation state alone and all contended that Judaism was not political.5
3
Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God
of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). See also Kevin Madigan and Jon D. Levenson,
Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2008).
4
On this particular phrase and its historical implications, see Jacob Katz, A State within a
State: The History of an Anti-Semitic Slogan, in Emancipation and Assimilation: Studies in Modern
Jewish History (Chicago: Gregg International Publishers, 1972) 4776.
5
For more on the equation of politics with the modern nation state and hence with a particularly
modern conception of sovereignty in modern Jewish thought, see Leora Batnitzky, Beyond
LEORA BATNITZKY
281
I would like to suggest that because resurrection is associated with collective

identity in classical Jewish thought, many modern Jewish thinkers had trouble
acknowledging the concept. The idea of immortality, in contrast, offers the
possibility of afrming the enduring value and signicance of the Jewish tradition
while simultaneously conrming that there is no tension between being Jewish
and being a citizen of the modern nation-state. The problem of resurrection is thus
less a philosophical problem than a political one. We will see that Benedict de
Spinozas (16321677) criticism of Moses Maimonides (11351204) on this topic,
and Moses Mendelssohns subsequent attempt to argue for Jewish emancipation in
the context of Spinozas critique of Maimonides, proved the turning points after
which the terms of modern Jewish considerations of immortality were set. The
downplaying of resurrection combined with the retention of immortality constitutes
a movement away from traditional Judaism, with its dual theological and political
dimensions, toward a Judaism that is what we today call a religion. In even more
contemporary terms, this trend in Jewish thought marks a transition from religion
to spirituality. As I will suggest in the conclusion of this paper, the downplaying of
resurrection combined with the retention of immortality in modern Jewish thought
raises questions not just about modern Judaism but also about the place and limits
of religion in modern political orders.
***
Two basic points made by Jon Levenson in Resurrection and the Restoration of
Israel are essential for our discussion. First, as Levensons title indicates, the notion
of resurrection goes hand in hand with the restoration of Israel. To be sure, the history
of Jewish thought, rabbinic and otherwise, does not present one systematic view of
immortality or resurrection. However, it is helpful to recognize that from a classical
rabbinic point of view resurrection is not individual but communal. An expansive
dimension of resurrection is central to the Christian understanding of the concept
as well. As Oscar Cullman stated in his 1955 Ingersoll Lecture, The Christian
hope relates not just to my individual fate, but to the entire creation.6 Second, as
Levenson succinctly concludes, To the rabbis, resurrection without the restoration
of Israel, including its renewed adherence to Torah, was incomprehensible. And
without the expectation of resurrection, the restoration of Israel would be something
less than what the rabbis thought the Torah had always intended it to bethe
ultimate victory of the God of life.7 Put another way, the theological and political
dimensions of resurrection cannot be separated. From the perspective of classical
Sovereignty? Modern Jewish Political Theory, in Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy (ed.
David Novak and Martin Kavka; New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2010).
6
Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul and Resurrection of the Dead: The Witness of the
New Testament, in Immortality and Resurrection: Four Essays (ed. Krister Stendahl; New York:
Macmillan, 1965) 28.
7
Levenson, Resurrection, 229.
282
Jewish thought, theology without politicsthe miracle of resurrection without the

restoration of the particular people who newly commit to the observance of Gods
lawis as problematic as politics without theology, or the restoration of Israel
without the ultimate miracle of the God of life.
At stake in appreciating the interconnection between resurrection and the
restoration of Israel in classical Jewish thought is the very question of Jewish
election. The intimate interplay between resurrection and Israels restoration
suggests that resurrectionthe ultimate redemption of historycannot be detached
from the particular fate of the people of Israel. To be sure, the eschatological
redemption marked by resurrection is universal. But the path toward universality
cannot be detached from Israels particular destiny. In rabbinic Judaism, the status
of resurrection and the relation between Jewish particularity and universality come
together in a well-known discussion in the nal chapter of tractate Sanhedrin in
the Babylonian Talmud:
All of Israel has a share in the world to come, as it is written: And your
people, all of them righteous, shall possess the land for all time; they are the
shoot that I planted, My handiwork in which I glory (Isa 60:21). And these are
those who do not have a share in the world to come: He who says the resurrection of the dead is not in the Torah, he who says that the Torah is not from
Heaven, and the skeptic [who denies Gods providence] (m. Sanh. 10:1).
Clearly, from a rabbinic point of view, belief in resurrection of the dead is essential.
All of Israel has a place in the world to come, but those who deny resurrection
remove themselves from the community of Israel, thereby denying themselves a
place among the newly born people.
But do others, that is, non-Jews, have a place in the world to come? Does not
the God of life who restores the people of Israel restore all righteous people to
life? The rabbis debated this question and offered a number of opinions, including
Rabbi Joshuas, which suggested that those righteous Gentiles who followed the
seven laws given to Noah after the ood also have a share in the world to come.8
Maimonides interpretation of Rabbi Joshuas opinion would be decisive for
modern Jewish understandings of immortality and resurrection. Let us turn rst
to Maimonides view of resurrection and then to modern Jewish interpretations of
Maimonides view.
Maimonides is well known not only for what he said about resurrection but also
for what he did not say. In particular, Maimonides does not mention resurrection
in his magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed, though he does afrm the
immortality of the soul. This omission was not lost on Maimonides critics and he
was vehemently attacked for his apparent denial of the resurrection of the body.9
T. Sanh. 13:2.
For an overview of this subject, see Daniel Jeremy Silver, Maimonidean Criticism and the
Maimonidean Controversy 11801240 (Leiden: Brill, 1965).
9
LEORA BATNITZKY
283
Toward the end of his life, Maimonides responded to his critics with his Treatise
on Resurrection, in which he explicitly embraced the doctrine of resurrection:
We vehemently deny and we cleanse ourselves before the Almighty God of
the (accusation attributed to us) . . . that the soul will never return to the body
and that it is impossible for that to occur. For such a denial (of the resurrection of the dead) leads to the denial of miracles and the denial of miracles
is equivalent to denying the existence of God and the abandonment of our
faith. For we consider the resurrection of the dead to be a cardinal principle
of the Torah.10
There is much to say, and indeed much has been said, about the relation between
Maimonides Treatise and his other works as well as about what his views really
were.11 However, for our purposes, what matters is that Maimonides emphasizes
the intimate and irreducible connection between theology and politics implied by
the belief in resurrection. In the above quotation from the Treatise it might appear
that resurrection is a purely theological matter, as denial of resurrection leads to
the denial of miracles, which is equivalent to denying the existence of God and
the abandonment of our faith. In the context of Maimonides broader argument
in the Guide, however, the denial of miraclesand what is resurrection but the
greatest of miracles?destroys the Torah of our teacher Moses in its principle
. . . and reduces to inanity all the hopes and threats that the Law of Moses has held
out.12
Why does the rejection of miracles destroy the Torah? For Maimonides, the
possibility of miracles implies the possibility of Gods creation of the world.
Creation, in turn, implies divine providence, for if God created the world, then
the world is the way it is for a reason (whatever that reason may be). If there is no
possibility of providence, there is no possibility of revelation and no possibility of
the Law.13 For these reasons, denial of the hope for resurrection destroys the Torah
10
Moses Maimonides, Treatise on Resurrection (trans. Fred Rosner; New York: Jason Aaronson,
1982) 35.
11
On the broader topic of how to read Maimonides and the signicance of his claims about
resurrection, see Leo Strauss, The Literary Character of The Guide of the Perplexed, in Persecution
and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952) esp. 74. For another view, see
Marvin Fox, Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) esp. ch. 4. See also Kenneth Seeskin, Maimonides
on the Origin and Nature of the World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) esp. chs.
6 and 7.
12
Moses Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (ed. and trans. Shlomo Pines; intro. Leo Strauss;
2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) 2:25. I have altered the translation slightly
by translating Torat Moshe Rabbeinu as the Torah of our teacher Moses rather than the Law of
our teacher Moses, as I believe this conveys the broader sense of Maimonides claim. See Moreh
nevukhim le-Rabenu Mosheh ben Maimon (trans. Mikhael Shvarts; Tel Aviv: Universitat Tel-Aviv,
2002) 2:25 as well as Dalalat al-hairin (ed. Solomon Munk; 3 vols; Jerusalem: Yunovits, 1929)
2:25 where Maimonides uses the term sharia as opposed to qh, the former corresponding to Torah,
the latter to a narrower conception of law (halakhah).
13
This is the argument of ch. 25 of book 2 of the Guide.
284
in its principle . . . and reduces to inanity all the hopes and threats that the Law of
Moses has held out. The destruction of the Torah in principle as well as all the
hopes and threats that the Law has held out is thus not of merely theological import
but of political signicance as well. As Maimonides makes clear throughout his
work, the Torah is fundamentally political in nature, and while politics is not the
ultimate end of the Torah, the political order is a necessary (though not sufcient)
condition for any higher spiritual aspirations of the human being. As Maimonides
puts it in the Guide: The Torah of Moses our teacher as a whole aims at two things:
the welfare of the soul and the welfare of the body. As for the welfare of the soul,
it consists in the multitudes acquiring correct opinions. . . . As for the welfare
of the body, it comes about by the improvement of their ways of living with one
another. . . . This cannot be achieved in any way by one isolated individual. For an
individual can only attain all this through a political association, it being already
known that man is political by nature.14 However one interprets Maimonides
claims about resurrection in relation to his larger corpus, it is clear that he follows
the rabbinic tradition in positing an intimate connection between the theological
hope for the miracle of resurrection and the political form this hope would take in
restoring the people of Israel.
***
It is precisely the splitting of theology from politics that marks much of modern
Jewish thought and particularly the claims of those Jewish thinkers who emphasize
some conception of immortality while attempting to ignore resurrection. As with
so many issues in modern Jewish thought, the famous Jewish heretic Benedict
de Spinoza set the parameters for modern Jewish arguments about immortality.
In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza denies the possibility of miracles,
claiming that belief in miracles is in fact a denial of God because the notion of a
miracle implies that Gods laws are not necessary.15 Nevertheless, in the Ethics
Spinoza seems to afrm some notion of immortality: The human mind cannot be
absolutely destroyed with the body but something of it remains which is eternal.16
14
Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, 3:27.

Benedict de Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (trans. Samuel Shirley; Leiden: Brill,
1989) 12526. See especially Spinozas claim that that any suggestion of a supernatural order would
necessarily be opposed to the order which God maintains eternally in nature through her universal
laws (130). Spinoza does not mention resurrection explicitly in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,
but in a letter to Henry Oldenburg he states that any notion of resurrection must be understood
spiritually because Christians interpret spiritually all those doctrines which the Jews accepted
literally (7 February, 1676, translated and included in The Ethics and Selected Letters [trans.
Samuel Shirley; Indianapolis: Hacket, 1982] 255).
16
Spinoza, Ethics and Selected Letters, 215.
15
LEORA BATNITZKY
285
The meaning of Spinozas claim about immortality remains as vexing for his
interpreters as resurrection is for Maimonides interpreters.17
What concerns us here, however, is less the philosophical intricacies of Spinozas
position (obviously a subject far beyond the scope of this paper) than the political
contention about Judaism that he makes in the Tractatus in connection with his
declaration about immortality in the Ethics. Spinoza writes:
If a man is absolutely ignorant of the Scriptures, and none the less has right
opinions and a true plan of life, he is absolutely blessed and truly possesses
in himself the spirit of Christ.
The Jews are of a contrary way of thinking, for they hold that true opinions
and a true plan of life are of no service in attaining blessedness, if their
possessors have arrived at them by the light of reason only, and not like the
documents prophetically revealed to Moses. Maimonides ventures openly to
make this assertion.18
Spinoza refers here to Maimonides commentary, in his Law of Kings, on the

aforementioned talmudic discussion about who has a portion in the world to come.
Maimonides writes:
A heathen who accepts the seven commandments [given to Noah] and observes them scrupulously is a righteous gentile (me-hasidei umot ha-olam)
and will have a portion in the world-to-come, provided that he accepts them
and performs them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them
in the Law and made known through Moses, our teacher, that the observance
thereof had been enjoined upon the descendants of Noah even before the Law
was given. But if his observance thereof is based upon a reasoned conclusion
he is not deemed a resident alien (ger toshav), or one of the pious gentiles
(me-hasidei umot ha-olam) . . .19
According to Maimonides, in order to earn a place in the world to come, a non-Jew

must not only accept and observe the seven commandments given to Noah but must
do so because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Law and
made them known through Moses, our teacher. On the one hand, acceptance of the
source of the law is theologicalthe righteous gentile acknowledges that the law
comes from God and not from his own reason. On the other hand, such acceptance
is also political, for the law was given to Moses who gave it to the Jewish people.
From Spinozas perspective, Maimonides view undermines the true meaning of
the divine law, which Spinoza denes as universal or common to all men. . . .
[because] it does not depend on the truth of any historical narrative whatsoever.20
17
For a recent discussion of this issue, see Steven Nadler, Spinozas Heresy: Immortality and
the Jewish Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
18
Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 7980.
19
Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (trans. Eliyahu Touger; 22 vols; New York: Moznaim,
1987) 8:11, translation modied.
20
Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 61.
286
For Maimonides, in contrast, there is no tension between the particular historical

narrative of the divine law and its universal implications. In fact, the latter two
require the former.
Needless to say, there are profound theological and philosophical differences
between Maimonides and Spinoza. But on the questions of immortality and
resurrection, that is, on the issue of who does and does not have a place in the world
to come, their difference is perhaps most fundamentally political. As noted above,
for Maimonides, The Law as a whole aims at two things: the welfare of the soul
and the welfare of the body. The political order aims at the welfare of the body,
but for Maimonides the welfare of the body is not an end in itself. Rather, politics
is a necessary, though not sufcient, condition for the ultimate goal of human life,
which is contemplation of the divine (or the welfare of the soul). Spinoza follows
Maimonides in viewing the goal of human life as contemplation of the divine,
but Spinoza sees politics as an end in itself. For Spinoza, the aim of the state is
peace and security of life (pax vitaeque securitas).21 Religion, or theology, for
Spinoza, is a means toward promoting political harmony. Maimonides view that
the righteous gentile not only exhibits certain behavior but also possesses certain
beliefs is inherently problematic because it depends upon the truth of a particular
historical narrative. For Spinoza, such a preference for one historical narrative
undermines the goal of harmony on the basis of which all theological beliefs
should be judged. This perspective came to dene the political, philosophical, and
theological framework in which modern Jewish thinkers found themselves. The
questions of immortality and resurrection thus became as much modern political
questions as they were metaphysical ones.
***
Without appreciating the political background of modern Jewish thought, especially
in the German-Jewish context, it would be easy to conclude that modern Jewish
conceptions of immortality simply mirrored the philosophical fashions of the
day. In his 1783 Jerusalem, Moses Mendelssohn argued that Judaism in no way
contradicted enlightened reason but rather complemented it.22 In his 1767 Phdon,
Mendelssohn also offered a sustained Enlightenment argument for the immortality
of the soul, making no mention of resurrection.23 However, Mendelssohns claims
about both Judaism and enlightened reason as well as about immortality are as
political as they are metaphysical. Mendelssohns conception of Judaism and his
view of immortality conform as much to an idea of a universal enlightened reason
21
Benedict de Spinoza, Political Treatise (trans. Samuel Shirley; 2d ed.; Indianapolis: Hackett,
2000) ch. 5, par. 2.
22
Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem; or, On Religious Power and Judaism (trans. Allan Arkush;
Hanover: University of New England Press, 1983).
23
Moses Mendelssohn, Phdon; or, The Death of Socrates (translated from the German; London:
J. Cooper, 1789).
LEORA BATNITZKY
287
as they do to the very modern notion that theological beliefs are to be judged on
the basis of their ability to contribute to a harmonious political order.
As is well known, Mendelssohn published his Jerusalem as a response to the
public challenge of a Swiss theologian, John Caspar Lavater, either to refute
Christianity or to convert to Christianity. This was a twofold challenge because
Mendelssohn had to defend the rationality of Judaism and hence Judaisms
compatibility with the German Enlightenment without offending his Christian
interlocutors. Mendelssohn responded with an eloquent plea for the separation of
Church and State. The title of Mendelssohns response, Jerusalem; or, On Religious
Power in Judaism, captures the thrust of his argument. Mendelssohn argues that by
denition the state concerns power and coercion while religion, properly understood,
does not. This means that Judaism, or Jerusalem, is not concerned with power
and therefore does not conict with the possibility of the integration of Jews into
the modern nation-state.
Mendelssohn created the very category of Jewish religion by separating Judaism
from politics and the individual Jew from the corporate Jewish community. As he
put it, the purpose of the Jewish community is collective edication, participation
in the effusion of the heart, through which we acknowledge our gratitude for Gods
benefactions . . .24 As a political corollary to this philosophical point, Mendelssohn
vehemently opposed the idea that the Jewish community should retain its autonomy
in matters of civil law, stressing that Jews should receive civil rights as individuals
and not as a corporate entity.25 Mendelssohn especially rejected the Jewish
communitys claim, still maintained in his day, to the right to excommunicate. As
he put it, Judaism as religion, knows of no punishment, no other penalty than the
one the remorseful sinner voluntarily imposes on himself. It knows of no coercion,
uses only the staff [called] gentleness, and affects only mind and heart.26
For both theological and political reasons, Mendelssohn was deeply
uncomfortable with Maimonides conceptions of immortality and resurrection.
Spinozas philosophy was of course familiar to the German Enlightenment, as was
Pierre Bayles claim, derived from Spinozas criticism of Maimonides, that Judaism
was a fundamentally immoral religion.27 In Mendelssohns own day, Voltaire had
24
Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften. Jubilumsausgabe (24 vols; Berlin: F. Frommann,
19291984) 8:21.
25
For recent work on this topic, see Allan Arkush, Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment
(Albany: State University Press of New York, 1994); David Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the
Religious Enlightenment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); and Jonathan Hess,
Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
26
Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, 130.
27
On Bayles view of Judaism, see Miriam Yardeni, La vision des juifs et du judasme dans
luvre de Pierre Bayle, in Les Juifs dans lhistoire de France (ed. Miriam Yardeni; Leiden: Brill,
1980) 8695.
288
extended this claim in asserting that the Jewish religion was in fact unsurpassed
in its moral depravity.28
Mendelssohn did not publicly disagree with Maimonides. In fact, he never
mentioned resurrection in any of his work published in German, including in his
Phdon, whose expressed purpose is a defense of immortality. However, in his
private correspondence, not intended for publication, Mendelssohn expressed his
profound discomfort with the political and theological implications of Maimonides
views: These things are more difcult for me than inty rock. Should all the
dwellers on earth, from East to the West, other than ourselves descend into the pit
of perdition and be an object of condemnation to all human beings if they do not
believe in the Torah which was given as an inheritance only to the congregation of
Jacob?29 Clearly, Mendelssohn recognized that his conception of immortality did
not conform to rabbinic doctrine, Maimonidean or otherwise, which, as we have
seen, concerns the fate of the people of Israel. The fact that Mendelssohn refused,
despite repeated requests, to have his Phdon translated into Hebrew seems only
to conrm this conclusion.30
Perhaps with Spinozas criticism of Maimonides in mind, Mendelssohn stresses
in Phdon that immortality in no way concerns any national or particular group
identity: I am of the opinion also that in the very wise plan of creation, similar
beings are to meet a similar destiny and consequently that the same fate awaits the
whole human race.31 In the Phdons nal argument for immortality, Mendelssohn
provides a direct political analog to his philosophical description of the egalitarian
nature of immortality. Without immortality, Mendelssohn avers, it would be
impossible to reconcile the states right to demand the sacrice of the life of any
citizen for the welfare of the whole with the individuals competing right to the
supreme good of life. Mendelssohns political argument for immortality amounts
to a reductio ad absurdum: the soul is necessarily immortal, Mendelssohn argues,
because if it were not, we would be left in an absurd situation, a general war of
moral beings where everyone has right on his side.32
Setting aside the question of the merits of this argument, the important point for
us is that Mendelssohn wants to be very clear in afrming the right of the state to
demand the sacrice of the life of the citizen as well as the citizens individual right
28
On Voltaire, Bayle, and Spinoza, see most recently Harvey Mitchell, Voltaires Jews and Modern
Jewish Identity: Rethinking the Enlightenment (New York: Routledge, 2008). See also Arkushs
very helpful explication of this issue and its relation to Mendelssohn in Moses Mendelssohn and
the Enlightenment, 14551.
29
Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften Jubilumsausgabe, 16 (Letter 154, dated October 26,
1773).
30
On this subject, see Noah Rosenblums excellent study, Theological Impediments to a
Hebrew Version of Mendelssohns Phaedon, in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish
Research 56 (1990) 5181.
31
Mendelssohn, Phdon, 171.
32
Ibid., 187. I thank Elias Sacks for pointing this argument out to me.
LEORA BATNITZKY
289
to life. In the context in which he wrote, and especially in regard to questions about
the relations between the Jewish community, the state, and the individual Jew, these
rights were certainly not taken for granted. Indeed, one of the main objections to
Jewish emancipation was that Jews constituted a state within a state and therefore
could not be trusted to serve in the military. This was a position that Mendelssohn
spent much of his intellectual life attempting to refute. We have seen that while
he strongly rejects Spinozas description of the Jewish view of immortality,
Mendelssohn nonetheless adheres to Spinozas framework in his conception of
the relation between theology and politics. The theological notion of immortality
is inherently egalitarian, Mendelssohn asserts, and thus does not undermine but
rather supports an egalitarian body politic, just as Judaism, as a religion without
dogma, does not undermine but rather supports enlightened reason.
***
When the liberal society that Mendelssohn had hoped for was, at least to
some extent, nally actualized, modern Jewish thinkers continued to defend an
idea of immortality similar to his. Strikingly, a number of rather diverse modern
Jewish thinkers did occasionally mention resurrection, but only as a metaphor for
immortality. For instance, Samson Raphael Hirsch, the nineteenth-century spiritual
founding father of what is today called Orthodox Judaism, shares with Mendelssohn
the tendency to avoid the subject of resurrection while retaining immortality.
Hirsch did not remove the ubiquitous references to resurrection from the liturgy
as his Reform counterparts did.33 But with remarkable consistency, Hirsch shifts
discussion away from resurrection toward immortality and while doing so he
interprets references to the community of Israel as references to individual Jews
as well as to individual people in general.
That all of Israel has a place in the world to come, Hirsch writes, denotes
a two-fold future; one in the world to come, and one in this world. . . . Whatever
good we achieve in loyal obedience to God here below becomes a spiritual
accomplishment which will accompany us into the world to come and into the
presence of our Father in Heaven.34 In its universalist and theologically vague
33
See Neil Gillmans discussion of Abraham Geigers translations of liturgical references to
resurrection which aimed to afrm immortality and reject resurrection in The Death of Death:
Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 1997) 19899.
See also Jakob J. Petuchowski, ImmortalityYes; ResurrectionNo! Nineteenth-Century
Judaism Struggles with a Traditional Belief, PAAJR 50 (1983) 13347. Jon Levenson discusses
these publications and offers an overview of the broad afrmation of immortality and rejection of
resurrection in modern Jewish thought in ch. 1 of Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel, entitled
The Modern Jewish Preference for Immortality (122).
34
Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Siddur (ed. and trans. The Samson Raphael Hirsch
Publications Society; Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1987) 414. The same commentary can be found in
English in Samson Raphael Hirsch, Chapters of the Fathers: Commentary to Pirkei Avot (Jerusalem:
Feldheim, 1967).
290
character, Hirschs conception of immortality is quite similar to Mendelssohns.

In what is perhaps his most succinct statement on the subject, Hirsch asserts that
immortality and eternity belong to the essence of man as man, given to everyone
as he enters this life, to enable him to walk in freedom in the land of transience, to
lead him to return to eternity.35
Perhaps more signicant than this theological afnity between Hirsch and
Mendelssohn is their political afnity, which may offer us deeper insight into
modern Jewish conceptions of immortality. Although he wrote a century after
Mendelssohn and as a critic of the liberal Judaism Mendelssohn had fathered, the
following words of Hirschs could just have easily been Mendelssohns:
It is certainly possible for us to attach ourselves to the State, wherever we
may nd ourselves, without harm to the spirit of Judaism. . . . It is precisely
the purely spiritual nature of Israels nationhood that makes it possible for
Jews everywhere to tie themselves fully to the various states in which they
live.36
Note Hirschs repeated use of the term spiritual to describe both immortality and
the political status of the Jewish people. (Again, Hirsch describes immortality as
a spiritual accomplishment and Israels nationhood as purely spiritual.) The
common ground between Mendelssohn and Hirsch is their shared assumption of the
necessity of a boundary between Judaism, now dened as a religion, and politics,
now dened only in terms of the egalitarian and individualistic commitments of
the modern nation state.37 Resurrection crosses this boundary and is for this reason
troublesome for each of these thinkers.
In the early twentieth century, the great neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann
Cohen similarly reduced resurrection to immortality. Like Mendelssohn, Cohen was
deeply disturbed by Spinozas portrayal of Maimonides.38 Unlike Mendelssohn,
however, Cohen sought to correct not Maimonides but Spinoza, claiming that
Spinoza had maliciously misread Maimonides (a view that most scholars reject).39
Cohen offers a rereading of Maimonides:
35
Samson Raphael Hirsch, Commentary to Bamidbar 19:22, as cited and translated in Joseph Elias,
The World of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch: The Nineteen Letters Newly Translated and with a Comprehensive
Commentary (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1995) 152.
36
Ibid., 224, translation modied.
37
For more on the striking convergence between Hirsch and Mendelssohn, see Leora Batnitzky,
From Politics to Law: Modern Jewish Thought and the Invention of Jewish Law, forthcoming
in Dine Israel, 2009.
38
On the philosophical implications of Cohens and Mendelssohns shared discomfort with
Maimonides statement, see Steven Schwartzschild, Do Noahides have to Believe in Revelation? (A
Passage in Dispute between Maimonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, and Hermann Cohen) A Contribution
to a Jewish View of Natural Law, in The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild
(ed. Menachem Kellner; Albany: State University Press of New York, 1990) 2960.
39
See especially Hermann Cohen, Spinoza ber Staat und Religion, Judentum und Christentum,
in Jdische Schriften (ed. Bruno Strauss; 3 vols.; Berlin: Schwetschke & Sohn, 1924) 3:348.
LEORA BATNITZKY
291
All Israel has a share in the world to come. For this share no special demonstration of positive piety is necessary. The whole of Israel stands here for
the concept of man in general, for the whole of Israel includes messianic
mankind.40
For Cohen, messianic mankind implies not an eschatological endpoint but

the worldly pursuit of what he calls ethical socialism, in which material and
economic conditions should never become a hindrance to the realization of the moral
and spiritual culture of all men without any distinction.41 While resurrection would
seem to be an instance of Gods miraculous suspension of the laws of creaturely
existence, Cohen maintains that the concept of resurrection became a lever for
the formulation of [the concept of] immortality. . . . the history of the people and
the history of the messianic people of mankind endure forever. Again, for Cohen,
the messianic people stands . . . for the concept of man in general.42 According to
Cohen, immortality means that the human beings moral task endures forever and
the concept of resurrection is but an historical vestige of this eternal truth.
***
We may wonder why Cohen mentions resurrection at all. Would it not have been
easier simply to ignore resurrection, as Mendelssohn did? Here again we see
philosophy, theology, and politics meeting. Mendelssohn wrote at a time when
the Jewish community was still dened as a political entity. For this reason,
Mendelssohn was highly sensitive to any theological notion that had political
implications. As we briey discussed, in order to argue for the full inclusion of Jews
in modern political life, Mendelssohn invented the idea that Judaism is a religion.
By Cohens time, approximately a century and a half later, this idea had been fully
internalized by Jewish thinkers. (Note the title of Cohens book, Religion of Reason
out of the Sources of Judaism; the book was intended as a complement and corrective
to Kants Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.) Resurrection, like all Jewish
theological concepts, had been divorced from politics. Resurrection could now serve
as an indistinct placeholder for immortality which, we have briey seen in Cohens
case, already served as a placeholder for the eternal truth of morality.
The afrmation of immortality on the one hand and the separation of theology
and politics on the other is perhaps most revealing in the philosophy of Franz
Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig begins his magnum opus, The Star of Redemption:
From death, from the fear of death, there commences all knowledge of the All.
To cast off the fear of the earthly, to take from death its poisonous sting, in this
40
Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (trans. Simon Kaplan;
New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972) 336.
41
Ibid., 311.
42
Ibid., 359.
292
philosophy deceives itself.43 Rejecting the old philosophy for what he calls the
new thinking, Rosenzweig would seem to base his thought on the fundamental
and inescapable fact of human mortality. Yet the Star goes on to declare that
mans eternity is implanted in the soil of creation.44 Understandably, from the
rst published reviews of the Star to this very day, the central task for students
of Rosenzweig has been, in one way or another, to resolve the tension between
existence and eternity in his thought.45
While the Star refers repeatedly to eternity and at times to immortality,
resurrection is mentioned only three times and then only in passing. Two of these
references occur in the context of Rosenzweigs discussion of Christianity. The
third is seemingly generic and especially obscure:
Everything worldly has . . . its history: law and the state, art and science, all
that is visible. The wake-up call of Gods revelation to man sounds, its echo
reverberates into . . . the world, and only then does a segment of temporality
die the death of the resurrection of eternity. Speech, however, is human, not
worldly; therefore it neither dies nor, admittedly, is it resurrected. In eternity
there is silence. God himself, however, plants the sapling of his own eternity
neither into the beginning of time nor into the middle, but utterly beyond
time into eternity.46
Space does not permit a full discussion of this admittedly complex quotation, but
for our purposes we need but note one point. Rosenzweig associates resurrection
with death, time, worldliness, history, state, science, and all that is visible, while
he links eternity with transcendence, speech, and silence. Later in the Star he
43
Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (trans. William W. Hallo; Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1985) 3.
44
Ibid., 259.
45
Rosenzweigs contemporaries tended to resolve this tension by emphasizing either existence or
eternity over the other. For a reading of Rosenzweig that emphasizes his conception of existence, see
Julius Guttmanns Philosophies of Judaism (trans. David W. Silverman; New York: Holt, 1964). For a
neo-idealist reading of Rosenzweig see Else-Rahel Freund, Franz Rosenzweigs Philosophy of Existence
(trans. Stephen L. Weinstein and Robert Israel; Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979). In recent years,
scholarship has tended to continue to move along this either/or line. For an emphasis on Rosenzweigs
conception of existence, see Peter Eli Gordon, Rosenzweig and Heidegger (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2003) and on the neo-idealist side see Benjamin Pollock, Franz Rosenzweig and
the Systematic Task of Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
46
Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption, 26061, translation modied and emphasis added. The
German reads, So hat alles Weltiche in aller Zeit seine Geschichte: Recht und Staat, Kunst und
Wissenschaft, alles was sichtbar ist; und erst im Augenblick, wo in ein solches Es der Welt das Echo
des Weckrufs zur Offenbarung Gottes an den Menschen hineinhallt, stirbt ein Stck Zeitlichkeit
den Auferstehungstod der Ewigkeit. Die Sprache aber, weil sie menschlich ist, nicht weltlich, stirbt
nicht und ersteht freilich auch nicht auf. In der Ewigkeit ist Schweigen. Gott selber aber panzt
den Setzling seiner eigenen Ewigkeit weder in den Anfang noch in die Mitte der Zeit, sondern
schlechthin jenseits der Zeit in die Ewigkeit. Franz Rosenzweig, Der Stern der Erlsung (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976) 290.
LEORA BATNITZKY
293
characterizes Judaism as eternal and the Jewish peoples communal life as silence.47
In contrast, he depicts Christianity and Christians as intrinsically temporal and
tied to history, the state, and art.48 These portrayals imply that the Jewish people
are already beyond resurrection because they are eternal. It is Christians and not
Jews who await resurrection. Rosenzweigs association of eternity and resurrection
with Judaism and Christianity respectively is part and parcel of his inversion of
Christian supersessionism. For Rosenzweig, it is not that Judaism needs to catch up
to Christian revelation, as Christians had held for centuries. Rather, as Rosenzweig
puts it, to the church we can only say: we have already arrived at the destination,
you are still en route.49
Rosenzweigs refusal to associate resurrection with Judaism is remarkable since,
more than any other German-Jewish thinker, he tried to move beyond the framework
erected by Mendelssohn. But while Rosenzweig emphatically rejected the idea that
Judaism is a religion, he nevertheless insisted far more than his predecessors had
that Judaism was completely separate from politics. As Rosenzweig put it to his
friend Eugen Rosenstock: Is not part of the price that the Synagogue must pay
for the blessing . . . of being already in the Fathers presence, that she must wear
the bandages of unconsciousness over her eyes)?50 In part three of the Star, he
argues at length that the bandages of unconsciousness blind the Jew and Judaism
particularly to politics. Rosenzweig, then, like Hirsch and Cohen, can only view
Judaism through the lens of an absolute separation between theology and politics.
Judaism, for Rosenzweig, has no political dimension but only a theological one.
Resurrection is thus irrelevant to Judaism.51
47
These are among the themes of part 3, book 1 of Rosenzweigs Star of Redemption, The Fire
or the Eternal Way. See esp. 29899 and 31516.
48
These are among the themes of part 3, book 1 of Rosenzweigs Star of Redemption, The
Rays or the Eternal Way. See esp. 337, 35253 and 37778.
49
Letter to Rudolf Ehrenberg, 4 November, 1913 in Franz Rosenzweig, Briefe und Tagebcher
(2 vols.; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979) 1:142
50
Judaism Despite Christianity: The Letters on Christianity and Judaism between Franz
Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (ed. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy; Alabama: University
of Alabama Press, 1969) 114.
51
A consideration of Emmanuel Levinas views of immortality and resurrection is beyond the
scope of this paper. Here I will suggest only that resurrection for Levinas is the disruption of the
continuity of time, not because God revives the dead but rather because another person disrupts
ones experience of time. It is in this encounter with the Other, Levinas maintains, that a trace of
immortality (what he calls the immemorial) reveals itself. In this way, Levinass view of the
relation between immortality and resurrection bears a signicant structural similarity to Cohens
and Rosenzweigs in which resurrection is a limited gesture toward immortality. See in particular
Levinass remarks about resurrection in Totality and Innity (trans. Alphonso Lingis; Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 1969) 284: Resurrection constitutes the principal event of time. There
is therefore no continuity in being. . . . In continuation the instant meets its death, and resuscitates;
death and resurrection constitute time. But such a formal structure presupposes the relation of the
I with the Other . . .
294
***
That the problem of resurrection for modern Jewish thinkers is a political one is
conrmed by the fact that cultural Zionists are perhaps the only modern Jewish
thinkers for whom resurrection is supremely important. The central gure of
cultural Zionism, Ahad Haam (18561927) explicitly rejected the modern idea
that Judaism is a religion. He did so because he believed that Jews had attempted to
eliminate their communal identitywhat I have been calling the political dimension
of Judaismfor the false promise of the modern liberal state. Writing in Eastern
Europe, where Jews had not yet received the rights of citizenship, Ahad Haam
made this point most clearly in a well-known and aptly titled essay, Slavery in
Freedom:
Do I envy these fellow Jews of mine their emancipation? . . . No! A thousand
times No. . . . I have at least not sold my soul for emancipation. . . . I at least
know why I remain a Jewor, rather, I can nd no meaning in such a question, any more than if I were asked why I remain my fathers son.52
Ahad Haam strove to acknowledge both the political and theological dimensions
of Judaism, but he sought to subordinate theology to a new kind of national
identity: Zionism. Reformulating the twin theological and political dimensions
of Judaism, he famously maintained that one can say without any exaggeration
that more than the Jewish people has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept [the
Jewish people].53
Perhaps the most basic concept that Ahad Haam attempted to transform was the
very idea of resurrection. He explicitly suggested that political redemption for the
Jews, i.e., Zionism, was an appendage (tiah) to thiyat ha-metim (resurrection
of the dead). Cultural Zionism, he maintained, would lead to the resurrection of
the hearts (thiyat ha-levavot) of the Jewish people.54 Martin Buber (18781965),
a great admirer of Ahad Haams cultural Zionism, also described the reawakening
of Jewish peoplehood in terms of resurrection: The word resurrection comes to
mind: a reawakening that is a miracle. Bubers use of the term resurrection is
particularly telling because he goes on to state that history knows no miracles.
It does, however, know streams of national life that seem to cease, but actually
continue underground. . . . The Jewish people can look forward to a resurrection
from half a life to a full one.55 The cultural Zionist reformulation of resurrection
raises the question of whether the modern era demands that Jews make an either/or
choice between religion and politics. As such, the relationship between the rejection
of resurrection in modern Jewish avowals of immortality and the revival of the
52
Ahad Haam, Selected Essays by Ahad Haam (trans. Leon Simon; Philadelphia: JPS, 1912)
193.
53
Ahad Haam, Al Parashat Derakhim (4 vols.; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1946) 3:30.
Ahad Haam, Al Parashat Derakhim (4 vols.; Berlin: Jdischer Verlag, 1930) 1:6.
55
Martin Buber, Renaissance und Bewegung, in Der Jude und sein Judentum. Gesammelte
Aufstze und Reden (Gerlingen: Lambert Schneider, 1993) 1012.
54
LEORA BATNITZKY
295
concept of resurrection by cultural Zionists points to the most basic questions of

modern Jewish thought as well as of political modernity.
***
In this paper, I have tried to show that a commitment to immortality is central to
modern Jewish thought and that modern Jewish thinkers afrm immortality while
rejecting or downplaying resurrection. I have suggested that this movement from
resurrection to immortality in modern Jewish thought ought to be understood within
the theological-political framework of modernity, in which Judaism is considered a
religion separate from politics. By way of conclusion, I would like to refer briey
to an interesting column of May 2008 entitled The Neural Buddhists by New
York Times columnist David Brooks, which, I suggest, bears upon the meaning
of modern Jewish afrmations of immortality and disavowals of resurrection.
Brooks notes that despite the loud voices of a new group of assertive atheists such
as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, momentum [amongst scientists]
has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold
machine. It does not operate like a computer. Brooks argues that this means that
debates between atheists and believers about whether it is reasonable to conceive
of a soul that survives the death of the body and about whether understanding the
brain explains away or merely adds to our appreciation of the entity that created
it . . . is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up
undermining faith in God [or immortality], its going to end up challenging faith
in the Bible. The real challenge to religious believers will come from people
who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just
cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits.56
I began this paper with reference to Hans Jonass 1961 Ingersoll Lecture. Again,
Jonas concluded his lecture by afrming that although the hereafter is not ours
. . . we can have immortality . . . when in our brief span we serve our threatened
mortal affairs . . . Jonas surely would have been happy to see that, as Brooks puts
it, some scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. . . . The mind
seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that
feels more real. But Jonas himself recognized that his very limited conception
of immortality was a break not only with the Bible but also with the history of
Jewish (and Christian) thought. Jonas believed there was no other option than to
acknowledge this break and then to create new myths for ourselves with the full
knowledge that these could only be myths.57 My interest has been in exploring the
related political dimension of this move, which concerns nothing less than the status
of modern liberalism. Our consideration of modern Jewish views of immortality
56
David Brooks, The Neural Buddhists, The New York Times, 13 May, 2008.
See especially Hans Jonas, The Concept of God after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice, in Mortality
and Morality: A Search for Good after Auschwitz (ed. Lawrence Vogel; Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 1996) 13143.
57
296
raises the question of whether liberalism demands that all particular religions
must become just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human truths. As
all students of modern religion surely know, this remains the basic question of
all modern religious thought, Jewish or otherwise. Modern Jewish reections on
immortality and resurrection do not provide an answer to this question, but they
surely do provide yet another reason to continue thinking about it.
Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Old

Testament*
Paul E. Capetz
United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
In the nineteenth century the unrestricted application of the historical-critical method

posed an unprecedented challenge to inherited Christian notions about the Bible.
While this challenge was eventually to be felt most acutely in the study of the New
Testament (NT) once the distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ
of faith had rmly established itself, traditional viewpoints on the Old Testament
(OT) were actually the rst to be called into question. As a consequence of historical
investigation, it became increasingly difcult for theologians to claim that the
gospel is already taught in the OT. Regarding this matter, Friedrich Schleiermacher
(17681834) made a bold proposal. He argued against the canonical standing of
the OT on the grounds that it expresses Jewish, not Christian, religion. For him this
conclusion was the unavoidable result of the advancing critical scholarship that was
undermining the christological exegesis used to defend the churchs claim to the OT
against the synagogues counter-claim to its sole rightful possession. Opposing such
christianizing readings, Schleiermacher broke ranks from Christian theologians
and championed the side of the Jews in this historic debate. His only predecessors
in this regard were Marcion and the Socinians, although his proposal for relegating
the OT to noncanonical status was later endorsed by Adolf von Harnack.
Surprisingly, there has been very little scholarship devoted to Schleiermachers
stance toward the OT.1 In a recent monograph, Klaus Beckmann notes this deciency
and seeks to reignite theological discussion on the Christian relation to the OT in
*
I wish to express my gratitude to Douglas Ottati, Ted Vial, Richard Crouter, Dawn DeVries,
and Vicky Gaylord for their helpful criticisms of earlier drafts of this essay.
1
Hans-Joachim Kraus insists: For the basic understanding of the Old Testament in the nineteenth
century, Schleiermachers statements were of no small importance (Kraus, Die Geschichte der
historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart
[2d ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969] 170).
HTR 102:3 (2009) 297326
298
light of historical research by exploring in detail Schleiermachers argument.2 Since

Beckmann believes that Schleiermachers position is inadequate, he investigates ve
other German Protestant theologians from the nineteenth century who also sought to
come to grips with historical study of the OT to ascertain whether their conclusions
are more adequate. While I agree that Schleiermachers view is inadequate, I disagree
with the reasons Beckmann gives for this judgment. Beckmann is convinced that the
problems with Schleiermachers position can be traced to his abandonment of the
supposedly biblical model of Heilsgeschichte (prophecy and fulllment) that was
revived by the real hero of Beckmanns tale, J. C. K. von Hofmann. While Hofmann
acknowledged the relative right of historical methods to display the meaning of the
OT on its own terms, he insisted that in the nal analysis the OT must be interpreted
through the lens of the NTs kerygma. As Beckmann indicates, Hofmanns position
anticipates that of Karl Barth, who proposed to rescue the OT from a purely historical exegesis by reasserting a distinctly theological hermeneutic that regards
the OT as a witness to Jesus Christ.3 Clearly, Beckmann is engaged in an external
criticism: the only way to avoid Schleiermachers conclusion is to work from a
different set of premises. But the odd thing about Beckmanns recommendation
of Hofmanns (and Barths) proposal is that it is an instance of precisely the sort
of christianizing interpretation Schleiermacher opposed. Beckmann has thus not
addressed Schleiermachers argument but simply bypassed it.
Beckmann does not consider the possibility that Schleiermachers argument
might be subject to criticism and, hence, modication along the very methodological
lines that Schleiermacher recognized as in keeping with his commitment to a
thoroughgoing historical-critical exegesis of the Bible and its revisionary implications
for theology. In this respect Beckmann is typical of many theologians who grant a
limited role to historical methods while invoking theological categories derived from
the NT so as to make the OT serviceable for the purposes of Christian faith. But the
enduring question Schleiermachers argument poses is whether there are compelling
reasons to retain the OT in the churchs Bible without resorting to christological
readings that deprive Judaism of its claim to it. Two important values are at stake
here: the OT as a part of the Christian canon, on the one hand, and the intellectual
integrity of OT exegesis and Christian theology, on the other. Unless his challenge
can be met directly, the Christian claim to the OT cannot be justied theologically
apart from a christological exegesis imposed on it from without.
2
Klaus Beckmann, Die fremde Wurzel. Altes Testament und Judentum in der evangelischen
Theologie des 19. Jahrhunderts (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002) 31, 33.
3
Karl Barth exclaimed: A religio-historical understanding of the Old Testament in abstraction
from the revelation of the risen Christ is simply an abandonment of the New Testament and of the
sphere of the church in favor of that of the synagogue, and therefore in favor of an Old Testament
. . . understood apart from its true object and content (Barth, The Doctrine of the Word of God
[vol. 1.2 of Church Dogmatics; trans. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight; Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1956] 489).
PAUL E. CAPETZ
299
As an exercise in historical theology this essay undertakes three distinct yet

interrelated tasks: rst, to analyze Schleiermachers proposal in its own historical
context; second, to offer a criticism of it drawing upon contemporary biblical
scholarship; third, to propose an alternative theological construal of Christian faith
and of the OTs importance for it. In contrast to Beckmann, however, my argument
with Schleiermacher is an internal criticism that does not adopt a standpoint extrinsic
to his point of departure. Precisely because his theological method requires any
interpretation of Christian faith to be subject to a process of continuous checking
against the whole history of Christianity, as presented by contemporary historical
research,4 his own position on the OT is subject to critique insofar as it assumes a
view of Judaism and of early Christianitys relation to it no longer substantiated by
historical research. Since, moreover, some of his material doctrinal conclusions are
not required by his dogmatic method, other conclusions can be defended as more
appropriate without abandoning his model of theology for another.
Schleiermachers Argument about the Old Testament

Endorsing Semlers call for a free investigation of the canon unfettered by
doctrinal constraints, Schleiermacher rejected the notion that the sacred books
require a hermeneutical and critical treatment departing from the generally valid
rules of interpretation.5 For him, this freedom was an inviolable bequest from
the Reformers whose aim was to let the Bible speak for itself apart from the yoke
of ecclesiastical tradition. It is thoroughly Protestant, he contended, to allow
everyone the free application of the exegetical art as based on philology.6 He
realized that this would occasion revision, and in some cases rejection, of certain
cherished Protestant beliefs about the biblical canon, though he predicted that
historical scholarship would prove to be more problematic for the OT than for the
NT.7 Although the documentary hypothesis had yet to receive its classic formulation
from Wellhausen, there was already by Schleiermachers time a well-established
tradition of doubting Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Furthermore, critical
scholarship was questioning the view that the prophets had predicted the coming of
4
Stephen Sykes, The Identity of Christianity: Theologians and the Essence of Christianity from
Schleiermacher to Barth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 99.
5
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundstzen der evangelischen
Kirche im Zusammenhang dargestellt (ed. Martin Redeker; critical ed. based on the 2d German
ed.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1960) 130.2 (henceforth abbreviated as Gl. and cited by section and
paragraph); ET, The Christian Faith (ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart; English translation of
the 2d German ed. of 183031; Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976). Translations
of Schleiermachers texts are mine unless otherwise indicated.
6
Gl. 27.3.
7
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Schleiermachers Sendschreiben ber seine Glaubenslehre an Lcke
(ed. Hermann Mulert; Giessen: Tpelmann, 1908) 4143; ET, On the Glaubenslehre: Two Letters
to Dr. Lcke (trans. James Duke and Francis Fiorenza; American Academy of Religion Texts and
Translations Series; Chico, Ca.: Scholars Press, 1981) 6567 (henceforth, page references to the
English translation will be placed in parentheses).
300
Christ and was beginning to look upon the prophetic oracles as messages addressed
to the particular historical circumstances of their own times.8
Schleiermacher was convinced that the Christian effort to prove Jesus messianic
status on the basis of OT prophecy was a mistake and that the NTs appeal to it was
strictly an intra-Jewish affair of the rst century. He conceded that while a Jew of
that time might well have become persuaded that the prophecies referred to Jesus,
such an opinion necessarily presupposed faith in the inspiration of the Jewish
scriptures that a Gentile convert could not have been expected to possess. Indeed,
such proof had not really been decisive even for Jewish believers whose conversion
was brought about by the powerful impression the personality of Jesus made upon
them, not by arguments about prophecy. Hence, far from being troubled by the
negative results of historical scholarship, Schleiermacher sought to put them to
good theological use. The lesson to be learned is that faith in Jesus can stand on
its own apart from appeals to the OT.9
Schleiermacher believed the time had come for the church to acknowledge that
the OT is a superuous authority for dogmatics. He justied this departure from
Christian tradition by arguing that a doctrine taught only in the OT but not in the
NT could hardly be said to possess a genuinely Christian character; by contrast, a
doctrine taught only in the NT would not be questionable because nothing about
it was to be found in the OT.10 While there are few doctrines which at one time or
another have not been justied by appealing to the OT, he was of the opinion that
such appeals had done damage to the intellectual integrity of exegesis by foisting an
alien meaning upon the text.11 Moreover, they had unnecessarily muddied the later
development of Christian doctrine: we have to thank the dogmatic attachment to
the Old Testament for much that is bad in our theology; and if Marcion had been
correctly understood and not denounced as a heretic, our doctrine of God would
have remained much purer.12 Hence, both subdisciplines of theology, exegesis
and dogmatics, have a stake in the question of the OT.13
Yet Schleiermacher did not actually call for the excision of the OT from the Bible.
He recognized that the OT is the indispensable source for understanding the history
of the Jewish people from which Jesus and his rst disciples descended. For that
reason alone, a thorough acquaintance with the OT is essential for grasping the many
literary references and linguistic idioms of the NT writings, and Schleiermacher fully
8
Gl. 14, postscript.

Sendschreiben, 42 (On the Glaubenslehre, 66).
10
Gl. 27.3.
11
Gl. 132.2.
12
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Aus Schleiermachers Leben in Briefen (ed. Ludwig Jonas and
Wilhelm Dilthey; 4 vols.; Berlin: Reimer, 18601863) 4:394.
13
In Schleiermachers model of theology, biblical exegesis is the rst part of historical theology.
See Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums zum Behuf einleitender Vorlesungen (ed. Heinrich
Scholz; critical ed.; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961) 85; ET, Brief Outline on the Study of Theology
(trans. Terrence N. Tice; Atlanta: John Knox, 1977).
9
PAUL E. CAPETZ
301
expected ministerial candidates to know Hebrew and Aramaic as well as Greek.14

His point, rather, is theological. He distinguished the historical fact of Christianitys
origin in the Jewish milieu from the normative question of appealing to the OT in
support of Christian doctrine. Since only the NT writings were produced under
the inuence of Jesus ministry, they are the rst in the series of presentations of
Christian faith which alone can serve as the norm for all subsequent presentations
of it.15 Hence, however important its historical value for understanding the context
of the NT, the OT should not be taken as canonical: To include the Jewish codex
within the canon means to view Christianity as a continuation of Judaism and is at
odds with the idea of the canon.16
For Schleiermacher, early Christianity was a completely new religion and stood in
the same relation, religiously speaking, to Judaism as to paganism, notwithstanding
its historical ties to the former.17 Whereas conversion to Christianity required that
Gentiles abandon their idolatrous worship, it required that Jews relinquish the
Mosaic legislation. Accordingly, the step from Judaism to Christianity was as
much a transition to another religion as the step from paganism to Christianity.
Schleiermacher anticipated the objection that there was a far greater leap from the
side of paganism, insofar as it rst had to become monotheistic in order to become
Christian.18 He countered this objection by pointing out that the Gentiles had long
been inclined toward monotheism through the inuence of their own philosophers
who for centuries had criticized Greco-Roman polytheism. Furthermore, Judaism at
this time was no longer based exclusively on Moses and the prophets as a result of
the many foreign inuences it had incorporated since the Babylonian exile.19 Seen
in this light, the sharp dichotomy between Judaism and Hellenism breaks down
and it is evident that the church was a new formation in the religious sphere: if
Christianity is related in the same way to Judaism as to paganism, then it can no
more be a continuation of Judaism than a continuation of paganism.20
In opposition to the rationalism of the Enlightenment with its natural religion,
Schleiermacher set out to rehabilitate positive (i.e., historically given) religion,
each instance of which is a unique entity with its own distinct identity or essence.
In order to identify the essence of any positive religion, it is necessary to specify
four features: 1) its stage of religious development, 2) the type of religion it represents, 3) its central idea, and 4) its originating event. 21 Each positive religion has
14
Kurze Darstellung, 141.

Gl. 132; see also Gl. 129.
16
Kurze Darstellung, 47, n. 2 (Brief Outline, 53, n. 2).
17
Gl. 12.
18
Gl. 12.2.
19
Gl. 12.1.
20
Gl. 12.2.
21
According to Schleiermacher, the denition of a religions essence is designated a critical
inquiry because the constant element in a historical phenomenon cannot be ascertained in a merely
empirical manner. He called this task philosophical theology (Kurze Darstellung, 32; see also
15
302
an outward unity, reecting a denite origin in history, and an inward unity,

which is a peculiar modication of the elements it shares with other faiths at the
same stage and of the same type. Christianitys essence can thus be formulated
as follows:
Christianity is a monotheistic mode of faith, belonging to the teleological
type of piety, and essentially distinguishes itself from other such modes of
faith in that everything in it is related to the redemption accomplished by
Jesus of Nazareth.22
Once the essence is ascertained, the relations of Christianity to other religions

can be set forth with precision. Unlike premodern theologians Schleiermacher
did not assume that monotheism was the earliest form of religion, although he
did consider it to stand at the apex of human religious development. Judaism, too,
is monotheistic and belongs to the teleological (or moral) type. Greco-Roman
polytheism, however, not only reects a lower stage of development but also belongs
to the aesthetic type wherein the sense of moral obligation is not constitutive
of the religious consciousness. Still, the contrast between Judaism and paganism
with respect to stage and type of religion did not lead Schleiermacher to conclude
that Christianity is related to Judaism in more than a merely external historical
manner. He detected in Judaism an afnity with a less developed stage of religion
(fetishism) since its monotheism is corrupted by nationalism, whereas Christian
monotheism is free of this defect.23 And while the teleological character of Judaism
is expressed in the form of obedience to law, in Christianity it assumes the form
of exhortations indicating how moral action springs forth from the consciousness
of redemption. So even in those respects which the two religions share, there are
profound differences between them.24 Since everything in Christianity is related
to the redemptive efcacy of Jesus, Christian piety, as it emerged right from the
start, is not to be understood by means of the Jewish piety of that or of an earlier
Gl. 21). Ernst Troeltsch correctly understood that the attempt to dene the essence was a response
to the dissolution of dogmas authority in the light of historical consciousness (Troeltsch,What
Does Essence of Christianity Mean?, in Ernst Troeltsch: Writings on Theology and Religion
[ed. Robert Morgan and Michael Pye; Atlanta: John Knox, 1977] 158, 177). Sykes comments:
Schleiermacher stumbles on a theological tool, namely that of the critical denition of the essence
of Christianity, which meets the future exigencies of the impact of the biblical-critical movement
on doctrinal theology (The Identity of Christianity, 99).
22
Gl. 11.
23
Schleiermacher wrote, Christianity is the purest formation of monotheism to have emerged
in history (Gl. 8.4). See Erhard Lucas, Die Zuordnung von Judentum und Christentum
von Schleiermacher bis Lagarde, EvTh 23 (1963) 590607, esp. 59093; also Ernst Katzer,
Schleiermacher und die alttestamentlich-jdische Religion, Neues Schsisches Kirchenblatt 26
(1919) 72128, 73744.
24
Schleiermacher characterized the two chief concepts of the Jewish religion as the divine
election of the nation and divine retribution (Gl. 103.3).
PAUL E. CAPETZ
303
time: thus in no way can Christianity be viewed as a reshaping or a renewal of

Judaism.25
Since the OT reects Jewish religion, confusion as to the essential nature
of Christianity necessarily arises from the traditional practice of placing both
testaments on equal footing as two parts of one canon of scripture. The OT cannot
be for Christians what it is for Jews, namely, an indivisible whole.26 The OT contains
elements that are foreign to the church so that whatever is most denitely Jewish
has least value for Christians and even those passages in it that appear compatible
with Christian piety are only of a more general nature and not distinctively
Christian.27 Aside from the fact that the OT can be claimed as a Christian book
only when exegetical violence is done to the plain historical meaning of its literalgrammatical sense, placing the OT on the same level as the NT diminishes the central
signicance of Jesus in an Ebionite (Jewish-Christian) manner. Moreover, those
Christians who are especially fond of the OT evince a legalistic mentality not in
keeping with the Christian conception of the moral life.28
Although his assessment of the OT is negative in its import for the church,
it is necessary to recognize its double-sided character. The clear implication of
Schleiermachers argument is that Christians should acknowledge the integrity of
Judaism as a distinct religion which is to be understood on its own terms quite apart
from any relation to Christianity. As Joseph Pickle points out, Schleiermachers
appreciative assessment of Judaism recognizes the uniqueness of Judaism and
rejects attempts to treat it or the Old Testament as a preparatio evangelii.29 Hence,
Schleiermacher conceded that the OT really belongs to the synagogue, and not to
the church, after all. The most important theologian of the nineteenth century thus
25
Gl. 12.2.
The force of this observation is qualied when Schleiermacher insists upon the need for a
critical investigation into the NT canon: The Protestant Church necessarily claims to be continually
occupied in determining the New Testament canon more exactly. The New Testament canon has
obtained its present form through the decision of the Church, though [t]his is not a decision to
which we attribute an authority exalted above all inquiry. It must be permissible, then . . . to have
the canon in two forms: that which has been handed down historically and that which has been
separated out critically (Brief Outline, 110, 114).
26
27
Gl. 12.3. Schleiermacher sometimes preached on OT texts. For analysis of these sermons, see
Joachim Hoppe, Altes Testament und alttestamentliche Predigt bei Schleiermacher, Monatschrift
fr Pastoraltheologie 54 (1965) 21320, and Wolfgang Trillhaas, Schleiermachers Predigten ber
alttestamentliche Texte, in Schleiermacher und die wissenschaftliche Kultur des Christentums
(ed. Gnther Meckenstock; Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1991) 27989.
28
Gl. 132.2. Schleiermacher said that law is not originally a Christian term (Gl. 66.2). In
his understanding of Christian ethics the imperative mood is replaced by a descriptive account of
how Christians act in accordance with their religious consciousness. Though his statement implies
that Judaism is legalistic, the primary target of his criticism is the extremely conservative use
of the OT by some Christians such as his Berlin colleague Hengstenberg who appealed to the OT
to defend the institution of monarchy and to oppose the modern liberal state. See Beckmann, Die
fremde Wurzel, 23970.
29
Joseph W. Pickle, Schleiermacher on Judaism, JR 60 (1980) 115.
304
departed from the classical Christian tradition by upholding the Jewish character
of the OT. But precisely because the OT is Jewish, it cannot also be Christian.
Critique of Schleiermachers Portrayal of Judaism and Early

Christianity
Schleiermachers methodological insistence upon the distinctiveness of each positive religion cleared the way for the possibility of an impartial historical treatment
of Judaism in its own right. Nevertheless, his interpretation of Judaism betrays
certain prejudices that reect his own Christian starting point. Consequently, his
reconstruction of the history of religion invites criticism to the extent that it fails to
meet the requirements of a genuinely historical interpretation. Since his proposal
regarding the OT is so closely tied to his view of the churchs relation to Judaism,
of chief concern here is his argument that Christianity is not to be understood as a
continuation or development of Judaism.
The characterization of the OT as Jewish is subject to some important
qualications not made by Schleiermacher himself. He apparently assumed that
Judaism was the religion of Israel even before the exile.30 Yet modern study has
shown that Judaism rst began to take shape during the exilic crisis of Israels
earlier national religion and so is not identical with pre-exilic religion. This insight
has ramications for Schleiermachers critique of Jewish monotheism as bearing
an afnity with a lesser form of religion (fetishism) on account of its ties to
a particular nation. By comparison with Judaism, pre-exilic Israelite religion
was not a thoroughgoing monotheism but, rather, a henotheism since Israels
national deity was not yet conceived consistently in radical terms as the creator
and sovereign of the entire world. Accordingly, a genuine monotheism developed
in consort with the emergence of Judaism, not in spite of it! While vestiges of the
pre-monotheistic Israelite religion are embedded in older strata of the OT, these
traditions were subject to reinterpretation from the monotheistic perspective of the
Jewish redactors of the OT. Hence, Schleiermachers criticism of Jewish monotheism
as less than pure results, in part, from his lack of adequate knowledge of the actual
historical relations between pre-exilic Israelite religion and post-exilic Jewish
religion, including the theological struggle of monotheism with henotheism that
is reected in the literature of the OT. But this is not the entire explanation for his
view. Curiously, Schleiermachers critique of Judaism as particularistic shows the
unwitting inuence upon him of the Enlightenments preference for a universal
rational religion. The irony here is that he thereby betrayed his own groundbreaking
recognition of the irreducibly particular nature of actual religion which he articulated
30
It appears as though Schleiermacher viewed Moses as the founder of Judaism: By Judaism

is understood primarily the Mosaic institutions, but also, as preparation for these, every earlier usage
which abetted the segregation of the people (Gl. 12.12). He also characterized the religion of
the pre-Mosaic period as Abrahamitic Judaism, which is obviously anachronistic.
PAUL E. CAPETZ
305
in his polemic against natural religion as an articial intellectual construct.31

Judaism is constituted by the twin poles of universality (reecting its monotheism)
and particularity (rooted in its special vocation to bring all peoples to monotheism).
But particularity is not the same as particularism, just as universality is not
identical with universalism. Christianity is just as particular as and no less prone
to particularism than Judaism.32
Schleiermachers portrait does not, moreover, sufciently differentiate the
post-exilic Judaism that put its indelible stamp upon the nal form of the OT from
the Judaism of the rabbis after the destruction of the second temple. Judaism, as
classically dened, is a post-Christian development that cannot be simply identied
with the Jewish religion evident in the later formative period of the OT. Prior to
the rabbinic period, there was no such thing as a monolithic or orthodox Judaism
commanding the allegiance of all Jews. In fact, there were varieties of Judaism,
each of which claimed to embody the authentic continuation of Israels religious
heritage. The crucial point is that the Bible (Tanakh/OT) does not belong to rabbinic
Judaism in any simple sense. Indeed, the results of historical criticism have been
no less troubling for traditional Jewish beliefs about the Bible.33 While the OT is
certainly Jewish, it is not to be equated with classical Judaism as though the latter
were the inevitable outcome of the former.34
31
Pickle points out that the emancipated Jews whom Schleiermacher knew held to these same
views of Judaism on account of their commitment to the Enlightenments ideal of a purely rational
religion: The uncompromising critic of natural religion sees, and tries to appreciate, Judaism
in the guise formulated by passionate devotees of natural religion (Pickle, Schleiermacher on
Judaism, 137). Pickle concludes that Schleiermachers view of Judaism was not really negative
so much as it was ambivalent.
32
Schleiermachers comparison of Jewish and Christian monotheisms results from an unfair
juxtaposition of an actual Judaism and an idealized Christianity. Christianity has been particularistic
(as distinct from historically particular) in its own way on account of the belief that outside of
the church there is no salvation. Finally, doubt must surely be cast on Schleiermachers claim
that monotheism has found its purest expression in Christianity when it is recalled that Jews and
Muslims alike have traditionally looked upon trinitarianism as a relapse into polytheism. That he
was sensitive to this criticism is evident from his plea for reconsideration of the Sabellian way of
interpreting the trinitarian doctrine. See Gl. 17072.
33
Tikva Frymer-Kensky writes: The Bible is the source of halakic [legal] authority, but it does
not function on its own and is not an independent source of authority in traditional Judaism. . . .
[T]he Christian church was explicitly supersessionist. It showed honor to and interest in the Hebrew
Bible and claimed it as its own heritage, but it considered the New Testament as its foundational
Scripture. . . . Judaism was almost equally supersessionist, but it did not make its supersessionism
apparent. It behaved ritually as if the Torah was the central facet of Judaism, but it dictated the way
that the Torah should be read (Frymer-Kensky, The Emergence of Jewish Biblical Theologies,
in Jews, Christians, and the Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures [ed. Alice Ogden Bellis and Joel
S. Kaminsky; Atlanta: SBL, 2000] 111).
34
Matthias Wolfes makes this pointed observation: The equation of the Old Testament and
Jewish religion carried out by Schleiermacher has, however, a fatal consequence for the theological
evaluation of Judaism. For it denies to Judaism a capacity for renewal and development beyond the
historical religious development attested in the biblical writings (Matthias Wolfes, ffentlichkeit
306
Since the religion we now call Christianity began its existence as one variety
of Judaism, it is anachronistic to describe it as a new religion in its original phase,
as Schleiermacher did; indeed, it is difcult to identify at what stage in its history
we can speak of it as a different religion from Judaism. Yet if this is the case, must
we not grant that the NT, too, is in a real sense a document of Jewish religion? In
his critique of Schleiermacher, Barth correctly understood that, humanly speaking,
the entire Bible is
a product of the Israelitish, or to put it more clearly, the Jewish spirit. This is
true. . .of the whole Bible, even of the whole of the New Testament Bible. . . .
If we want it otherwise, we will have to strike out not only the Old but all the
New Testament as well. . . . The Bible is a Jewish book, the Jewish book.35
Although the NT is full of polemics against non-Christian Jews as well as against

other Christians (Jewish and non-Jewish), it breathes throughout the spirit of
Jewish piety.36
The historical picture is further complicated by the insight that all of these
varieties of Judaism, including Christianity, were profoundly inuenced by
Hellenism. Wayne Meeks argues that Judaism was in some senses a Hellenistic
religion. . . . Like the other varieties of Judaism, the earliest Christian groups
were simultaneously Jewish and Hellenistic.37 Yet Schleiermacher did not view
Christianity as either Jewish or Hellenistic, and certainly not as simultaneously
Jewish and Hellenistic, since for him it was a completely new formation equidistant
from both Judaism and Hellenism. Although he perceived the inuence on Judaism
of what would later be called syncretism, his mode of conceiving each religion as
a distinct entity implies a view of the religions as having only external or accidental
relations to one another. Even if we should wish to allow for a more dynamic
model of their mutual relations, Schleiermachers thesis that Christianity stood in
the same relation of religious discontinuity to Judaism as to paganism is hardly
persuasive. It is not clear, moreover, what we are to make of this rather surprising
assessment given his classication of paganism as a polytheistic religion of the
aesthetic (i.e., non-moral) type. On his own terms, this means that paganism not
only represented a lower stage of religious development than Judaism but also
und Brgergesellschaft. Friedrich Schleiermachers politische Wirksamkeit [New York and Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2004] 2:374).
35
Barth, Church Dogmatics, 1.2, 510. See also Julie Galambush, The Reluctant Parting: How the
New Testaments Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005).
36
Since incipient Christianity was not homogenous, Wayne A. Meeks insists that we formulate
better questions: The questions that have to be asked are more particular: Which parts of the
Jewish tradition were being assumed and reinterpreted by this or that group of early Christians?
Which institutions were continued, which discarded? (Meeks, Judaism, Hellenism, and the Birth
of Christianity, in Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide [ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen;
Louisville: John Knox, 2001] 26).
37
Meeks, Judaism, Hellenism, and the Birth of Christianity, 2426.
PAUL E. CAPETZ
307
differed in kind from it. Indeed, he invoked Greco-Roman paganism as his chief
illustration of an aesthetic religion:
What [in the history of religion] is most apparent to us, as being sharply
opposed in this respect to Christianity, is not coordinate with it, but belongs
to a lower level, namely, Greek polytheism. In this religion the teleological
direction retreats completely; neither in their religious symbols nor in their
mysteries is there any discernable trace of the idea of a totality of moral ends
and of a relation of all human situations to this. . . . Christianity, even apart
from the fact that it occupies a higher level, is in the sharpest way opposed
to this type.38
It is pertinent to recall Schleiermachers view that the inward unity of any positive
religion is to be understood as a peculiar modication of that which is shared
with religions of the same type and at the same stage of development.39 Yet what
else can this mean other than that early Christianity was a peculiar modication
of Jewish religion?40 In his lectures on hermeneutics where he attempted to sort
out the differing relations of dependence upon Hebrew and Greek evident in the
NT, Schleiermacher concluded:
It is undeniable that the inuence of Hebrew in the really religious terms is
particularly great. For in what was originally Hellenicparticularly to the
extent that it was known to the N.T. writersthe religious aspect which was
to be newly developed (not only) found no point of contact, but even what
was similar was rejected via its connection to polytheism.41
Here there appears to be an inconsistency in Schleiermachers argument. From

the perspective of hindsight, we know that what began as a Jewish sect developed
into a distinct religious community whose self-denition had to be hammered out
in polemics against rabbinic Judaism as well as against paganism. But from this
fact of history it does not follow that the material substance of Christian religion
is as discontinuous with Judaism as with the Hellenistic religions from which the
church drew the majority of its converts. Schleiermacher was right to point out
the philosophical developments on Greek soil that had prepared for the reception
by non-Jews of a monotheistic and ethical religion. Yet his comparison of pagan
converts to Jewish converts is misleading since the latter did not understand
themselves as rejecting the legacy of Israel for a new religion but, rather, as
embracing its fulllment. This was clearly true of the apostle Paul.42
38
Gl. 9.2, emphasis added.

Ibid.
40
For an early critique of Schleiermachers thought along these lines, see J. C. F. Steudel, ber
Schleiermachers und Marheinekes Ansicht ber das Alte Testament, in idem, Vorlesungen ber die
Theologie des Alten Testaments (ed. G. F. Oehler; Berlin: Reimer, 1840) 54042. Studel represented
the supernaturalist orthodox theology.
41
Hermeneutics and Criticism and Other Essays (ed. Andrew Bowie; Cambridge Texts in the
History of Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 42.
42
Krister Stendahl cautions against speaking of conversion with respect to the apostle Paul
39
308
The conclusion is unavoidable that the historical foundation of Schleiermachers

argument about the OT is inadequate inasmuch as it presupposes an undifferentiated
view of pre-rabbinic Judaism as well as an interpretation of early Christianity as
only accidentally related to the religious heritage of Judaism. For this reason,
Pickle has rendered the following ironic verdict: The advocate of historicalcritical understanding accepts a view of Judaism that is utterly ahistorical.43
While Schleiermacher cannot be held responsible for not having had the benet
of recent biblical scholarship at his disposal, it is nonetheless the case that his
commitment to the historical-critical method invites these criticisms of his own
historical reconstruction. In this connection, we are brought back to the idea that
Christianity, like every other positive religion, has a distinguishing essence that
identies it as a unique entity in the religious realm. This idea was much debated
in the nineteenth century. In the wake of the widespread acknowledgment of the
demise of the orthodox doctrine of scripture, it answered the need for a conceptual
tool to bridge the empirical study of history and the normative task of theology.
On the other hand, the notion of a distinguishing essence presented its own
problems. The ambiguity inherent in this notion is whether the essence of a religion
is an abstraction from history intended merely to characterize a set of related
phenomena or whether it is also meant to serve a critical purpose in relation to
them.44 In practice, it appears to do double duty in this regard, although this is not
objectionable provided that the proper conceptual distinctions are made between
these two functions.45
Schleiermacher reasoned that the essence of Christianity can be determined in
a scholarly manner only by comparing Christianity to the other positive religions.
In this he was surely correct. Two questions must be asked, however. The rst
is whether such a concept is not too static to do justice to the dynamic character
of a movement in history. Given that religious traditions undergo real change
since it implies that he joined another religion. Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 723.
43
Pickle, Schleiermacher on Judaism, 137. Pickle goes on to say: One can only wish that
Schleiermachers theological dispositions had been matched with an equally comprehensive awareness
of Jewish piety, tradition, and insight. . . . Since theology is never a closed book, however, it falls
to his admirers to improvein his own spiritupon his view of Judaism.
44
The ambiguity involved in the idea of an essence is that it is not merely descriptive in intent
but prescriptive as well. Its purpose, according to Troeltsch, is not only to indicate what distinguishes
Christianity from other religions but also to make possible an evaluation of what is essential [within
Christianity], on the basis of which the inessential can be ignored and that which is contrary to the
essence can be condemned (Troeltsch, What Does Essence of Christianity Mean? 144). The
central problem in its deployment, as Troeltsch indicated, lies in this unavoidable transition from
an abstracted concept to an ideal concept (158). Troeltsch thus called for a more careful distinction
between the properly historical and the philosophically historical, normative element.
45
A helpful analogy may be found in thinking about the reasons why the United States was
founded, such as democracy, freedom of religion, human rights, etc. This descriptive-historical
judgment obviously entails normative implications for judging America as a nation in relation to
these ideals.
PAUL E. CAPETZ
309
and development over time, does not the assumption of an essence hamper our
appreciation of their dynamic character? This objection is valid whenever an abstract
conception of a phenomenon is mistaken for the concrete phenomenon itself. But
this confusion is not inevitable. Indeed, we cannot even speak of movements in
history (say, the Renaissance or the Reformation) apart from the application of
abstract concepts to the interpretation of the historians empirical data. And all
historians who are more than mere chroniclers necessarily hazard some general
characterizations of broad movements in history and culture. This commonplace
has to be stressed in response to those scholars who reject the very notion of an
essence on the grounds that such an idea is foreign to temporal phenomena. No
doubt, a large part of the problem stems from the connotations the word essence
has acquired in our postmodern intellectual situation where essentialisms of one
kind or another are rightly suspected of falsifying the complexity of reality. Yet it is
erroneous to think that Schleiermacher intended to reify an abstraction. Although it
may be desirable to come up with new terminology to designate such a conceptual
operation, this does not obviate the need to specify wherein the enduring identity
of a religious tradition consists if we wish to avoid a complete nominalism in
historical interpretation.46
This recognition of the legitimacy, even indispensability, of inquiring into the
essence leads to our second question, namely, whether the quest to dene what
makes Christianity distinctive must depend upon a comparison with the other
religions that implies their inferiority. As I see it, there is no reason, for instance,
why the identity of Christianity has to be purchased at the cost of a sharp contrast or
opposition between it and Judaism given their inextricably close historical relations
and substantial material overlaps. While Schleiermachers concept of an essence
can be defended in principle, his use of it in fact is vulnerable to this criticism.47
Hence, an updated attempt to implement this task must renounce any apologetic
motive when attempting to dene the essence of Christianity in relation to Judaism.
But in itself there is nothing wrong with his formal denition of Christianitys
essence: like Judaism, it is an ethical monotheism; but unlike Judaism, its central
gure is Jesus and its central idea is redemption from sin.48
46
The German word Wesen can be translated either as essence or nature. For my own
constructive purposes in the next section, I employ the term nature to distinguish the material content
of Schleiermachers understanding of Christian faith from his formal statement of its essence.
47
John B. Cobb, Jr. criticizes the tradition of Schleiermacher: [T]he question of the distinctive
essence of Christianity was subordinated to that of its superiority to other religions in such a way
that the former question was inadequately treated (Cobb, The Structure of Christian Existence
[New York: Seabury, 1967] 14).
48
For an example of this sort of inquiry on the part of a liberal Jewish thinker, see Leo Baeck, The
Essence of Judaism (trans. Victor Grubenwieser and Leonard Pearl; New York: Schocken, 1976).
310
The Jewish Jesus and the Nature of Christian Faith

Schleiermacher posed the question: Was Christianity something new or not? In
light of the foregoing discussion, the question should not be formulated so starkly
as new or not, since on historical grounds alone we have to say that Christianity
was relatively new even if not absolutely so. Yet Schleiermacher disagreed. To his
mind, Christianity represents an absolutely new beginning in the religious realm
which cannot be explained by what preceded it historically. Here, however, we are
dealing with more than a strictly historical judgment on his part since a particular
theological construal of Christian faith co-determines his argument. He said as much
in his lectures on hermeneutics: The question cannot be decided in an immediately
hermeneutic manner and therefore shows itself as a matter of conviction.49 To be
sure, in the nal analysis how we think about Christianitys relation to Judaism
(and, hence, to the OT) is a theological question, the answer to which is indicative
of a theologians entire construal of the nature of Christian faith. While one cannot
move directly from history to theology in positivistic fashion, there is nonetheless
a critical interrelation between the two, especially for a theologian who afrms
without qualication the results of historical-critical study. Yet in moving from
the empirical questions of the historian of religion to the normative questions of
the theologian, a shift is being made from a standpoint external to Christianity
to one that is internal to it.50 Whereas the essence must be determined through
comparative study, theology (in the sense of dogmatics or systematic theology)
requires that the theologian stand within the church, sharing its distinctive religious
experience, and seeking to give as accurate a description of it as possible.51
Though Schleiermacher is most often remembered for his famous redenition
of religion as the feeling of absolute dependence, of greater importance perhaps
was his proposal of a historicized model of dogmatics (Glaubenslehre) designed
to transcend the dichotomy beyond supernaturalism and rationalism occasioned by
the Enlightenments challenge to the Reformation heritage. The components of this
model are the following: rst of all, faith is not an assent to doctrinal propositions,
but a matter of the heart or, to use his terminology, the religious affections. Indeed,
one may share Schleiermachers affective view of faith without endorsing his
theory of religion in every detail. Second, doctrines are understood as intellectual
attempts to explicate the understanding of human existence in the world before
God implicit in the Christian religious affections.52 Third, historical study teaches
49
Hermeneutics and Criticism, 43, 41.

Gl. 11.5, 28.2.
51
Faith in Christ, according to Schleiermacher, is a purely factual certainty, but a certainty
of a fact which is entirely inward (Gl. 14.1). Elsewhere he states: This exposition is based
entirely on the inner experience of the believer; its only purpose is to describe and elucidate that
experience (Gl. 100.3).
52
Schleiermacher exposited each doctrine in a threefold manner as a statement about the self,
the world, and God (Gl. 30).
50
PAUL E. CAPETZ
311
that the churchs doctrines have changed over the course of time. Fourth, the task
of dogmatics is to discern the logical or systematic connection between the various
doctrinal loci as representing in their totality the historically particular experience
of redemption through Christ that constitutes the church as a distinctive religious
community.53 Fifth, since dogmatics concerns the state of Christian doctrine in
the present moment, it must be open to further doctrinal revision for the sake of
the best contemporary understanding of the Christian religious affections wherein
faith consists. Formal agreement with Schleiermachers model and method of
dogmatics does not, however, entail endorsing all of his material conclusions.
This distinction between the formal and material elements in Schleiermachers
dogmatics is crucial if there is to be an internal criticism of his positions that does
notas in the case of an external criticism such as Beckmannspresuppose a
completely different conception of the theological enterprise.54 In my judgment,
there are three interrelated doctrines to be interrogated for the sake of proposing a
revision of Schleiermachers construal of the nature of Christian faith. These are:
christology, soteriology, and the multiple meanings of revelation.
We cannot fail to notice what many scholars have labeled as Schleiermachers
christocentrism. Of course, all Christian theology is christocentric in some sense
inasmuch as the person of Jesus is the central revelation of God that constitutes
the church as a distinct religious community. But Schleiermachers theology is
christocentric in a much stronger sense on account of his conviction that redemption
from sin is mediated through Jesus alone. Schleiermacher afrmed that Jesus, by
virtue of his incomparable relation to God, quite simply is the new element that
cannot be explained by any historical antecedents. He conceived of Jesus as a person
whose consciousness of God was unbroken by sin; indeed, the religious ideal for
human existence became an actual fact in this one individual.55 Here we meet the
sole miracle in Schleiermachers theology.56 For him, denial of this claim would
spell the end of Christian faith.57 Still, he was certain that his view of Jesus was a
necessary inference about who he really must have been given his actual redemptive
inuence upon the present religious experience of Christian believers. In spite of
his assurance in this regard, however, there are grave problems with such an idea.
For one thing, it is exceedingly difcult to imagine what it would mean to say of
a real human being that he or she was entirely without sin.58 It is easy to suspect a
53
Dogmatic propositions arise only from logically ordered reection upon the immediate
utterances of the religious self-consciousness (Gl. 16, postscript).
54
Richard R. Niebuhr makes exactly the same point. See Richard Niebuhr, Schleiermacher on
Christ and Religion: A New Introduction (New York: Scribner, 1964) 1617.
55
Gl. 93. Schleiermacher added that this perfect God-consciousness was a veritable existence
of God in him (Gl. 94). He thereby wished to indicate his continuity with the Alexandrian
tradition.
56
Gl. 93.13.
57
Gl. 93.2.
58
Leander E. Keck adds that there is no need to presuppose sinless perfection (to speak with
312
docetic strain at work here, notwithstanding Schleiermachers explicit rejection

of this ancient heresy.59 Moreover, the admittedly imperfect consciousness of God
on the part of Christians does not require a perfect consciousness of God as its
sufcient source, but merely a more powerful and vivid one.60 Also, this conception
has negative implications for the question of Jesus relation to Judaism. In Susannah
Heschels analysis, Schleiermacher
lifted Jesus from the realm of the human to a superhuman, if not supernatural,
pedestal, by virtue of his extraordinary inner life. . . . As a result, Jesus life as
a Jew became fundamentally irrelevant to the crux of his exceptional role.61
Schleiermacher feared that if Jesus had not perfectly embodied the religious ideal,
then he was only a more or less original and revolutionary reformer of the Jewish
law.62
It is pertinent to recall Schleiermachers calm predication that historical-critical
scholarship would be more damaging for the traditional Christian assessment of the
OT than for that of the NT. Yet in no wise has the historical basis of Schleiermachers
theology been more badly shaken than by the subsequent course of research into
the gospels as sources for our knowledge of who Jesus was. Schleiermacher was
condent that Johns gospel provides us with a reliable report of Jesus teaching
from which we can form a picture of his inner life.63 Accordingly, the message
proclaimed by Jesus was about his own unique relation to God. This assumption
that the christological teaching of Johns gospel accurately depicts what Jesus
taught about himself in turn accounts for the antithetical relationship between
Jesus and Judaism in Schleiermachers interpretation.64 But this view founders on
Schleiermacher) in the event of Jesus (Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus: The Place of Jesus
in Preaching and Theology [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981] 217).
59
For Schleiermacher the two opposing christological heresies are the Ebionite (or Nazarean)
and the docetic; the former denies that Jesus is absolutely superior to all other persons by virtue of
his God-consciousness and the latter denies that there is an essential likeness between him and all
other persons (Gl. 22.2). Docetism originally referred to the denial that Jesus had a real body and
later to the denial that he had a rational human soul. Schleiermacher, of course, did not deny either
of these; but his assertion of Jesus absolutely perfect God-consciousness makes him categorically
unlike everyone else.
60
Schleiermacher acknowledged this point as a possible criticism of his doctrine but rejected
it (Gl. 93.1).
61
Susannah Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1988) 145.
62
Gl. 93.2.
63
Schleiermacher defended the historical veracity of Johns gospel in a note added to the third
edition of the Speeches in 1821. Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers
(trans. John Oman; New York: Harper and Row, 1958; repr., Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,
1994) 26263. In another place, Schleiermacher speculated on Johns relation to Jesus: In Johns
Gospel the interest is historical: was the author a contemporary witness? (Schleiermacher,
Hermeneutics and Criticism, 212).
64
Horst Dietrich Preuss writes: The opposition of Moses and Christ Schleiermacher takes
from the Gospel of John which is also in other respects for him the most highly prized [of the
PAUL E. CAPETZ
313
the later insight of critical study that the synoptic gospels, not John, contain the
most authentic reminiscences of Jesus teachings. In his survey of the nineteenth
centurys quest for the historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer concluded:
Schleiermacher is not in search of the historical Jesus, but of the Jesus Christ
of his own system of theology; that is to say, of the historic gure which
seems to him appropriate to the self-consciousness of the redeemer as he
presents it. . . . What is chiey fatal to a sound historical view is his one-sided
preference for the Fourth Gospel. It is, according to him, only in this Gospel
that the consciousness of Jesus is truly reected.65
If Schleiermacher had been constrained to base his view of Jesus preaching on

the evidence of the synoptic evangelists instead of relying on John, he would have
been forced to confront head-on what became the major problem of NT scholarship
in the nineteenth century: the relation between the Jesus of history and the Christ
of faith.
The only gure to the left of Schleiermacher analyzed in Beckmanns study is
David Friedrich Strauss.66 It was in the work of Strauss that this distinction became
crucial for the scholarly study of the NT. Strauss, too, faulted Schleiermacher
for teaching not an historical, but an ideal Christ.67 In sharp contrast to
Schleiermacher, Strauss clearly saw that in his religion Jesus was a Jew and that
the churchs christology as reected, for example, in Johns gospel attests to what
Christians later taught about Jesus after his death.68 Yet Strauss understood that even
in its christological faith the church was still primarily a Jewish phenomenon. The
NTs witness to Jesus as the messiah was born of a lively continuation of religious
motifs found in the OT.69 Hence, for Strauss, the OT and its interpretation in secondtemple Judaism were the formative inuences upon the presentation of Jesus in
gospels], and perhaps this even played a role in determining his attitude to the Jews (Preuss,
Vom Verlust des Alten Testaments und seinen Folgen dargestellt anhand der Theologie und Predigt
F. D. Schleiermachers, in Lebendiger Umgang mit Schrift und Bekenntnis [ed. Joachim Track;
Stuttgart: Calwer, 1980] 144).
65
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (trans. W. Montgomery; New York:
Macmillan, 1968) 62, 66.
66
Beckmann, Die fremde Wurzel, 197239.
67
David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (ed. with an introduction by
Peter C. Hodgson; trans. George Eliot; Lives of Jesus series; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972) 773.
68
69
Ibid. Beckmann is troubled by the application of myth to the exegesis of the Bible as well
as by the Hegelian interpretation of it given by Strauss, yet he correctly formulates the import of
this hermeneutic for Strauss: In his mythical criticism of the gospels Strauss expressed in radical
fashion the literary unity of the Old and New Testaments. In his view, the evangelical narratives arose
from the living Jewish tradition. Since the New Testament writers intended to prove the messianic
character of Jesus, the Jewish Bible was seen [by Strauss] as the decisive formative inuence upon
the evangelical texts. The Jewish-Old Testament myth about the messiah determined for Strauss
not only the how but already the that of the narratives about Jesus as the Christ (Ibid., 208). If
Beckmann had been willing to follow Strauss down this path, he could have claimed that Strauss,
not Hofmann, provided the best alternative to Schleiermachers position. One need not endorse
314
the gospels. Two consequences follow from this distinction between the historical
Jesus and the Christ of faith. First, Jesus did not teach the gospel that Christians
later taught about him, as Schleiermacher mistakenly assumed.70 Second, the actual
content of Jesus message can only be understood in relation to his Jewish context.
This means that Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian.71
These considerations would require Schleiermacher to rethink the historical
basis of his christological doctrine. More importantly, they would most certainly
entail revision of his historical reconstruction of Jesus teaching in the direction
of what he pejoratively called Ebionitism, i.e., a view that qualies the absolute
uniqueness of Jesus by stressing his continuity rather than discontinuity with
Judaism. Schleiermacher well understood what this would mean for his theological
position:
If Christ was so constrained by the limitations of what was given at the time of
his appearance, then even he and not least his entire work have to be capable
of explanation from what was historically given to him; hence, Christianity as
a whole could be understood to have emerged from Judaism at the particular
stage of its development that it had attained at that time, the stage at which a
person like Jesus could have come forth from its womb.72
This alternative view which was rejected by Schleiermacher is, however, completely
in keeping with the results of contemporary scholarship on Jesus. Hence, if we are
in earnest about the historical Jesus, as Schleiermacher was in principle, we have to
surrender unhistorical claims that insulate Jesus religiosity from his Jewish milieu.73
We may properly seek to delineate Jesus distinctiveness in relation to his milieu,
but this is not to deny that the religion he taught was a form of Judaism. Though
Schleiermacher insisted upon the Jewish character of the OT, he did not view the
OT as a document of equal religious value to the NT.74 This assessment reects his
conviction that Christianity is not only a different religion from Judaism but also
superior to it. He further assumed that this view was consonant with what Jesus
taught. This claim is now undermined by the insight that Jesus was wholly rooted
in the Jewish tradition.
Strauss clearly saw that it is no longer possible to assume an identity between the
churchs proclamation about Jesus and the proclamation of Jesus. But if the churchs
the Hegelianism of Strauss as a condition for recognizing the importance of myth as a category of
biblical interpretation.
70
Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (trans. Kendrick Grobel; 2 vols.; New
York: Scribner, 1951, 1955) 1:3.
71
Hans Dieter Betz, Wellhausens Dictum Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jew in Light of
Present Scholarship, StTh 45 (1991) 83110.
72
Gl. 93.2.
73
Schleiermacher was the rst to offer a course of lectures on the life of Jesus in 1819, thereby
helping to launch the nineteenth centurys quest for the historical Jesus. The Life of Jesus (ed. Jack
C. Verheyden; trans. S. MacLean Gilmour; Lives of Jesus series; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).
74
Beckmann, Die Fremde Wurzel, 133 n. 530.
PAUL E. CAPETZ
315
kerygma represents a development beyond what the historical Jesus taught, the
question arises as to how we are to understand the material relation between them.75
Although the christological faith of the church is not based directly on the teachings
of Jesus, it nonetheless rst arose in response to his distinctive embodiment of
Jewish faith.76 His central message concerned the coming of Gods sovereign reign
(the kingdom of God) and he called upon his fellow Jews to be prepared to receive
it. As such, his preaching was about God, not about himself.77 Without rejecting the
Torah in principle, he differentiated between greater and lesser commandments in
it. He continued aspects of the prophetic tradition in his concern for the poor and
the oppressed. He pointed to evidence of Gods providential care in the ordering
of nature as had Israels wisdom teachers before him. In all these respects, Jesus
teaching and ministry were rmly rooted in the OT/Jewish tradition. H. Richard
Niebuhr spoke of the faith that came to expression in Jesus words and deeds as a
paradigmatic illustration of Israels radical or thoroughgoing monotheism. The
historic signicance of early Christianity, as Niebuhr noted, is that it made this
faith available to non-Jews without requiring of them conversion to Judaism.78
This crucial step obviously required a critical sifting of the Jewish scriptures for
the purpose of discerning what was still valid for the new community under altered
circumstances. But this development did not negate the material connection between
Jesus faith in God and the faith of Israel to which he was heir. Rudolf Bultmann
emphasized that no matter how critical Jesus may have been in relation to the other
Jewish teachers of his day, the content of his preaching was
nothing else than true Old Testament-Jewish faith in God radicalized in the
direction of the great prophets preaching. . . . [T]he concepts of God, world,
and man, of Law and grace, of repentance and forgiveness in the teaching of
Jesus are not new in comparison with those of the Old Testament and Judaism, however radically they may be understood. And his critical interpretation
75
When I employ the phrase historical Jesus, I simply mean the earliest layers of the synoptic
tradition that have the greatest claim to reect the authentic words of Jesus, though these can never
be completely reconstructed with absolute assurance. Such historical judgments are always matters
of probability. Schubert M. Ogden helpfully points out that the earliest, non-christological stratum
of the synoptic tradition has a kerygmatic intent inasmuch as it seeks to confront the hearer/reader
with the same decision for God called for by Jesus words (The Point of Christology [San Francisco:
Harper, 1982]11215).
76
This way of posing the question of the material continuity between the historical Jesus and the
Christ of faith was the signal contribution of the post-Bultmannian New Quest initiated by Ernst
Ksemann. See Ernst Ksemann, The Problem of the Historical Jesus, Essays on New Testament
Themes (trans. W. J. Montague; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 1547.
77
Adolf von Harnack correctly understood that Jesus desired no other belief in his person
and no other attachment to it than is contained in the keeping of his commandments (What is
Christianity? [trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders; Fortress Texts in Modern Theology; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1986] 125).
78
H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (New York: Harper, 1970)
3940.
316
of the Law, in spite of its radicality, likewise stands within the scribal discussion about it.79
Even the love-command that has been so important in Christian ethics is derived
from Jesus summary of the Torah. Correctly understood, then, the faith of Christians
is not opposed to the Jewish faith of Jesus; rather, it is trust in and loyalty to God
through Jesus.80 Christian faith is not belief in a miracle, not even the miracle
of Jesus sinless perfection, but the condence that Jesus witness [to God] is a
true one.81 Hence, Christian faith cannot be construed as standing in a completely
antithetical relationship to Judaism without pitting itself against Jesus own faith
as a devout Jew.
Claude Welch is correct in characterizing Schleiermachers position as
representing only a halfway solution to the modern problem of christology. Unlike
the classical problem of trying to afrm Jesus humanity given the prior assumption
of his self-evident divinity, the modern problem was to ask in what sense Jesus could
be divine given his genuine humanity.82 But it is possible to go further than Welch
does by arguing that even this new formulation of the christological problem is
awed insofar as it asks about the being of Jesus in himself, as distinct from asking
about the meaning of Jesus for us.83 Instead of asking about Jesus own relation to
God (about which we could know next to nothing in any case), we should be asking
another question: what does Jesus mean for those persons who have experienced
redemption as a result of their encounter with him? Christological reection thus
properly begins, not with a question about the being of Jesus in relation to either
divinity or humanity, but with the given fact of his salvic impact upon those
who call themselves Christians. The question What does Jesus actually do for
Christians? is, as Brian Gerrish rightly notes, the crucial one to ask in any Christian
community, if the christological project is to be duly launched.84 It is this aspect
of Schleiermachers approachnamely, his insistence that christology arises from
reection upon Jesus redemptive inuence that remains worthy of development
79
Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1:3435. Bultmann says that this continuity
between Jesus and his Jewish heritage explains why modern liberal Judaism can very well esteem
Jesus as teacher.
80
Troeltsch wrote: In the absence of historical-critical thinking, Jesus was naturally identied
with God in order that he might be the immediate object of faith; with critical thinking, the God of
Jesus becomes the object of faith, and Jesus is transformed into the historical mediator and revealer
(The Dogmatics of the History-of Religions School, in Religion in History [trans. James Luther
Adams and Walter F. Bense; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991] 98).
81
Van A. Harvey, The Historian and the Believer: The Morality of Historical Knowledge and
Christian Belief (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966) 274.
82
Claude Welch, Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century (2 vols.; New Haven: Yale
University Press, 19721985) 1:8384.
83
Ogden, The Point of Christology, 16.
84
B. A. Gerrish, Saving and Secular Faith: An Invitation to Systematic Theology (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1999) 98. Gerrish likens this logic of christological reection to that found in Athanasius
and Luther.
PAUL E. CAPETZ
317
since, if pursued consistently, it would allow us to state the meaning of Jesus for
contemporary Christian experience while leaving behind untenable claims about
the historical Jesus and his supposedly sinless relation to God.
If we ask how Jesus is efcacious in a redemptive manner today, we have to
address the role of preaching in the church. Although Schleiermacher afrmed that
the faith of Christians in every age is none other than that experienced by Jesus
original disciples, he did acknowledge a difference in the medium through which
this faith has been evoked and sustained:
To us is given, instead of [Jesus] personal efcacy, only that of his community insofar as even the picture (Bild) of him found in the Bible likewise
only came into being and persists because of it.85
After Jesus death, it is the NTs portrait of him that serves as the occasion for an
experience of redemption. This biblical picture of Christ thus takes the place that
Jesus once had in relation to those who came into personal contact with him. In this
respect, the churchs proclamation can be understood as a continuation of Jesus
ministry. Such a focus on the NTs depiction of Jesus and its actualization in the
churchs preaching does not require assertions about Jesus that exempt him from
the contingencies of his own historical circumstance as well as from our common
humanity.
This modication of Schleiermachers proposed avenue to christological
reection need not entail the problematic conclusion that redemption from sin can
be achieved only through an encounter with Jesus, an assumption he shared with
the classical tradition that he in other ways sought to revise. Not only is redemption
for Schleiermacher the central idea in the Christian religion, but Jesus is its only
mediator.86 He spoke of the conviction, which we assume every Christian to
possess, of the exclusive superiority of Christianity without, however, giving a
satisfactory explanation as to why we should be convinced of this.87 A paradox
in Schleiermachers thought is precisely how this absolutist conception of
christology and soteriology is to be related to his celebration of diversity in religion.88
Whereas the premodern tradition had seen in religious diversity a symptom of sin,
Schleiermacher viewed it as reecting the varying historical circumstances in which
religions originate and develop. It appears, however, as though he wanted to have it
both ways: while an appreciation of diversity is ingredient in a genuinely historical
understanding of religion, all Christians are nonetheless agreed that redemption can
come only through Jesus. But this latter assertion reects an absolutizing of what
is historically relative and thus is contrary to a truly historical viewpoint. We must
85
Gl. 88.2.
Gl. 11.3.
87
Gl. 7.3.
88
Wesley J. Wildman denes the Absolutist Principle as the proposition that Jesus Christ is
absolutely, universally, uniquely, unsurpassably signicant for revelation and soteriology (Basic
Christological Distinctions, TD 64 [2007] 299).
86
318
nd some distinction that will allow us to extricate ourselves from this contradiction
while still acknowledging the legitimate motive that misled Schleiermacher to fall
victim to it. A descriptive account of the Christian religious experience rightly
emphasizes what Schleiermacher understood, namely, that Christians are those who
are certain that their own experience of redemption is constituted by a relation to
Jesus. The Christian religious affections thus have a necessary connection to the
gure of Jesus as mediated by the churchs gospel. Yet it does not follow that a
redemptive experience of God must always be constituted by a relation to Jesus.
Such a claim exceeds the bounds of Schleiermachers method of dogmatics, which
cannot render judgments about non-Christian religious experience.
Wesley Wildman, tracing what he calls the Absolutist Principle back to the
churchs earliest stages of christological reection, explains the basic confusion
here:
The origins of the Absolutist Principle are understandable, as Christians
sought to account for their powerful experiences of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, there were never any compelling reasons for absolutizing the
interpretation of those transforming experiences. The signicance of Jesus
Christ could be adequately and accurately expressed without the aid of the
Absolutist Principle.89
This brand of christocentrism and its corollary that salvation is a human possibility
solely in connection with Jesus are, in Wildmans view, the major doctrinal factors
that have also created the problem of the churchs relation to Judaism. The churchs
traditional polemic against the synagogue is a consequence of universalizing its
historically particular religious experience so that those who stand in other streams
of religious history are viewed as simply bereft of anything like the redemptive
benets that accrue to Christians as a result of their relation to Jesus. In place of
absolutism, Wildman proposes a modest christological conception that does not
make such exaggerated claims.
Modest christologies have tremendous advantages over their absolutist counterparts because they are not required to adopt the view that cosmic history
and religious insight reach their culmination in the gure of Jesus and in his
reception as the Christ.90
Niebuhr, who was conscious of his formal continuity with Schleiermachers method,
made virtually the same point: A critical historical theology cannot . . . prescribe
what form religious life must take in all places and all times beyond the limits of
its own historical system.91 By declaring that apart from Jesus the consciousness
of God is tainted and impure, Schleiermacher violated the strictures of his own
89
Wildman, Basic Christological Distinctions, 302.

Ibid., 303.
91
H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillan, 1941) 13. Niebuhrs
work is an example of how a theologian employing a confessional theological method quite similar
to that of Schleiermacher can nonetheless put different material content into it.
90
PAUL E. CAPETZ
319
theological method, which only allows for a descriptive account of the Christian
religious experience.92
Schleiermacher did not derive all knowledge of God exclusively from
Christ in Barthian fashion. The revelation in Christ has a point of contact
(Anknpfungspunkt) in the innate awareness of God given with human selfconsciousness simply as such.93 Moreover, in Schleiermachers usage, revelation
is not a theological principle that stands in an oppositional relation to the mode of
understanding to be derived from the historical interpretation of religion, as is the
case with Barth (and presumably also Beckmann). Revelation, for Schleiermacher,
refers either to the original revelation of God to human self-consciousness or to
the historical revelation in Christ that is the basis of the churchs proclamation.
Still, it may be asked whether there is not also a third sense in which we can and
should speak of revelation in reference to that religious development wherein the
original revelation, which in itself may be quite inchoate, did in fact become a
clear monotheistic consciousness of God. Paul Tillich, a theologian who was quite
explicit about his indebtedness to Schleiermacher, made precisely this point when he
differentiated between three senses of revelation as universal, preparatory, and
nal.94 Since the meanings of universal and nal are sufciently similar to
the two senses of revelation found in Schleiermachers thought, we ought to inquire
into what Tillich meant by a preparatory revelation. Speaking as a Christian for
whom Jesus as the Christ is the nal revelatory event in history, Tillich nevertheless
attributed an unparalleled signicance to the history of Israel:
The revelation through the prophets is the direct concrete preparation of the
nal revelation, and it cannot be separated from it. The universal revelation
as such is not the immediate preparation for the nal revelation; only the
universal revelation criticized and transformed by the prophetism of the Old
Testament is such preparation.95
Tillich thus claimed that the Old Testament is an inseparable part of the revelation
of Jesus as the Christ.96 What is apparent in Tillich, though missing from
Schleiermacher, is a deep appreciation of the religious signicance of Israels
history as having provided the indispensable presupposition of the churchs faith
in Jesus.97
92
Gl. 94.2.
Schleiermacher called this an original revelation of God to the human being (Gl. 4.4).
94
Hans W. Frei called Tillich Schleiermacher redivivus. Frei, Types of Modern Theology (ed.
George Hunsinger and William C. Placher; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) 3, 68.
95
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951, 1957,
1963) 1:142.
96
Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1:133.
97
Tillich responded to the charge that Judaism is inherently nationalistic: The Old Testament
certainly is full of Jewish nationalism, but it appears over and over as that against which the
Old Testament ghts (Systematic Theology, 1:142). Such a nuanced approach is absent from
Schleiermachers portrayal.
93
320
Schleiermacher was right to locate what is new about Christianity in the religious
signicance Jesus has for Christians. But to say that Jesus is of central importance
to Christians is not to say that everything important in Christianity began with him.
Nonetheless, there is one respect in which Schleiermacher credited the history
of Israel, namely, when he said that a universal redeemer could only have come
from a monotheistic people.98 He also acknowledged that the Christian notion of
redemption, presupposing as it does the reality of freedom and consequently of
guilt on account of sin, is intelligible solely on the basis of the teleological type
of religion which rst emerged in Israel. Are these not admissions that, apart from
the prior religious development in Israel, the church could never have arisen in the
rst place? On his own terms, would it not be possible for Schleiermacher to grant
the truth in what Tillich said since he well understood that ethical monotheism is
an ingredient in the Christian religious experience?99
Cumulatively, these various considerations more than sufce to justify the
conclusion that Schleiermachers formal method of theology allows for a revision
of his material positions in the doctrinal loci of christology, soteriology, and the
multiple meanings of revelation. While Schleiermacher was correct to identify the
essence of Christian faith as monotheistic and ethical and focused on the gure of
Jesus for the purpose of redemption from sin, he was wrong to draw such a sharp
antithesis between Israels faith and that of the church. Indeed, there is every reason
to afrm a strong material connection between the Jewish message of Jesus and
the churchs proclamation of his ongoing signicance. Christians need not deny
the indispensable role played by the Israelite-Jewish tradition in establishing
precisely those presuppositions without which neither Jesus nor the church would
have been possible and on the sole basis of which their fundamental import is
intelligible. Of course, to say that these alternatives to Schleiermachers own views
are allowed by his method is not to imply that he personally would have agreed
with them. The point is simply that another theologian, working from the same
model for theological inquiry initially proposed by Schleiermacher, can arrive at
a different construal of the nature of Christian faith that likewise claims to be a
faithful rendering of the religious affections evoked and sustained by the churchs
preaching. It is not necessary to demonstrate more than this in order to make a
convincing case that Schleiermachers material interpretation of doctrine can be
criticized according to the methodological criteria he set forth as adequate to the
unprecedented responsibilities of modern theology. All the same, this alternative
proposal has the advantage that it coheres with the best historical scholarship in a
way no longer true of Schleiermachers theology.100
98
Gl. 12.1.
In a handwritten marginal comment, Schleiermacher did attribute the emergence of monotheism
to revelation (Gl. 2:502, 504, notes to 10 and 15 from the rst German edition of 1821
1822).
100
Not only could Schleiermachers method have allowed him to paint a more positive portrait
of Judaism, but Jewish theologians could easily avail themselves, mutatis mutandis, of his formal
99
PAUL E. CAPETZ
321
Historical Criticism and the Canon of Scripture

The question of the OTs right to a place in the Christian Bible did not rst arise with
historical criticism. Quite early in the churchs history, the OT became problematic
because it was also the Bible of the synagogue (Tanakh). Since Marcion believed that
Jesus taught an altogether new religion antithetical to Judaism, he was completely
consistent in arguing that the church should dispense with the Jewish Bible in favor
of a canon of distinctively Christian writings. Yet he was alone in his categorical
rejection of all spiritualizing modes of exegesis. When the proto-orthodox church
repudiated Marcions proposal by retaining the OT as the rst part of its canon, it
simultaneously rejected his insistence upon the literal sense of the text.101 The church
thereby secured its christological exegesis of the OT, which backed up its claim
that Israels scriptures belong to the Christians, not to the Jews. For this reason,
the anti-Marcionite church never refuted Marcion on his own terms, but rather
implicitly accepted his formulation of the crucial issue: if the OT is not Christian,
it cannot be canonical.
Although Schleiermacher shared Marcions view of the absolute novelty of
Christianity in relation to Judaism, he did not defend it on the mythological grounds
that Jews and Christians worship two distinct deities. On the basis of historical
scholarship, he recognized the real differences between the OT and the NT that had
been smoothed over by premodern forms of exegesis; as a result, he was right in
criticizing previous theologians for trying to make the OT say something about Jesus
that it does not say. His argument underscored the legitimate rationale for historical
criticism, namely, that it alone makes possible an understanding of the biblical
texts free from the distortions of anachronism.102 Indeed, it is to his credit that he
frankly acknowledged the Jewish character of the OT and pleaded for an end to the
churchs historic polemic against the synagogue over its rightful possession. He
model of theology.
101
Jaroslav Pelikan notes: The Old Testament achieved and maintained its status as Christian
Scripture with the aid of spiritual exegesis. There was no early Christian who simultaneously
acknowledged the doctrinal authority of the Old Testament and interpreted it literally (The
Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100600 [vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition; Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1971] 81).
102
Today, historical-critical readings of scripture have to be defended against attacks from
both ends of the theological spectrum. From the right, Christopher R. Seitz, seeking to rehabilitate
a traditional view of biblical authority, denies that historical-critical study has any constitutive
signicance for theology (Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness
[Waco: Baylor University Press, 2004] 97). John J. Collins provides a cogent rejoinder to this type
of conservative argument (Biblical Theology and the History of Israelite Religion, Encounters
with Biblical Theology [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005] 33). On the left, Dale B. Martin, working from
a postmodern position, argues against the notion that Christians should insist on the necessity
of historical criticism (Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation
[Louisville: John Knox, 2006] 9). For a critique of this type of argument, see Collins, Historical
Criticism and Its Postmodern Critics, The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern
Age (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 925.
322
was, moreover, prescient in his prediction that critical scholarship would occasion
difcult problems for the churchs inherited theology.
For the sake of arriving at a different conclusion than Schleiermachers about the
OTs place in the Christian canon, must we abandon the strictly historical perspective
in favor of a special theological or sacred hermeneutic that treats the Bible as
a unique case to which the general rules of interpretation do not apply? Should
these turn out to be in fact our only options, then modern Protestant theology has
certainly been brought to an impasse by historical criticism. But there is another
option beyond this impasse that has not been sufciently considered. Beckmanns
inadequacy is that he never thinks of arguing against Schleiermachers thesis on the
basis of the latters own hermeneutical presuppositions. This failing mirrors that
of nascent orthodoxy, which was unable to reply to Marcion except by evading his
direct challenge. Like Hofmann and Barth, Beckmann tips his hat to the legitimacy
of historical-critical readings of the Bible in principle but only to shift the grounds
of discussion by appealing to dogmatic categories of interpretation derived from
the NT in order to argue for the canonical status of the OT. The irony here is that
Beckmann has tacitly accepted Schleiermachers neo-Marcionite formulation of
the basic issue: either the OT is not strictly speaking a Christian book, in which
case the church should hand it back to the synagogue, or the true meaning of the
OT consists in its prophetic witness to Jesus as Israels messiah, in which case the
Jews claim to it is invalidated by their lack of faith in its christological referent.
After his otherwise admirable recounting of the story of historical-critical research
into the OT, Beckmann concludes with this pronouncement: For the sake of the
faith afrmed in the New Testament, Christian theologians must insist against the
Jewish no that Jesus of Nazareth is the messiah promised in the Old Testament.103
But it can be asked of Beckmann why Christian theologians must continue to press
this claim. Not only has historical research into the OT undermined the traditional
proofs of Jesus messianic status, but even the very idea of a messiah appears
to be a mythological or symbolic one, as Strauss clearly understood.104 Moreover,
the early Christians, by ascribing this title to Jesus, radically redened its content
in light of his non-messianic fate. Drawing a very different conclusion from
historical study, Rabbi Michael Hilton calls upon Jews and Christians to revise
their theological traditions on the basis of a more accurate understanding . . . of
the relationship between the two faiths:
We cannot afford the two faiths an equal and distinct right to exist while we
continue to regard Judaism as the unchanged word of the Bible from which
103

Many modern Jews also acknowledge the mythological or symbolic character of the messianic
idea. See the Prayer Book of Conservative Judaism, Sabbath and Festival Prayer Book (New York:
The Rabbinical Assembly of America and the United Synagogue of America, 1973) ix.
104
PAUL E. CAPETZ
323
Christianity deviated, or Christianity the true fulllment of the prophets which

the Jews rejected.105
Hiltons proposal thus points the way beyond that untenable impasse of either an
OT historically interpreted as a document of Jewish religion and, hence, antithetical
to Christianity (Marcion, Schleiermacher, Harnack) or an OT spiritually interpreted
as a witness to Christian faith and, hence, denied to Judaism (Hofmann, Barth,
Beckmann).
The modern impasse in Protestant theology with respect to the OT results from the
dual legacy of the Reformation. The Reformers insisted that the Bible be allowed
to speak in its own voice and that the Bible should be the sole norm of Christian
doctrine. Their rejection of the allegorical method and correlative insistence upon
a literal exegesis undergirded their use of the Bible as the critical principle for
testing the medieval tradition. Prior to modernity, these two commitments could
be afrmed simultaneously because it was axiomatic that the Bible as a whole
provided an unambiguous foundation for doctrine. But in the modern period, these
two aspects of the Reformation heritage came into conict. Historical scholarship
not only separated OT and NT into distinct elds of study but also identied within
each testament diverse theological traditions that could not easily be harmonized.
Perceiving the problem, Schleiermacher fought against an uncritical use of the
Bible as a proof text for doctrine. For him, this entailed three departures from the
inherited approach to the scriptures: rst, the true or normative NT canon has to
be critically distinguished from its received historical form; second, the NT should
not be used to support Protestant doctrine against Catholicism; and, third, the OT
cannot be invoked to defend Christianity against Judaism. The rst two points are
relatively non-controversial in theology today. Still, his handling of the OT continues
to be denounced. Yet the usual alternative to it, illustrated by Beckmann, is even
more problematic. Schubert Ogden locates the problem here in the assumption that
the OT is to be judged by the same critical norm as is the NT.
The usual view on this point in recent Protestant theology is, in effect, this:
just as the New Testament is to be used by theology only under the control of
the New Testament message, so the Old Testaments authority for theological
reection and argument is subject to that of the New. But . . . this familiar
view of the use of the Old Testament is now scarcely less untenable than the
views of the Reformers and of the orthodox dogmaticians of which it is a
revision. . . . That the New Testament is to be used in theology only under
the authority of the Jesus-kerygma poses no particular difculty, since the
New Testaments writings . . . expressly have to do with the subject-term of
this kerygma, that is, with Jesus. . . . However, we now recognize that it is
historically false as well as theologically misleading to claim that the Old
Testament writings, too, are expressly about Jesus. . . .
105
Michael Hilton, The Christian Effect on Jewish Life (London: SCM, 1994) 2.
324
[R]ecognizing that the Old Testament does not bear witness to Christ prophetically in the sense in which the early church understood it to do and,
therefore, at the crucial point is not like the New, forces the question whether
the Old Testament may be properly used as a theological authority at all.106
Here Ogden formulates the theological question of the OT in the only way it can
be taken seriously on the basis of Schleiermachers premises. This question can be
rephrased by asking whether Schleiermachers perfectly sound argument against
an illicit use of the OT in Christian theology precludes altogether the possibility of
an admissible use therein.
Since Schleiermacher acknowledged the necessity of a theological criticism
(Sachkritik) of the NT scriptures, there is no reason in principle not to insist upon
a similar approach to the OT. Only in this case the theological criterion should
not be the kerygma as in the NT, but rather the indispensable monotheistic-ethical
presuppositions on the sole basis of which the NTs christological and soteriological
afrmations are intelligible and apart from which they are easily distorted in a
dualistic and polytheistic manner. Accordingly, the OTs enduring import for the
church is to insure that its faith is never interpreted in such a manner that explicitly
contradicts or even implicitly denies these presuppositions which are contained in
all authentic proclamation of the gospel.107 That the ethical monotheism to which
the OT bears denitive witness has as a matter of fact actually functioned in this
sense as a necessarythough not sufcientnorm by which to test the adequacy
of the various interpretations of the gospel found in the NT and the post-biblical
tradition is ample warrant for deeming the OT to be of indispensable religious and
theological value to Christian faith.108 This rationale for attributing a denite sort of
canonical status to the OTdifferent from that of the NT but no less importantdoes
not sidestep the challenge of historical criticism to traditional theology. It also
validates the legitimate motive at work in the ancient churchs retention of the OT
without endorsing the inadequate argumentation on which it based this decision.109
106
Schubert M. Ogden, The Authority of Scripture for Theology, On Theology (San Francisco:
Harper, 1986) 6566.
107
Schleiermacher said of the less distinctively Christian doctrines elaborated in the rst part
of his dogmatics that they are both presupposed by and contained in every Christian religious
affection (Gl. 32).
108
Rolf P. Knierim asks whether the understanding of Christ as expressed in diverse theological
interpretations triggered by the New Testament is at times so controversial among Christians, today
as throughout history, that they reect a polytheistic more than a monotheistic Christology or
Christianity (The Task of Old Testament Theology: Method and Cases [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1995] 7, n. 5).
109
Neither Marcion and nor the Gnostics were monotheists. Hence, the decision to retain the OT
was simultaneously a reassertion of monotheism as the indispensable presupposition of Christian
faith. For an example of how the OTs witness to monotheism functioned as a constraint upon the
development of trinitarian doctrine, see Gregory of Nyssa, Concerning We Should Think of Saying
that There are Not Three Gods to Ablabius, The Trinitarian Controversy (trans. William G. Rusch;
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 151.
PAUL E. CAPETZ
325
Not the least advantage of this alternative systematic proposal for formulating both
the question and its answer is that it is not constrained to secure its positive valuation
of the OT by diminishing the import of historical criticism, thus pitting a special
theological hermeneutic against a so-called general hermeneutic.110 Moreover,
it does not entail a denial of the synagogues equally valid claim to possession of
Israels scripture.111
Ernst Troeltsch, who pursued the theological implications of a consistently
historical approach to religion more fully than anyone either before or after him,
noted that the strictly historical interpretation of Christianity has made tremendous
strides and has furnished a historical-critical picture very different from that which
lay before . . . Schleiermacher.112 Regarding the OT, he afrmed: To acknowledge
Christianity . . . is also to recognize the religion of Israel as its prior stage and
presupposition, for without it, Christianity is incomprehensible.113 Nonetheless,
he gave this positive assessment of Schleiermachers new departure for modern
theology: His program simply needs to be carried out consistently. Hardly any
change is necessary.114 While Schleiermachers execution of his self-appointed
task is justiably subject to criticism, we must look upon his program for theology
as an unfullled possibility and not as an accomplishment forever witnessing to
the errors following from his methodological starting point.115
Perhaps the true service of historical theology consists not only in providing
new angles of vision that illuminate the ambiguities of our religious past, but also
in reminding us of unnished business that has to be on any agenda for future
constructive work.
110
James Barr identies the usual false dichotomy at work here: It is sometimes said that the
historical relation between the Old and New Testaments is not in question, but that the problem
lies in stating a theological relation. The theological relation, however, cannot be the formation
of connections other than the historical; it must rather be the seeing of theological values in the
historical connections (Old and New in Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments [London:
SCM, 1966] 31).
111
Ogden submits that the key to answering the question of the OT lies in the insight that
the writings of the Old Testament contain the most fundamental presuppositions . . . of the Jesuskerygma. . . . But if this is correct, there is no doubt that the Old Testament, in its way, is also a
theological authority, nor does using it as such pose any particular difculty (Ogden, The Authority
of Scripture for Theology, 6667).
112
The Dogmatics of the History-of-Religions School, 93.
113
Ernst Troeltsch, The Christian Faith (trans. Garrett E. Paul; Fortress Texts in Modern Theology;
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 85. Though Troeltschss dogmatics follows Schleiermachers model,
it includes a discussion of The Religious Signicance of the History of Israel (8586).
114
The Dogmatics of the History-of-Religions School, 108, n. 5.
115
Van A. Harvey, A Word in Defense of Schleiermachers Theological Method, JR 42 (1962)
153.
From the Double Movement to the

Double Danger: Kierkegaard and
Rebounding Violence*
Matthew C. Bagger
Brown University
In the introduction to Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience,

Maurice Bloch makes some forthright admissions about the methodological and
theoretical pitfalls threatening a project of the scope he undertakes in this slim,
provocative volume. He acknowledges, for instance, the temptation, when arguing
for what he describes as a quasi-universal religious structure, to present a
tendentious selection of examples, and make this structure appear to be present
1
everywhere. In the face of this danger, independent readers, who choose to
continue the exercise by trying to see whether what is proposed here stands up to
2
the test of the other cases they know become the most important critical constraint.
In what follows I test Blochs theory of rebounding violence against the thought
of Sren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish theologian.
This article does not simply apply Blochs theory to a new case, however.
Bloch is an anthropologist and builds his argument using ethnographic examples.
Because anthropologists are trained in eldworkinterview techniques, participant
observation, etc.they tend not to apply their theories about human beliefs and
behaviors to texts. Despite widespread commitment to the model of the text
*
Mark Cladis, Wendell Dietrich, Danielle Novetsky Friedman, Matt Redovan, and anonymous
referees commented helpfully on a draft of this essay.
1
Maurice Bloch, Prey into Hunter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 2.
2
Independent readers can also, Bloch writes, correct for the problem of skewed presentation
of examples. Independent readers have repeatedly criticized Blochs skewed presentation of his
Japanese example. See, for instance, David N. Gellner, Religion, Politics, and Ritual: Remarks on
Geertz and Bloch, Social Anthropology 7 (1999) 13553, and Nicholas Van Sant, A Tendentious
Presentation of Details: Reviewing the Japanese Case in Maurice Blochs Prey into Hunter, Ziggurat:
The Brown Journal of Religion 1 (2006) 1726.
HTR 102:3 (2009) 32752
328
in anthropological practice, anthropologists generally focus on ritual, kinship,

and politics, not texts. Scholars of religion, on the other hand, have applied
anthropological theory and other kinds of social scientic theory to the study of
texts. It is not uncommon or surprising to see New Testament scholars, for example,
using social scientic theory to elucidate Pauls letters. Students of modern Western
texts, however, generally limit themselves to the hermeneutic task of understanding
the text, and eschew explanatory theories, anthropological or otherwise. There is
no principled reason for this reluctance: Modern Western texts, like all linguistic
products, human behavior, cultural artifacts, and social practices, both require
interpretation and invite social-scientic explanation.3 Perhaps modern Western
texts are too close to home, so to speak. As a result the theories are deprived of a
eld of application and assessment, and textual scholars are deprived of the deeper
insight into the texts the theories might afford.
I offer what follows as one example of how anthropological theory might enrich
the study of modern Western texts, and vice versa. On the one hand, Blochs
theory helps the Kierkegaard scholar make sense of some puzzling changes in
Kierkegaards views and brings some neglected aspects of Kierkegaards thought
into relief. On the other hand, the specics of Kierkegaards thought indicate that
Bloch misconstrues the object of his theory. Discovering in Kierkegaards authorship
the dynamic that Bloch describes not only restores to Kierkegaards sociopolitical
concerns their proper signicance, but also reveals that the phrase rebounding
consumption better captures the dynamic than does rebounding violence and
that the theory is better ranged alongside theories of the body and society than
conceived as a theory of religion and violence. The singularity of Kierkegaards
project and the self-consciousness with which he composed his works, which are
neither ritual nor myth nor a kinship system, restores to anthropological theory,
moreover, an often-neglected emphasis on individual agency.
3
Texts require interpretation for which the authors meaning and intentions are normative,
but the authors beliefs and intention are susceptible to explanations that depart from his or her
understanding. The same rules apply to texts that compose the various stages in the history of the
reception of another text (e.g., sermons or biblical commentaries). The interpretation of (e.g.) rituals
and social formations is, of course, a more complex matter because of the question of who authors
a ritual or social formation. In this article I argue that applying social theory to a modern Western
thinker reminds us to credit the agency or authorship of the individuals or groups who produce
rituals and social formations. Our explanations need not depart drastically from the understandings
of those responsible for rituals or social formations. On interpretation of texts, see Quentin Skinners
articles in Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (ed. James Tully; Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1989). On the divergent imperatives of interpretation and explanation,
see Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1985)
190227.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
329
Blochs Theory of Rebounding Violence

In Prey into Hunter, Maurice Bloch identies what he describes as a quasiuniversal minimal religious structure common to many religious phenomena.
Bloch nds this structure in rituals of various sortssacrice, initiation, marriage,
spirit mediumshipbut also sees it in myth, kinship systems, and millenarian cults.
The startling quasi-universality of this minimal structure derives, he argues, from
1) a very basic understanding of the biological processes of life, an understanding
4
present in all cultures, and 2) problems intrinsic to the human condition. Armed
with shared understandings and faced with the same problems, many cultures
produce the same minimal religious structure, but they elaborate the structure in
different ways, and employ different symbols and metaphors to articulate it. Bloch
labels this minimal structure rebounding violence.
All humans, Bloch claims, have at some level a conception of life in which birth is
the beginning of, or a milestone in, a process of growth culminating in reproduction,
followed by a decline leading to death. This transformative dialectic is seen as
5
involving all living things, if only because one species provides food for another.
Bloch speculates that this basic conception of biological life is partly innate and
partly the product of our interactions with other species. Given this conception,
however, a problem arises concerning human social existence. How can permanent,
life-transcending politico-social structures be created out of these transient and
discrete constituents? How, in other words, can humans establish an authority for
6
social and political institutions that transcends the uidity of human life? The
phenomenon of rebounding violence gives an answer to this problem.
Rebounding violence begins with an inversion or transformation of the basic
conception of lifes biological processes. Religion posits a life superior to ordinary
mundane life, which pertains to a superior, transcendental element in persons. Unlike
ordinary biological life, moreover, where birth and growth lead to ourishing, in
relation to this extraordinary life, weakening and death lead to ourishing. The
religious conception reverses the biological process, leading to a state beyond
process. This reversal is represented in rituals as a violent conquest of an individuals
vitality whereby the individual, now fully transcendental, becomes part of something
beyond process. The Orokaiva of Papua, New Guinea, for example, conceive of
people as part vital pig and part transcendental spirit. In their initiation ritual, elders
representing the ancestral spirits symbolically hunt and kill the initiates in a pig
hunt. The weakening and death of the pig aspect of the initiates transforms the
initiates into transcendental spirits. This rst violence, which is largely symbolic,
signies ones surrender to the transcendental. A prominent feature of this stage
of rebounding violence is that one colludes in the vanquishing of ones vitality by
the transcendental. (In the Orokaiva case it is the village adults who cooperate with
4
5
6
Bloch, Prey into Hunter, 23.

Ibid., 4.
Ibid., 79.
330
the invading spirits.) One submits to conquest by the transcendental and thereby
transcends biological life, with this conquest linking one to a unied entity beyond
process that is the basis for social and political institutions. One abandons ones
vitality in favor of permanent order. But this move to the transcendental has no
social and political signicance unless the transcendental can be rejoined to the
world of process.
In the second, rebounding, violence the transcendental rejoins the world
of process by conquering and consuming life, but at this stage the conquered
vitality must be distinct from ones original or native vitality. It must be external
vitality, to ensure that the revitalization does not negate the rst violence. If the
transcendental recovered the native vitality, it might look like vitality reconquering
the transcendent. The rebounding violence is not a simple return to native vitality.
Rather, the returning person is a changed person, a permanently transcendental
person who can therefore dominate the here and now of which he previously was a
7
part. Rebounding violence is gured primarily through the consumption of animals
8
as food, often literally through the mouth, but also through the consumption of
plants, the taking of women in marriage, or, in some circumstances, the subjugation
of other peoples. This recovery of vitality must be violent to demonstrate the
subordination of vitality to permanent order. The Orokaiva initiates, who formerly
were hunted as pigs, dressed now as spirits return to the village from the initiation
hut as hunters of pigs. Their rst act upon reentering the village is to engage in an
actual pig hunt.
The idiom of rebounding violence makes it possible to see humans as integrated
with the transcendent basis for permanent institutions, but yet vital.
In ritual representations, native vitality is replaced by a conquered, external,
consumed vitality. It is through this substitution that an image is created in
which humans can leave this life and join the transcendental, yet still not be
alienated from the here and now. They become part of permanent institutions,
and as superior beings they can reincorporate the present life through the
9
idiom of conquest or consumption.
Rebounding violence provides a scenario where humans can appear simultaneously

beyond process yet endowed with life. It responds to the puzzle concerning the
authority and permanency of politico-social structures.
Bloch argues further that rebounding violence includes an experiential
10
dichotemisation of the subjects into an over-vital side and a transcendental side.
Where the idiom of rebounding violence is invoked, people come to experience
themselves as composed of these two opposed elements in tension with one another.
Ibid., 5.
Ibid., 6.
9
Ibid., 5.
10
Ibid.
8
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
331
Corresponding to the external public drama in ritual, an internal experiential

dynamic follows the same logic.
[T]he person is represented as symbolically dual, with one side chaotic but
vital and the other superior and transcendental. Then, the two parts are set in
motion one against the other so that the one is, often literally, disappearing
into the mouth of the other, thereby producing an image of a permanent order
which nonetheless contains vitality. The consuming element was originally
dened by opposition to the vital as the moral, superior aspect of the person.
This is what remains beyond the processes inherent in any individual. It remains unchanged but it swallows up vitality. Thus the moral entity remains
both a particular living unit and also an impersonal part of a transcendent order. In this way the central puzzle of the creation of the apparently permanent
11
out of the transformative is phenomenologically achieved.
The congruence of the internal dynamic with the external drama lends emotional
force to rebounding violence, which culminates in political signicance.
To summarize, rebounding violence includes two stages of violence. In the
rst stage (dramatically enacted in ritual, and/or experienced within the self),
something transcendental drives out native vitality. In the second stage, the
transcendental recovers and masters (an external) vitality. This two stage structure
grounds human political and social institutions in a world beyond process. In other
words, rebounding violence works to reproduce and legitimate social and political
structures in the face of the transiency of the individuals in a society.
Bloch argues, however, that depending upon a peoples evaluation of their
politico-economic circumstances, the logic of rebounding violence can lead to
very different social and political outcomes than simply the reproduction of social
12
and political structures. When a people is strong relative to their neighbors, the
rebounding violence of the second stage can extend beyond the ritual itself and lead
to military aggression against outsiders. At certain points in Orokaiva history, for
instance, the returning initiates pig hunt served as a prelude to military campaigns
against neighboring peoples. In these cases rebounding violence doesnt merely
legitimate social and political institutions; it legitimates expansionism. In other
circumstances, the idiom of rebounding violence in the hands of a ruling class
can lead to aggression against its subjects. The rulers consume their subjects. In
these cases rebounding violence legitimates social hierarchy. Finally, those who
have lost any hope for the social and political institutions in which they live, can
seek to delegitimize them altogether by interrupting the dynamic of rebounding
violence.
In discussing these last cases Bloch attempts to elucidate the nature of millenarian
movements. Using early Christianity and the 1863 rebellion of the Merina on
Madagascar as his examples, he argues that millenarian movements employ the
11
12
Ibid., 21.
Ibid., 98.
332
logic of rebounding violence to subversive ends. Millenarianism arises in the

context of a group perceiving what it takes to be the political and religious failure
13
of [its] own leaders. More specically, it appears where a group is disillusioned
with their politico-religious leadership, which they [feel has] abandoned them and
their transcendental righteousness, and when the group has given up hope of a
14
mundane solution to their ills. In such circumstances the group (often in deance
of established authorities) initiates the rst violence and submits to conquest by
the transcendental. Having become transcendental, they cease activities related to
reproduction and biological process (e.g., sex, agriculture). Most importantly, a
millenarian movement will refuse to carry out the rebounding violence. By giving
the transcendental purchase in the mundane world, the rebounding violence serves
to legitimate social and political institutions. When a group feels that existing
institutions have forsaken the transcendental and they see no mundane hope of
reforming the institutions, they will refrain from enacting the rebounding violence.
They ee to the transcendental without the intention of returning, but thereby also
undermine the legitimacy of existing social and political institutions. They seek
to sever the bonds between transcendental authority and the existing religious
and political structures. Eschewing all forms of reproduction, the millenarian
movement interrupts the reproduction of religious and political institutions as well.
The refusal to complete the cycle of rebounding violence is implicitly an attack
on the established order.
Kierkegaard and the Double Movement

Sren Kierkegaards authorship has been periodized in a variety of ways: primarily
ethical vs. primarily Christian writings; the rst pseudonymous authorship,
culminating in Concluding Unscientic Postscript by Johannes Climacus vs. the
second pseudonymous authorship in the voice of Anti-Climacus, etc. I believe the
writings can be chronologically divided most protably in terms of Kierkegaards
changing relationship to Christendom. In Kierkegaards usage Christendom
designates those regions (principally, in Kierkegaards mind, nineteenth-century
Denmark) where Christianity has been integrated into the prevailing social
arrangements, political establishment, and culture. In Christendom one is Christian
by birth and citizenship. In his retrospective The Point of View for My Work as an
Author, Kierkegaard explains that his whole authorship pertains to the problem
15
of Christianity and Christendom. Throughout his corpus Kierkegaard criticizes
Christendom because he believes it discourages the development of the highest
possibilities of both individual selfhood and Christian commitment. Christendom
makes faith too easy, makes becoming a Christian a matter of course. It portrays a
13
Ibid., 91.
Ibid., 94.
15
Sren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author (trans. Howard and Edna
Hong; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998) 23.
14
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
333
mere semblance of true Christian faith as full Christian commitment and thereby
obscures the passionate individuality of a truly Christian life lived at the extremity
of existence. True Christianity presupposes the utmost subjective development.
It demands passionate exertions that isolate one as the single individual.
Training in Christianity produces free, passionate individuals. Kierkegaard argues,
moreover, that genuine politics requires that free and passionate individuals come
into association. The scaling down of true Christianity in Christendom, therefore,
militates against true Christian faith, the development of free and passionate
individuals, and the possibility of genuine politics.
Despite the overall continuity in this critique of Christendom, Kierkegaards
attitude toward Christendom hardened over time. In the earlier part of his career,
Kierkegaard saw his task essentially as one of renewal. He wanted to write as a
corrective to the present age and in his journals repeatedly characterizes his
project as an attempt again to introduce Christianity into Christendom. The
rst pseudonymous authorship belongs entirely to this period. In the second, later
stage of his career, Kierkegaard gave up on renewal. He declared Christendom an
abomination, issued an ultimatum to the Primate of Denmark, then sought utterly
to destroy Christendom. The pseudonymous author Anti-Climacus represents the
transition to this latter period, which culminates in Kierkegaards notorious attacks
upon Christendom. To examine this change of attitude in light of Blochs theory of
rebounding violence reveals the connection between this change and other changes
in Kierkegaards conception of the religious life.
Kierkegaards Fear and Trembling represents an appropriate terminus a quo for
this discussion for two reasons.16 First, published in 1843, Fear and Trembling is
one of Kierkegaards earliest works, and his earliest to focus on religious existence.
Second, the pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, Johannes di Silentio,
reects on Abrahams willingness to sacrice Isaac, and regards this episode as
the paradigm of religious faith. In Genesis, God demands that Abraham bind
and sacrice Isaac. Abraham consents, but at the last minute God provides a ram
as a substitute offering. In recognition of Abrahams obedience, God promises
Abraham that he will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and
the grains of the sea shore. Your descendants shall gain possession of the gates
of their enemies (Gen 22:18). Bloch adduces this very episode as an example of
rebounding violence. Bloch points out that Abrahams willingness to sacrice Isaac
amounts to Abrahams submission to the transcendental which conquers Abrahams
17
vitality at its most intense and forward-looking. A second, rebounding stage of
violence occurs with the substitution and sacrice of the ram. The outcome of the
story, moreover, is the promise of an enduring patrilineage and military conquest.
Abrahams vitality is vanquished by the transcendental, but the transcendentalized
16
Sren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (trans. Alastair Hannay; London: Penguin Books,
1985).
17
334
Abraham conquers external vitality, leading to a permanent sociopolitical institution

and the legitimation of violence against other groups.
Fear and Trembling is undoubtedly one of Kierkegaards most beautiful and
memorable works, but in some respects is also one of his least successful because
it invites serious misinterpretations. Kierkegaards moving reections on Abraham,
and the contrast Kierkegaard draws between Abrahams obedience to Gods horric
command on the one hand, and a Kantian ethical religion on the other, can lend
the impression either that Kierkegaard implicitly justies moral enormities in the
name of faith, or that Kierkegaard intends to supplant Kantian ethics with a divine
command ethic. It is true that Kierkegaard takes aim at Kants account of the
relationship between ethics and religion, but Kierkegaard never sanctions unethical
behavior, nor does he ever repudiate a roughly Kantian account of the ethical.
In Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason Kant argues that a human is most
fully a person when he or she subordinates his or her sensuous inclinations to the
moral law, a law which is dictated by pure reason and which is therefore universal
and eternal. To exercise ones freedom to make respect for this universal, eternal law
a sufcient incentive to determine ones will is to fulll the human predisposition
to personality. Kant also claims that ethics is the highest unconditioned end,
which conditions ones relationship to God. The idea of God arises ineluctably out
of the ethical life, but ethics as the highest unconditioned end serves as a check on
superstition and enthusiasm in religion. In particular, ethics requires the repudiation
of any religious ideas that compromise the imperative that one reform oneself by
ones own exertions.
Like the romantics, Kierkegaard sees something perverse in the Kantian claim
that the highest exercise of freedom and the most developed form of personhood
consist in acting from impersonal, universal norms. In Fear and Trembling and
elsewhere Kierkegaard sketches a form of freedom not subject to any law and a
form of selfhood higher than Kantian personality. That higher form of selfhood,
faith, is a passionate individuality that cannot take comfort in the universal.
Faith, moreover, inverts the Kantian account: Ones relationship to God is the
highest unconditioned end, which conditions ethics. An unconditional submission
to God is the precondition for ethics. Viewing Fear and Trembling in light of
Kierkegaards other works in the rst pseudonymous authorship, especially
Concluding Unscientic Postscript, provides guidance for grasping just what this
inversion entails.
The major works of Kierkegaards rst pseudonymous authorship all emphasize
the qualitative difference that the existential choice of ethical commitment makes in
the life of an individual. Humans begin in a state of immediacy, a life immersed in
and dedicated to nite, relative ends. Perversely, the immediate person is absolutely
related to relative ends and relatively related to the absolute. He or she will only
act in conformity with what the absolute ethical requirement demands to the
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
335
extent that so doing accords with his or her interests and inclinations. In this way
the life of immediacy subjects one to ones own transitory impulses and sensuous
18
inclinations. In acceding unconditionally to the absolute ethical demand, which
devolves upon all alike, one takes an active stance with regard to oneself and one
takes responsibility for oneself. It is only by mediating ones relationship to the
nite with the universal (and in so doing, relativizing the nite to the absolute) that
one achieves selfhood persisting through time. One only becomes an individual
self by dedicating oneself to the universal.
Most of Kierkegaards works from this period, moreover, raise the possibility of
a form of selfhood even more developed than that of participation in the universal.
In faith one becomes an individual self whose selfhood does not simply participate
in the universal, and who stands in a renewed immediacy to the nite. Fear and
Trembling distinguishes between ethical life and faith. Concluding Unscientic
Postscript elaborates the distinctions; its pseudonymous author, Johannes Climacus,
interposes what he calls religiousness A between ethical life and religiousness
B or faith. Despite this variation in the distinctions between ethical life and higher,
religious forms of selfhood, the ethical and religious are essentially related for
Kierkegaard. The religious forms of selfhood presuppose the ethical choice to be
oneself and arise out of ethical striving. Climacus insists that despite the distinctions
between immediacy, ethical life, and religious existence, there is nevertheless one
19
either/or, one choice.
In ethical life one relates to God through the selfs ethical resolution. In Kantian
fashion the idea of God arises in picturing ethical obligation to oneself. As Climacus
puts it, In fables and fairy tales there is a lamp called the wonderful lamp; when it
is rubbed, the spirit appears. Jest! But Freedom, that is the wonderful lamp. When a
20
person rubs it with ethical passion, God comes into existence for him. The selfs
ethical striving promotes a religious consciousness, but ethical life nevertheless
reects primarily on oneself and ones activity. It is characterized by active struggle
and self-assertion. Ethics requires that one strive to reverse the perverse priorities of
immediacy. One must relate oneself absolutely to the absolute ethical requirement
and relate relatively to the relative. Ethical life demands that one resign ones nite
hopes and loves so that one is capable of renouncing them should they conict
with the absolute ethical requirement. In other words, ethical life requires that one
18
Kierkegaard takes for granted the opposition that Kant champions between eternal, absolute
duty and nite, temporal inclinations. The task facing an existing being, Kierkegaard maintains, is to
enact the eternal absolute in ones temporal existence. Hegel, of course, sublates the duty/inclination
dualism. Kierkegaard believes that Hegelian ethics fails to take the ethical challenge of existing
seriously enough. Kants ethical thought both informs Kierkegaards account of the ethical, and
lays the foundation for the religious, which, Kierkegaard claims, supercedes it.
19
Sren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientic Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (trans.
Howard and Edna Hong; 2 vols.; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press) 1:294.
20
Ibid., 1:138.
336
die to immediacy. This resignation involves painful suffering, but one can take
consolation in the universal transparency of the absolute ethical requirement.
Religious existence, for Kierkegaard, as distinguished from ethical existence,
consists in an intensication of ethical pathos. The more ethical one becomes, the
less one believes oneself to have fullled the absolute ethical requirement. The most
ethical individual is not the individual cavalierly satised with himself, but rather
21
is the individual with the most misgivings about his motivations and disposition.
Developed ethical existence begets consciousness of ethical failure. The more
ethical one becomes, the more one perceives ones inability to fulll the ethical
requirement. One comes to recognize ones alienation from the ethical. One comes
to recognize ones need for a personal God-relationship if one is to have any hope
of transforming oneself. Climacus articulates this standpoint by asserting that an
eternal happiness is specically rooted in the subjective individuals diminishing
22
self-esteem acquired through the utmost exertion. In passionate ethical striving
one learns of ones ethical impotence and abases oneself before God. Ones
impotence with respect to the absolute ethical requirement leads one to acknowledge
properly the absoluteness of God and ones nothingness by comparison. The
religious individual seeks to express existentially that he is capable of doing
nothing himself but is nothing before God. Climacus characterizes the essential
23
form of religious life, therefore, as self-annhihilation.
The suffering present in ethical life is redoubled and becomes denitive of
religious life. The pain of dying to immediacy is compounded by the chastening
of ones condent self-sufciency. Whereas the ethical standpoint glories selfassertion, the religious individual can only relate to self-transformation negatively.
For the religious individual self-transformation becomes at best a feigning of
24
self-transformation, because one is unable to transform oneself. For this reason
religious life is suffering in both senses of the term: One endures the painful process
of coming to recognize the failure of an active relation to oneself, of coming to
recognize that one must passively suffer Gods activity.
Ethical life introduces an initial dialectical qualication to existence. It replaces
an immediate existence with a dialectical existence because ones relationship to
ones immediate impulses and inclinations is mediated by the universal law. As
Climacus describes it, religious life represents yet another stage in the dialectic of
subjective inward deepening. It dawns as ethical striving dialectically turns into
its opposite. If ethical life reects on oneself and ones own activity before God,
religious life, which emerges from the intensication of ethical pathos, reects on
God and ones passivity before Gods activity. Ones relation to oneself is mediated
21
See C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaards Fragments and Postscript: The Religious Philosophy of
Johannes Climacus (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1983) 43.
22
Concluding Unscientic Postscript, 55.
23
Ibid., 461.
24
Ibid., 433.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
337
by ones God-relationship. If in ethical life one relates to God through the selfs
ethical resolution, in religious life one relates to the selfs ethical resolution through
ones God-relationship.
Climacus employs various metaphors to describe the annihilated individual.
The religious person is consumed, held captive, and made ill by the absolute
25
conception of God. As a nite being, however, he must not only relate absolutely
to the absolute, but must also relate relatively to the relative. The annihilated
individualconsumed, captivated by the absolute conception of Godcan only
with pain join that conception together with the thought of engaging in some relative
endeavor. The combination of this absolute conception of God with an incidental
nitude such as going out to the amusement park is the very basis and meaning
26
of [religious] suffering. Although this religious suffering never ceases (unless
one reverts to a lower form of existence), the annihilated individual draws comfort
from his God-relationship and learns to relate to the relative on the basis of this
relationship. The annihilated individual comes existentially to realize the converse
corollary to the annihilating recognition that one is capable of nothing without
God: With God everything is possible. Climacus labels the simultaneous absolute
27
relation to the absolute and relative relation to the relative a double movement.
The double movement rightly relates one to the nite. Having resigned the nite,
ones relation to the nite is now predicated on God, that with God everything is
possible. Having made the double movement one enjoys a new immediacy. This
is not a simple immediacy, but a relationship to the relative made possible by the
absolute God-relationship.
To all external appearances the new immediacy is indiscernible from an initial
immediacy. For this reason Climacus describes the advanced forms of religious
existence as a hidden inwardness. Climacus insists that the individual who has
28
made the double movement is indistinguishable from all other human beings.
Despite this categorical claim, Climacus does contrast hidden inwardness to
medieval monasticism, which he argues failed to achieve an absolute relation to the
absolute because it tried to express this relation outwardly. Outwardly recognizable
29
expressions of the absolute relation indicate, rst, that one is not annihilated. They
indicate that one believes one is capable of something. With respect to physical
mortications, for instance, Climacus argues that the self-tormentor by no means
expresses that he is capable of nothing before God, because he indeed considers
30
self-torment to be indeed something. Second, outwardly recognizable expressions
25
Ibid., 48385.
Ibid., 486, 483.
27
Ibid., 409.
28
Ibid., 500.
29
Climacus takes issue with the unqualied hidden inwardness that Silentio describes and claims
that the religious person cannot completely succeed in hiding his or her inwardness, but nevertheless
will not express the absolute relation directly, using the humorous as an incognito (Ibid., 5001).
30
Ibid., 463.
26
338
of the absolute relation indicate that one is not in fact absolutely related to the
absolute. One has not fully resigned the nite. To nd a time and place in ones life
for the absolute relationeven something so consuming as entering a monastery
relativizes the relation to ones other ends and in relation to other possible ends.
By contrast, the individual absolutely related to the absolute is a stranger in the
world of nitude, but he does not dene his difference from worldliness by foreign
31
dress (this is a contradiction, since with that he denes himself in a worldly way).
The attempt to express the absolute relation through the relative differences of
nitude reveals that the relation is not, in fact, absolute. Both in evincing that one
is not annihilated, and in revealing that ones relation to the absolute is not in fact
absolute, attempts to express the absolute relation outwardly indicate that one has
not pursued ethical life to its limits.
Despite cutting ones roots in the nite, the achieved absolute relation does
not alienate one from the nite. Ones God-relationship instead enables one to
participate fully in the life of nitude (because with God everything is possible).
Climacus makes an analogy: An adult may very well join in childrens play with
total interest, may be the one who really makes the game lively, but he still does not
play as a child. The person who understands it as his task to practice the absolute
32
distinction relates himself to the nite in the same way. Like the adult who joins
in childrens play with total interest, the individual absolutely related to God lives
harmoniously in nitude and savors his nite hopes and joys. The religious basis
for this immediacy, however, is hidden. To lack hidden inwardness and betray an
incongruity with nitude, conversely, reveals that one hasnt come to realize that
one is capable of nothing before God, and so hasnt come to realize that with God
everything is possible. Additionally, it reveals that despite ones efforts, one is not
absolutely related to the absolute.
These relationships between ethical life and religious life that Kierkegaard
describes in the later works of his rst pseudonymous authorship clarify his project
in Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaard uses the Abraham story to highlight the
contrast between Kantian ethical religion on the one hand, and religious existence
grounded in an absolute relation to God on the other. To make the contrast stark,
Kierkegaard allows that Abraham has in general fullled the innite ethical
requirement and portrays Gods command to sacrice Isaac as conicting with this
33
ethical requirement. God commands a righteous man to murder his son. This
depiction vividly renders Kierkegaards point: For the faithful, individual ethics
is conditional upon ones relationship to God. Abrahams ethical duty to his son is
(in Kierkegaards famous phrase) teleologically suspended in relation to a higher
duty to God. God inicts a spiritual trial on Abraham. For Abraham the ethical
requirement is a temptation, a temptation to neglect his God-relationship.
31
32
33
Ibid., 410.
Ibid., 413.
Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 124.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
339
Kierkegaards description of faith as the teleological suspension of the

ethical, should not be interpreted, however, to mean that faith requires behavior
that ethics would censure, or even that duties to God can collide with ethical
duty. The Abraham story is profoundly misleading in this respect. Kierkegaard
does not use the story to suggest that by analogy with Abrahams situation, God
makes demands at odds with what ethics requires. Kierkegaard insists that any
analogy with Abraham will only surface after the individual has become capable
34
of accomplishing the universal. But, as Kierkegaard makes clear throughout
his corpus, accomplishing the universal is precisely what the faithful individual
comes to realize is conditional on a God-relationship. The teleological suspension
of the ethical is intended to convey that the faithful individual has come to realize
that a proper God-relationship is the very condition for an ethical life (i.e., the
condition of its very possibility). Faith suspends the Kantian ethical imperative to
reform oneself by ones own exertions.
In Concluding Unscientic Postscript Johannes Climacus explains that without
an unconditional, absolute relationship to the absolute (God), one is suspended
from the ethical. One is in sin and incapable of actualizing the ethical. One is
suspended from the ethical (which nevertheless devolves upon one with the
claim of the innite) in the sense that one is heterogeneous with the ethical.
This terrible exemption from the ethical can only be overcome through a proper
35
God-relationship. Climacus pinpoints the crucial disanalogy that distinguishes
Abrahams case. In temptation . . . Abraham was not heterogeneous with the ethical.
He was well able to fulll it but was prevented from it by something higher, which
36
by absolutely accentuating itself transformed the voice of duty into a temptation.
For other suspended persons the voice of duty is not the source of temptation, but
the source of dreadful anxiety.
In Fear and Trembling Silentio argues similarly that sin raises the individual
higher than the ethical standpoint because it is a contradiction on the part of the
universal to want to impose itself on someone who lacks the condition sine qua
37
non [the necessary condition]. One becomes an exception to the universal. If
sin-consciousness discloses ones ethical impotence (and in that sense suspends
the ethical), faith teleologically suspends the ethical in the sense that from a higher
standpoint it revokes the ethical standpoints insistence on self-sufciency. The
spiritual trial is the temptation to recoil from religious suffering and slip back into
the universal and the belief in ones self-sufciency with respect to the ethical
requirement. In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard does not intend to undermine
ethical striving, nor does he intend to supplant Kantian metaethics with divine
command metaethics. Rather, for Kierkegaard ethical striving is the precondition for
34
35
36
37
Ibid., 124.
Ibid., 267.
Fear and Trembling, 124.
340
a proper God-relationship, and in turn a proper God-relationship is the precondition

for ethical transformation.
Kierkegaard also exploits the Abraham story to introduce an invidious contrast
between the existential stance of ethical religion and the existential stance of faith.
He describes the former in the person of the knight of innite resignation. Ethical
religion requires resignation. In dedicating oneself to the universal and eternal,
one makes the move to innity and must be ready to renounce the object of ones
immediate, nite hopes and loves when the eternal requires it. In his ethical striving
the knight of innite resignation makes the move to the innite on his own strength
and rests in himself. His gliding, bold gait reects his condence in his ethical self38
sufciency and his self-possession. Hence, his bearing is readily recognizable.
Having resigned nitude, furthermore, the knight of innite resignation moves in
nitude awkwardly. He is alienated from nitude. The knight of innite resignation
has not annihilated himself, has not realized he is capable of nothing, and so he
does not realize that with God everything possible. He does not make the double
movement, does not enjoy a new immediacy, and is not hidden.
Kierkegaard labels the faithful individual the knight of faith. The knight of faith
has annihilated himself, realizes he is capable of nothing, and recognizes that with
God everything is possible. With this recognition the knight of faith makes the
double movement, enjoys a new immediacy, and is hidden. Kierkegaard presents
Abraham as the exemplar of faith. In consenting to sacrice Isaac, Abraham resigned
himself with respect to Isaac. He resigned his nite hopes and loves. Abraham,
however, recognized that with God everything is possible and absurdly had faith
that he would receive Isaac back. Because of this absurd faith, moreover, when he
did receive Isaac back, Abraham displayed no discomfort or awkwardness. He took
up with Isaac as if nothing had happened. Having made the move of resignation,
having renounced the nite, Abraham nevertheless remained completely at ease
in the nite. Abraham made the double movement and to the external observer his
behavior is indistinguishable from someone who has not even made the movement
to the ethical (in this peculiar case a madman or a murderer). If the ethical life
alienates one from nitude, higher forms of religious existence maintain the ethical
emphasisthough the Abraham story unfortunately obscures this aspect of religious
existencewhile restoring one to an immediate, harmonious relationship with
nitude, but a relationship properly grounded in God.
In addition to Abraham, Silentio describes one other knight of faith. This
second knight of faith, a contemporary Dane, confounds any interpretation of
Fear and Trembling that suggests that faith requires a collision with accepted
ethical standards. Silentios description also nicely highlights the lineaments of
Kierkegaards views in this period about religious existence. For these reasons I
will quote liberally from the passage:
38
Ibid., 67.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
341
He is solid through and through. His stance? Vigorous, it belongs altogether

to nitude, no smartly turned-out townsman taking a stroll out to Fresberg on
a Sunday afternoon treads the ground with surer foot; he belongs altogether
to the world, no petit bourgeois belongs to it more. One detects nothing of
the strangeness and superiority that mark the knight of the innite. This man
takes pleasure, takes part, in everything, and whenever one catches him occupied with something his engagement has the persistence of the worldly
person whose soul is wrapped up in such things. He minds his affairs. To
see him at them you would think he was some pen-pusher who had lost his
soul to Italian book-keeping, so attentive to detail is he. He takes a holiday
on Sundays. . . . He goes to church. . . . [H]is hearty, lusty psalm-singing
proves that he has a good set of lungs. In the afternoon he takes a walk in the
woods. He delights in everything he sees, in the thronging humanity, the new
omnibuses, the Soundto run across him on Strandveien you would think
he was a shopkeeper having his ing, such is his way of taking pleasure. . . .
Towards evening he goes home, his step tireless as a postmans. On the way
it occurs to him that his wife will surely have some special little warm dish
for his return, for example roast head of lamb with vegetables. If he were to
meet a kindred spirit, he would continue as far as Osterport so as to converse
with him about this dish with a passion betting a restaurateur. . . . [T]o see
him eat it would be a sight for superior people to envy and for plain folk
to be inspired by, for his appetite is greater than Esaus. . . . On the road he
passes a building-site and meets another man. They talk together for a moment, he has a building raised in a jiffy, having all thats needed for that. The
stranger leaves him thinking: That must have been a capitalist, while my
admirable knight thinks: Yes, if it came to that I could surely manage it.
He takes his ease at an open window and looks down on the square where he
lives, at everything that goes ona rat slipping under a board over the gutter,
the children at playwith the composure betting a sixteen-year-old girl. .
. . He smokes a pipe in the evening: to see him you would swear it was the
cheesemonger opposite vegetating in the dusk. Carefree as a devil-may-caregood-for-nothing, he hasnt a worry in the world, and yet he purchases every
moment that he lives, redeeming the seasonable time at the dearest price.
. . . He drains in innite resignation the deep sorrow of existence, he knows
the bliss of innity, he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, whatever
is most precious in the world, and yet to him nitude tastes just as good as
to one who has never known anything higher, for his remaining in the nite
bore no trace of a stunted, anxious training, and still he has this sense of being secure to take pleasure in it, as though it were the most certain thing of
all. . . . He resigned everything innitely, and then took everything back. . . .
He is continually making the movement of innity, but he makes it with such
accuracy and poise that he is continually getting nitude out of it, and not for
39
a second would one suspect anything else.
This extraordinary passage illustrates in lyrical prose and homey detail that the
religious individual is completely at ease in nitude. While the ethical life leaves
39
Ibid., 6870.
342
one at odds with nitude, religious life involves a double movement that brings
a new immediacy. On the basis of his God-relationship, the faithful individual
lives in harmony with nitude. His opposition to existence expresses itself every
40
instant as the most beautiful and safest harmony. Kierkegaard emphasizes the
pleasure of this new immediacy (despite the inward suffering denitive of the
religious life) and portrays the knight of faith as a consumer of nitude, enjoying
its taste. His existence is indistinguishable from the individual who never left
the rst immediacy. He resembles the wordly person, the person who has never
known anything higher than nitude. His hidden inwardness prevents, furthermore,
any sort of dramatic external conict with the established social, ecclesiastical and
political order. This knight of faith participates in the life of his church and could
be a capitalist, if it came to that.
Kierkegaard and the Double Danger

In the second period of his authorship, Kierkegaard paints a very different picture of
developed religious existence. Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author of Practice
in Christianity (1848) disparages the idea of hidden inwardness. He charges that
this ideal of indistinguishability between immediacy and Christian faith encourages
self-deception about having made the double movement when in fact one has made
neither movement. He insists that Christianity requires both renunciation of the
nite and persecution or martyrdom for ones commitment. Anti-Climacus replaces
the pleasure of the new immediacy with the suffering of martyrdom. There stands
Christianity with its requirements for self-denial: Deny yourselfand then suffer
41
because you deny yourself. Whereas for Climacus and Silentio religious suffering
is an entirely inward matter arising out of ones relationship to oneself and to God,
Anti-Climacus supplements this purely inward suffering with suffering that stems
from ones outward relationship to the established order. These two sources of
suffering constitute a double danger aficting the Christian.
Hidden inwardness eliminates the possibility of the dramatic conict with the
established order. It safeguards one against the danger of persecution. The next
danger, which appears through denying oneself and renouncing the things of
this world in earnest, according to Christianitys requirement, people have also
wanted to abolish by wanting to shift the Christian life into hidden inwardness, so
42
that concealed there, it would not be discernible in life. Christian commitment
cannot remain hidden because truly to be a Christian is to mean, in the world,
to human eyes, to be the abased one. . . . [I]t is to mean suffering every possible
43
evil, every mockery and insult, and nally to be punished as a criminal! The
40
Ibid., 78.
Sren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity (trans. Howard and Edna Hong; Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1991) 213.
42
Ibid., 253.
43
Ibid., 106.
41
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
343
whole of a human life on earth, Anti-Climacus claims, amounts to a test of ones

commitment to the absolute. The willingness to sacrice ones whole life expresses
ones dedication to the absolute. Anti-Climacuss view of the Christians bearing
in nitude more resembles the stunted anxious training that Silentio contrasts to
the new immediacy than it does the bearing of the knight of faith.
Anti-Climacus only relents from this uncompromisingly dour picture of
Christianity in a section entitled The Moral which appears at the end of the
rst part of Practice in Christianity. Here he acknowledges a less demanding,
but nevertheless legitimate, relationship to Christianity. If the individual will but
concede the pertinence of the Christian ideal and honestly admit to God his failure
with respect to that ideal, he can worthily accept Gods grace. Having humbled
himself before God, the individual can enjoy the delights of nitude.
And what does all this mean? It means that each individual in quiet inwardness before God is to humble himself under what it means in the strictest
sense to be a Christian, is to confess honestly before God where he is so that
he still might worthily accept the grace that is offered to every imperfect
personthat is, to everyone. And then nothing further; then, as for the rest,
let him do his work and rejoice in it, love his wife and rejoice in her, joyfully
44
bring up his children, love his fellow beings, rejoice in life.
Anti-Climacus tempers his severe account of Christian commitment by allowing for

an accommodation achieved through a humble confession of inadequacy. Although
the emphases of Practice in Christianity are very different from those of Fear and
Trembling, in this passage one nds a distinct echo of the new immediacy. The
individual must abandon prideful self-sufciency, humbly submit to God, and
passively defer to Gods action (grace). Then, and only then, can the individual
rightly enjoy the fruits of nitude. A preface preceding each of the three sections
of Practice in Christianity, signed by Kierkegaard, concurs on the importance of
the ideal Christian requirement, confession, and grace.
In his autobiographical On My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard asserts that
he intended Practice in Christianity as an attempt to nd, ideally, a basis for an
45
established order. In this context the established order means Christendom
for Kierkegaard. In a later essay composed to coincide with the publication of
Practice in Christianitys second edition (1855), Kierkegaard elaborates on his
original intentions.
My earlier thought was: if the established order can be defended, this is the
only way to do it: by poetically (therefore by a pseudonym) passing judgment
on it, by then drawing on grace in the second power, Christianity would become not only nding forgiveness for the past by grace, but by grace a kind
of indulgence from the actual imitation of Christ and the actual strenuousness
of being Christian. In this way truth still manages to come into the established
44
45
Ibid., 67.
Point of View, 18.
344
order; it defends itself by judging itself. . . . In my opinion this was the only
46
way Christianly to defend the established order.
By honestly facing up to its hypocrisy and self-deception concerning Christianity,

the established order could acquire legitimacy through Gods grace. In the same
way that an individual can humbly confess his or her inadequacy with respect to
the ideal Christian requirement, Kierkegaard hoped Bishop Mynster, Primate of
Denmark, would make the admission on behalf of Christendom. Ultimately, Mynster
disappointed Kierkegaard.
If there was power in him [the old bishop], he would have to do one of
two things: either decisively declare himself for the book, venture to go along
with it, let it be the defense that wards off what the book poetically contains,
the charge against the whole ofcial Christianity that it is an optical illusion
not worth a pickled herring, or as decisively as possible throw himself
against it, stamp it as a blasphemous and profane attempt, and declare the
ofcial Christianity to be the true Christianity. He did neither of the two, he
did nothing; he only wounded himself on the book; and to me it became clear
47
that he was powerless.
In Kierkegaards eyes Mynster proved incapable of either making the humble

admission and legitimating the established order through Gods grace, or challenging
Kierkegaards conception of the ideal Christian requirement. By 1854 Kierkegaard
began publicly derogating the now deceased bishops character as weak and
worldly.
When Kierkegaard published the second edition of Practice in Christianity
in 1855, he decided to revoke the more lenient version of Christianity. Likewise,
he foreclosed the possibility of legitimacy for the established order. Although
he republished Practice in Christianity in the same form as the rst edition, he
announced that if he were at that time publishing it for the rst time, he would
publish it under his own name and without the mitigating The Moral and prefaces.
Now, however, I have completely made up my mind on two things: both that the
established order is Christianly indefensible, that every day it lasts it is Christianly
a crime; and that in this way one does not have the right to draw on grace. Having
removed the prefaces and The Moral, Practice in Christianity is, Christianly,
48
an attack upon the established order. Reconceiving Practice in Christianity, he
enlisted it in what by now had become an unrestrained war with Christendom. At this
late moment in Kierkegaards life, he urged a boycott of the established church and
worked for its dissolution. By removing the prefaces and The Moral, moreover,
46
Sren Kierkegaard, The Moment and Late Writings (ed. and trans. Howard and Edna Hong;
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998) 69.
47
Ibid., 6970.
48
Ibid., 70.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
345
all traces of the new immediacy disappear from Kierkegaards conception of

49
Christianity. Christianity becomes unremitting heterogeneity with nitude.
Kierkegaard, Rebounding Violence, and Theories of the Body

and Society
Blochs theory claries the relationship between Kierkegaards attacks on the
established order and the eclipse of the new immediacy in his later work. While
it is no doubt true that the change in Kierkegaards attitude with respect to
Christendom would naturally lead one to expect that he would come to believe
that the religious individual could not live harmoniously in the established order,
Blochs theory creates a frame that marshals the details of Kierkegaards views in
an illuminating way.
Throughout his authorship Kierkegaard questioned the legitimacy of the
established order. The discounting of Christianity in Christendom threatened, to his
mind, the very basis for the established order. In the rst period of his authorship,
Kierkegaard attempted renewal of the established order. As late as 1850, he writes
retrospectively in On My Work as an Author that,
With regard to an established order, I have consistently. . .always done the
very opposite of attacking. I have never been or been along with the opposition that wants to do away with government but have always provided
what is called a corrective, which for Gods sake wishes that there might be
governing by those who are ofcially appointed and called, that fearing God
50
they might stand rm, willing only one thingthe good.
This passage continues with his claim I cited previously that Practice in Christianity
is an attempt to nd, ideally, a basis for an established order. The established
order requires a legitimating corrective, Kierkegaard explains, because it has
forsaken the unconditional in favor of secular sagacity. In a passage deleted
from the nal draft, Kierkegaard elaborates:
What it means to govern, to rule, to be a teacher in obedience to God, in fear
and trembling before the responsibility of eternity, is more or less forgotten,
and instead governing is done more or less in the fear of people and with
secular sagacity. . . . It is more or less forgotten that all governing, especially
in the ecclesiastical sphere, is from God, that to govern is to be obedient to
God, and not a matter of summarily identifying with being a public ofcial,
and perhaps, as such immediately tyrannizing if one sees ones chance, or, if
the wind turns, haggling and bargaining and pretending to be sagaciousthis
is more or less forgotten, and therefore we more and more miss out on what is
49
In a late unpublished draft of an article for The Moment, Kierkegaard again takes going to the
amusement park as his example, but now begins with the assumption that God wills that humans
not go to the amusement park, reversing Climacuss primary example of the new immediacy (The
Moment and Late Writings, 348).
50
Point of View, 18.
346
still the greatest blessing for us human beings: a God-fearing government that
51
by fearing God is sufciently strong and powerful not to fear people.
To govern without relating oneself to that which stands unconditionally rm is

like sailing without ballast or sewing without fastening the end of ones thread.
Kierkegaards corrective consists in the reminder that each and every individual
must personally relate himself to the unconditional, or, in other words, the
52
reintroduction of Christianity into Christendom.
In his own terms, Kierkegaard sought in this first period to reintroduce
Christianity into Christendom. In Blochs terms, he sought to relegitimate existing
social and political institutions through the idiom of rebounding violence. If the
mechanism of rebounding violence serves to legitimate the sociopolitical order,
the failure of Christendom to require even the rst violence imperils the legitimacy
of the established order. The glib, ersatz Christianity of Christendom obviates
submission to the transcendental, thereby thwarting rebounding violence before it
even begins. The established order loses its grounding in something that transcends
the haggling and bargaining and pretending to be sagacious of transient mortals.
Kierkegaards works in this earlier period aim to renovate the foundation of
rebounding violence that grounds the established order.
Kierkegaard conceived of persons as, in Blochs language, dichotemised
between a superior transcendental moral element and a chaotic mundane,
temporal element. A self, Kierkegaard explains, consists of the eternal and the nite
53
in tension with one another. He terms human existence a prodigious contradiction.
A self must synthesize these opposed elements by enacting eternal ethical values in
temporal existence. It must bring order to transitory impulses and inclinations by
subordinating them to the eternal law. Throughout his corpus Kierkegaard gures
the process of forging a self in terms appropriate to the rst stage of rebounding
violence. Bloch points out that rebounding violence begins with an inversion of
the basic conception of lifes biological processes: Weakening and death leads
to successful existence. This successful existence, moreover, consists in joining
something permanent, something life-transcending. In the rst stage of rebounding
violence one willingly surrenders ones vitality to conquest by the transcendental.
Exemplifying the pattern, Kierkegaard describes successful existence as requiring
a voluntary death. To achieve genuine selfhood one must die to immediacy and
resign oneself to the nite. Ultimately, this project requires self-annihilation.
Kierkegaard describes the annihilated self in terms that suggest conquest by
the transcendental. He employs the language of spirit possession: The absolute
consumes the individual; it holds the individual captive; it makes the individual
ill. The consequence of annihilation, moreover, is the achievement of a kind of
life-transcending permanence: eternal life.
51
52
53
Ibid., 26869.
Ibid., 20.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
347
Bloch argues, of course, that a second stage of rebounding violence is necessary

if the rst violence is to have any signicance for legitimating sociopolitical life.
The transcendentalized must appropriate new vitality. Bloch generally emphasizes
the language, symbolism, and actuality of violent conquest, but, as he makes clear,
the consumption of animals and the taking of women in marriage can also gure
the second, rebounding movement. In fact, the symbolism of incorporation, often
literally through the mouth, is most essential to convey the appropriation of new
54
vitality. The transcendentalized person feeds on vitality, but, crucially, does not
revert to his or her erstwhile chaotic condition. He or she masters the temporal. This
description applies remarkably well to Silentios description of the contemporary
knight of faith. The knight of faith has annihilated himself and has been consumed
by the absolute. With respect to existence in nitude, however, this knight of faith
is, in Blochs words, a changed person, a permanently transcendental person who
55
can therefore dominate the here and now. The knight of faith enacts a form of
rebounding violence, or, more precisely perhaps (because unlike Abraham he is
not especially violent), he enacts a rebounding consumption. He consumes nitude
and savors its taste. He takes pleasure in existence and with hearty appetite
relishes his roast head of lamb. His stance is vigorous and his existence in nitude
displays no awkwardness. Elsewhere (and in his own life) Kierkegaard associates
56
marriage with faith.
The new immediacy that Kierkegaard describes in this period serves as an
instance of rebounding violence. In the rst violence the absolute conquers an
individual. In the new immediacy the conquered individual dominates nitude.
This double movement serves as Kierkegaards call for a sociopolitical order
grounded in eternal authority, which transcends temporal relativities. In this rst
period of his authorship, Kierkegaard exploits the idiom of rebounding violence
in his campaign to relegitimize the established order.
Because Christendom doesnt require true submission to God, Kierkegaard
emphasizes the extraordinary demands Christianity makes on the individual. As
his frustration with the established order intensies, suffering comes to gure
more and more prominently in his discussions of Christianity. In Concluding
Unscientic Postscript, he insists that suffering is denitive of religious existence.
His emphasis on suffering and the extraordinary demands of Christianity become
even more extreme in the rst edition of Practice in Christianity. Conversely,
only a faint echo of the new immediacy appears in the rst edition of Practice in
Christianity, as Kierkegaard relegates it to a few marginal mentions. Over time
the emphasis in Kierkegaards writings on the rst violence grows at the expense
of the rebounding violence.
54

Ibid., 5.
56
Kierkegaard famously writes in his journal that if he had truly had faith he could have married
his beloved Regina.
55
348
Kierkegaards journals reveal that the tumultuous events of 1848 mark a decisive
turning point in his attitude toward Christendom. The comportment of the authorities
throughout Europe during these upheavals and the ridicule Kierkegaard personally
endured for his authorship convinced Kierkegaard he could no longer work to
renew the established order.
Then I was horried to see what was understood by a Christian state (this
I saw especially in 1848); I saw how the ones who were supposed to rule,
both in Church and state, hid themselves like cowards while barbarism boldly
and brazenly raged; and I experienced how a truly unselsh and God-fearing endeavor (and my endeavor as an author was that) is rewarded in the
57
Christian state. . . . But if what one sees all over Europe is Christendom, a
Christian state, then I propose to start here in Denmark to list the price for
being a Christian in such a way that the whole conceptstate Church, ofcial
58
appointments, livelihoodbursts open.
If 1848 represents the turning point in Kierkegaards thought, the transition took
years to complete. Despite this resolution to explode the ecclesiastical established
order, Kierkegaard continued (in the equivocal guise of a defense of the established
order) to solicit Bishop Mynsters humble confession of the established churchs
failure to live up to the requirements of ideality. Only after Mynsters death in 1854
did Kierkegaard begin his unrestrained attacks upon Christendom.
In the rst period of Kierkegaards authorship, the new immediacy represents
a form of rebounding violence that invests the established order with transcendent
authority. As Kierkegaard came to want to withhold transcendent authority from
an established order he now viewed as unredeemable, as he came to want to destroy rather than relegitimize the established order, the new immediacy drops out
of Kierkegaards thought altogether. In this later period Kierkegaards thought
structurally resembles millenarianism as Bloch analyzes it. Like a millenarian,
Kierkegaard became disillusioned with the political and religious leadership,
which he felt abandoned the transcendental righteousness in the service of which
he wrote. In Kierkegaards eyes, not only did the political leaders in 1848 fear
people and not God, Bishop Mynster continually failed to ground the church in
the unconditional. As Kierkegaard saw it, Mynsters accommodating cultural
59
Christianity distilled Christianity out of the country. Despite personal affection
for him and respect for him as his fathers pastor, Kierkegaard viewed the bishops
ofcial conduct as craven and pandering. Mynster, he concluded, was a false
57
In all likelihood this allusion refers to the Corsair affair in 1846, in which Kierkegaard
provoked a Danish periodical to satirize him repeatedly. Kierkegaard himself recognized how this
episode contributed to the eclipse of the new immediacy in his later thought. If I had not taken this
action [against the Corsair], I would have escaped completely the double-danger connected with the
essentially Christian, I would have gone on thinking of the difculties involved with Christianity
as being purely interior to the self (The Moment and Late Writings, xvxvi).
58
The Moment and Late Writings, 402.
59
Ibid., 396.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
349
bill of exchange, whose proclamation of Christianity and Church leadership

60
. . . were high treason against Christianity. At this point when Kierkegaard had
come to see Christendom as Christianly a crime, he refuses to sanction even the
most attenuated echo of the new immediacy, and the nal vestiges of rebounding
violence disappear from Kierkegaards thought. Christianity becomes essentially
otherworldly; it becomes ight to the transcendental with no intended reimmersion
in the rhythms of the world.
The eclipse of the new immediacy in Kierkegaards later thought represents
a constituent part of his attack on the established order. At the end of his life,
Kierkegaard, in Bruce Kirmmses words:
called for nothing less than the total dismantling of the traditional aristocratic-conservative synthesis known as Christendom or Christian
culture, which was the time-honored and comfortable marriage of the
horizontal element of traditional society and the vertical element of
religious transcendence, a synthesis in which religion had served as
the guarantor of social stability, moral values, and personal signi61
cance.
In this last period Kierkegaard exploited the idiom of rebounding violence to
divest the horizontal element of its vertical guarantor. According to the
logic of rebounding violence, for the transcendentalized to refuse vitality and the
domination of nitude represents a protest against social and political institutions,
a subversive denial of their legitimacy. By eliminating the new immediacy and
portraying true Christianity as heterogeneity with nitude, Kierkegaard works
to subvert the established order. He seeks to sever the perceived bonds between
transcendental authority and the existing social and political structures. Applying
Blochs thesis to Kierkegaards corpus highlights how the eclipse of the new
immediacy in Kierkegaards later writingsthe double danger coming to replace
the double movement, so to speakis not incidental, but integral to the evolution
of Kierkegaards sociopolitical polemic.
Kirmmses Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark has done much to dispel the
received image of Kierkegaard as an apolitical thinker. By contrast Richard Rortys
repeated offhand juxtaposition of Kierkegaard, whom he views as an apostle of
private inwardness and self-perfection, with thinkers like Mill or Rawls, who
advance public projects, perpetuates the image.62 While Kierkegaard did, of course,
promote inwardness and self-perfection, he consistently viewed these pursuits as
foundational for public affairs. The theory of rebounding violence helps to reveal
the extent to which and the mechanisms by which Kierkegaards call for personal
60
Ibid., 8, 14.
Bruce Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University
Press, 1990) 3.
62
See for example, Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989) xiv.
61
350
edication underwrote a public project. By identifying some of the less obvious

relationships between religious and political authority, relationships present in
theology as well as in ritual, Blochs theory demonstrates its usefulness in the study
of modern texts, like those of Kierkegaard.
If the application of Blochs theory to Kierkegaards corpus highlights signicant
but easily overlooked themes in Kierkegaards thought, it also, conversely,
challenges Blochs rendering of his own theory. Bloch positions his theory as
an alternative to those of Girard and Burkert, both of whom develop theories of
religion and violence. Blochs choice of the appellation rebounding violence
is not adventitious. He believes that violence is intrinsic to the process he has
identied, especially to the second, rebounding moment. The reason he provides
to explain why violence is necessary to the rebounding moment is not, however,
something on which he elaborates, nor is it, on the face of it, terribly convincing.
He argues only that the rebounding moment needs to be violent, otherwise the
63
subordination of vitality would not be demonstrated. On the strength of this
dubious claim, Bloch believes that violence against external vitality is inherent to
the process, and therefore that the potential for military aggression is implicit in
the ritual symbolism, and that only a peoples perception of their tactical weakness
vis--vis their neighbors prevents the development of the symbolism in a way
that legitimates militarism. Because Bloch believes the potential for militarism is
intrinsic to the process by which humans legitimize their social and political orders,
he ends Prey into Hunter on a distinctively troubled, albeit hopeful, note. Bloch
hopes we can critique ourselves and devise an alternative solution to the human
politico-social predicament, a solution that does not intrinsically offer a toe-hold
64
to the legitimation of domination and violence. We must forestall the despairing
conclusion that violence is inescapable.
Despite Blochs characterization of his theory as a theory of religion and violence,
its not clear from Blochs own presentation that violence, rather than consumption,
is the crucial notion at work. Bloch uses the idioms of violence, conquest, and
consumption alternatively throughout Prey into Hunter. By applying Blochs
theory to Kierkegaards thought, it becomes clear that the theory is best conceived,
Blochs protestations notwithstanding, as a theory of rebounding consumption, not
primarily or in the rst instance as a theory of rebounding violence. Kierkegaards
bourgeois knight of faith is a consumer of nitude, but is not in any obvious or direct
way violent. Attending to the bourgeois knight of faith removes the ambiguity in
Blochs account and attests that the theorys central motif is the consumption of
vitality, not violence. Blochs emphasis on the universal awareness of the biological
transformative dialectic afrms that the operative concepts are vitality and
63
64

Ibid., 105.
MATTHEW C. BAGGER
351
consumption. Human cognizance of the pattern of growth and death, he claims, is

65
predicated on the knowledge that one species provides food for another.
The biological connection, furthermore, between consumption and vitality
makes consumption a more plausible source of quasi-universal meanings than
violence, which lies in the eye of the beholder and which carries different meanings
in different cultures. Insofar as killing is the frequent or usual concommitant of
the consumption of vitality (i.e., the hunting or slaughter of animals), violence
can become a secondary association of the process, but consumption is primary.
Consumption need not necessarily be violent, and even when it involves killing, it
need not signify violence. Even sacrice, which might seem inherently concerned
with violence, bears out this observation. That sacrice entails the killing and
dismembering of an animal prior to its consumption does not necessarily mean
either that sacrice signies violence for those participating in it, or that it is best
66
theorized employing violence as a second order explanatory concept. Whether
rebounding consumption evokes militarism and violence as secondary associations
in a given context will depend on how militaristic the culture is, whether in that
culture there are inferential links between vitality and violence or aggression, and
so on. To recognize that consumption, and not violence, is the key to Blochs theory,
alleviates the melancholy shrouding the text because it disrupts the purported
intrinsic relationship between politico-social legitimation and the potential for
militarism. Rebounding consumption does not intrinsically offer a toe-hold to the
legitimation of domination and violence.
To see Blochs theory exemplied in Kierkegaards bourgeois consumer invites a
comparison of Blochs theory with Thorstein Veblens famous theory of the leisure
class.67 Veblen works within the same constellation of concepts as Bloch. Not
unlike Bloch, who puts ritual and conquest in a causal relationship, Veblen explains
devout observances in terms of what he calls a predatory habit of mind. Veblens
claim, moreover, that success in exploit serves as a sign of prepotence bears a
casual resemblance to Blochs ideas about conquest and vitality. Most evocatively,
Veblen ultimately traces bourgeois consumption to the predatory habit of life.
These similarities are admittedly supercial (and so do not necessitate extensive
exposition of Veblens ideas), but invoking Veblens theory in this context is useful
if only because of the signicant difference in the conceptions of consumption
at work in the two theories. The divergence from Veblens idea of consumption
accents the conception of consumption operative in Blochs theory and suggests a
frame of reference that relates the theory to a rich vein of anthropological theory.
Veblens is an economic notion of consumption far removed from its root metaphor
of incorporation. By contrast, the emphasis on consumption as vivication in
Blochs theory cleaves closely to the root idea of the incorporation of food. The
65
Ibid., 4.
Stanley Stowers has argued this point forcefully in personal conversations with me.
67
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Penguin Classics, 1994).
66
352
ingestion of comestibles keeps the body alive. The more literal conception of
consumption reveals that Blochs theory is best classed with those other theories
that posit a relationship between the physical body and the social body, and that
purport to show how body work does politico-social work. Blochs theory may
prove instructive about violence in some cultural circumstances, but its more
fundamental contribution lies in its exploration of the ways that an ideology of the
body can legitimize institutional arrangements.
Studies of this latter sort, however, often bear the legacy of functionalism and
have a tendency to overlook the extent to which individuals or factions within a
social group strategically deploy an ideology of the body. These studies sometimes
portray the production of such an ideology as a faceless social process operating
entirely behind the backs of the individual agents involved. To apply a theory like
the theory of rebounding consumption to the texts of a specic modern gure
from a literate culture can help correct these distortions. In Kierkegaards case
the theorist is observing neither a public ritual, nor a large-scale politico-social
protest movement. Additionally, the theorist has access to a wealth of literary
source material, including Kierkegaards own journals and testimonies from his
contemporaries, both of which evidence his alienation from the environing politicosocial institutions and the idiosyncratic quality of his protest. With this material
it is impossible to overlook the particularity of Kierkegaards attitudes. These
sources, moreover, amply display the self-consciousness with which Kierkegaard
deploys an ideology of rebounding consumption in the service of a politico-social
polemic. The fact that nearly ubiquitous religious conceptions (i.e., belief in some
species of anthropomorphized being superintending human affairs), in conjunction
with virtually unavoidable beliefs about human life, produce a quasi-universal
ideological pattern should not blinker us to the self-conscious deployment of the
ideology by individuals and groups. It is tting that Kierkegaard, the indefatigable
proponent of the single individual, should safeguard the importance of individual
agency in social theory. Kierkegaards exploitation of the logic of rebounding
consumption should remind us that the rst recourse in explaining ideology should
be the agendas, beliefs, and strategies of individuals.
Aquilas Bible Translation in Late

Antiquity: Jewish and Christian
Perspectives*
Jenny R. Labendz
Jewish Theological Seminary, New York
In the early or mid-second century C.E., a Jewish proselyte named Aquila1 translated
the Hebrew Bible into Greek.2 The translation survives today only in fragments, but
both Jewish and Christian sources from Late Antiquity offer perspectives on and
information about Aquila as well as citations of his translation. To fully understand
the role his legacy played in Jewish and Christian communities requires careful
analysis of each of the sources. I believe that prior scholarship, especially regarding
ancient perspectives on Aquila and his translation, as well as the popularity of
his translation in various communities, has drawn conclusions based on overall
impressions of texts that may appear quite differently when examined closely and in
context. My goal in the following pages is to develop a more nuanced understanding
of the history of Aquilas Bible translation in Late Antiquity.
The Rabbinic Sources

The only ancient Jewish sources that mention Aquila or use his translation are
rabbinic, dating from the early-third to fth centuries, though of course, these
sources do not represent the full extent of Late Antique Jews and Judaism in
*
I am grateful as always to Dr. Richard Kalmin for his invaluable guidance on this paper. I also
wish to thank Drs. Burt Visotzky and Robert A. Kraft, whose comments on my drafts were extremely
helpful, as well as Dr. Eleanor Dickey, Kevin P. Edgecomb, Justin Dumbrowsky, and Adam Parker
for their help particularly with the patristics and with Greek. Any mistakes are of course my own.
1
Greek: %OYZPEb; Hebrew: WP]U?. The English usage Aquila corresponds to the Latin.
2
For bibliography on this subject, see Giuseppe Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and Canonic
Texts: The Septuagint, Aquila and Ben Sira in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (Leiden: Brill,
2006) 164 n. 42.
HTR 102:3 (2009) 35388
354
Palestine or elsewhere. I shall show that the rabbinic literature gives quite a different
picture than the one that emerges from the early Christian writers portrayals of the
reception of Aquilas translation among the Jews. Since these two groups of texts
have often been indiscriminately grouped together when discussing Aquila, it is
worth reevaluating what each has to say on its own terms.
Before proceeding to the texts, a note on Aquila and Onkelos is in order. Owing
in large part to A. E. Silverstones 1931 study, Aquila and Onkelos,3 scholars have
long accepted the notion that Aquila is identical to Onkelos, a character mentioned
numerous times in the Tosefta and to whom the Aramaic Bible translation is
attributed in the Babylonian Talmud. However, there is no basis for this claim.
As early as 1937, Leon Leibrich published a review of Silverstones book that
pointed to aws in his logic, textual analysis, and assumptions, as well as to blatant
inaccuracies in the work.4 Based on Leibrichs review and other points that space
does not permit me to delineate here, it is clear to me that Onkelos bears no relation
to Aquila.
In addition to excluding from my discussion traditions about Onkelos, I have
also chosen to focus only on classical rabbinic texts, that is, those produced
before the sixth century.5 This includes the Palestinian Talmud (henceforth, the
Yerushalmi, redacted between the late-fourth and early-fth centuries) and the
classical midrashim: Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Eichah Rabbah
(redacted circa the fth century in Palestine).6 There is no mention of Aquila in
the Babylonian Talmud (redacted during the sixth century).7 I exclude the later
Palestinian texts because I am interested specically in the centuries closest to
the time of Aquilas life and in the rst stagesnot the later developmentof his
appearance in rabbinic literature. While rabbinic texts both before and after the sixth
century contain sources that originate in the early rabbinic period, from the sixth
century onwards rabbinic editors begin to rework their sources more thoroughly
and more heavy-handedly than they had previously. Since the nature of the sources
3
Alec Eli Silverstone, Aquila and Onkelos (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931). But
as Leon Leibrich points out in his review of Aquila and Onkelos (JQR 27 [1937] 28791), Silverstone
was not by any means the rst to discuss the relationship between Aquila and Onkelos.
4
See previous note. Moreover, already in the sixteenth century, the Italian scholar Azariah de
Rossi set out to clear up this confusion and prove that the two were not the same. Sefer meor
eynayim (ed. David Cassel; Vilna: 1866) 38393 (-Imre vinah, ch. 45); English translation in The
Light of the Eyes: Azariah de Rossi (ed. Joanna Weinberg; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 2001) 57185.
5
This excludes a number of traditions about Aquila, most notably a lengthy story in Tanuma
Mishpatim 5 (Buber edition, Mishpatim 3). For a discussion of this text, see Veltri, Libraries,
Translations, and Canonic Texts, 17072. See ibid., ch. 3, for other later rabbinic sources, as well
as Hermann L. Strack and Gnter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1996) for the dating and summary of scholarship about each book.
6
See Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 16489, 27690.
7
See ibid., 19497.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
355
shifts in this way, I shall attempt to answer the questions at hand by sticking closely
to the earlier corpora of rabbinic literature.
We can divide the rabbinic texts about Aquila into two groups: narratives about
Aquilas activities, and reports of his translations of specic biblical words or
phrases. These texts can answer two questions: 1) to what extent Aquilas translation
was popular among the rabbis; and 2) what role Aquila himself is portrayed
as having played within rabbinic society. The answers that will emerge from the
rabbinic texts are: 1) Aquilas translation was popular insofar as he provided some
helpful explanations of difcult biblical words or phrases; and 2) his role within
rabbinic society is portrayed as having been ambiguous.
On the other hand, the rabbinic sources will not show that Aquilas translation
came from rabbinic circles, or that the rabbis used it in general as a Bible version
they appreciated and adopted as their own, or that Aquilas translation had any
ideological signicance for the rabbis. While a number of early Christian writers
refer to Aquilas translation as the favorite of the Jews, the rabbinic sources
suggest that the situation was much more nuanced. Moreover, although a number
of Christian writers related to Aquilas translation on ideological grounds, Aquilas
ideology was not at stake for the rabbis.
The Narrative Texts: Portrayals of Aquilas Place in

Rabbinic Society
Genesis Rabbah8 70:5
Aquila the proselyte approached R. Eliezer.
He (Aquila) said to him: Is this the entirety of a proselytes gain: [God]
loves the proselyte,9 providing him bread and raiment (Deut 10:18)?
He (R. Eliezer) said: Is a matter about which the patriarch (Jacob) begged
unimportant in your eyes? And [if God] will give me bread to eat [and
clothing to wear] (Gen 28:20). And this one (i.e., the proselyte) comes and
[God] hands it to him with a reed (i.e., simply pronouncing it the reward of
the proselyte in Deut 10:18)!
He approached R. Joshua, who began comforting him with words: Bread
refers to the Torah, as it is said, Go and eat of my bread (Prov 9:5);
clothing refers to talit.10 When a person obtains Torah, he obtains it for
8
The amoraic midrash on Genesis. See Midrash Bereshit Rabba (ed. J. Theodor and Chanoch
Albeck; 3 vols.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965; repr., Jerusalem: Shalem, 1996) for introduction and
critical edition. I cite the text according to MS Vat. Ebr. 30.
9
In the Bible the word VK means stranger, sojourner (See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and
Charles Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament [Oxford: Clarendon, 1951] 158
s.v. VK). However, in rabbinic parlance it almost always means proselyte, and that is the sense in
which Aquila uses it here.
10
Marcus Jastrow denes talit as follows: Tallith, the cloak of honor, the scholars or ofcers
distinction. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic
356
his children;11 and further, that persons daughters may marry priests, and
their childrens children sacrice burnt offerings upon the altar.12
In this story, Aquila approaches two sages with a complaint about the rewards
of conversion to Judaism. R. Eliezer responds harshly while R. Joshua responds
reassuringly. For our purposes, two points are worth considering, both relating to
the portrayal of Aquilas place within rabbinic society.
First, the text portrays Aquila as having had sufcient access to the sagesor at
least to these sagesas to engage two prominent gures in conversation. However,
we should not overstate this; it does not necessarily portray him as a disciple of
these two sages, and even if it did, we should not assume this reects an historical
reality. Classical rabbinic texts portray many types of people as asking questions
of rabbis, and we cannot assume a master-disciple relationship in every instance.
Below we will discuss a text depicting the emperor Hadrian asking Aquila a question
about Judaism, and we certainly would not therefore conclude that Hadrian was
Aquilas disciple.13
The second noteworthy point is that this story depicts Aquila expressing a
measure of insecurity. He is disturbed that the only reward the Bible mentions for
a proselyte is nancial, and he is unimpressed. While the sages defend the status
of proselytes, the story portrays Aquila as expressing concern about the implied
worth (or lack thereof) of his status as a convert. Both sages hold that the rewards
of conversion to Judaism are indeed great, but the text uses Aquila as a foil for the
opposite position. The authors choice of Aquila for this role may reect a perception
Literature (New York: Judaica Press, 1971; repr., New York: Judaica Press, 1996) 537 s.v. X]PJ.
See also the comment of Chanoch Albeck, Bereshit Rabba 2:802, who notes the tannaitic midrash
Sifre Devarim 343, which says: U[pFXT]J?FO[P]LFL]V[F]HF]VO]R]QON]H]QPX (Scholars are
recognized by their utterances, and by their [manner of] walking, [and] by their wrapping themselves
[in a tallit] in the market) (Hebrew text from M. Kahana, Qetae midrashe halakhah min ha-genizah
[Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005] 320).
11
Thus MS Vat. Ebr. 30, the best manuscript for Genesis Rabbah. A marginal note there and the
main text of several other manuscripts reads he obtains the mitzvot (commandments). See Theodor
and Albeck, Midrash bereshit rabba, 802.
12
NP[PXXPVKFL[E[ "VQERpVKPp[NFpPO]VL:[PVQE.V^?]P'VP\EWRORVKLWP]U?
?(L]:]]VFH)"LPQp[
[PLJ]p[L[L^EF['[K["POEPNP]PXR["?U^L[]P?JFNXRpVFH]R]?FE]LLPU]O[:VQE
!LRUF
]PpQ)"]QNPF[QNP[OP"VQERpLV[XL[^"NP":]VFHF[QNRQP]NXL[?p[L]'VP\EWROR
LR[LOPL]X[RFQ]E]pQLpEPEH[?EP[,[]RFPLO^LV[XPHELO^.X]PJL^"LPQp",(L:J
.NF^QL]FKP?X[P[?]F]VUQL]X[RF]RF[]L[
All translations not otherwise marked are my own.
13
Similarly, in many rabbinic texts the Roman emperor Antoninus is portrayed asking questions
of Rabbi Judah the Prince, among the most prominent sages of his day, and there are even several
texts suggesting that Antoninus converted to Judaism. But we would certainly not conclude therefore
that Antoninus was a disciple of the Jewish sages, much less a sage himself. See Ofrah Meir, Haterumah ha-historit shel aggadot azal le-or aggadot Rabbi ve-Antoninus, Maanayyim @7 (1994)
825, and Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Conversion of Antoninus, in The Talmud Yerushalmi and
Graeco-Roman Culture (ed. Peter Schfer; 3 vols.; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 1:14171.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
357
that his place within the rabbinic fold was unclear, whether on the basis of being
a convert or on some other unstated basis.
Thus this text, on the one hand, portrays Aquila as asking questions of the sages
and expressing a yearning to be a valued member of Jewish society on the basis of
rabbinic values. Indeed, he converses with prominent sages. On the other hand, we
cannot say with condence that the rabbis considered Aquila to have been a sage
or disciple. In the following text, we nd a similar ambiguity.
Yerushalmi Hagigah 2:1, 77a14
R. Yudah bar Pazi [said] in the name of R. Yosse son of R. Yudah: Hadrian
asked Aquila the proselyte:
Is it true that you (plural)15 say that the world is sustained by wind?
He said to him: Yes.
He (Hadrian) said to him: Based on what do you say this?
He (Aquila) said to him: Bring me camels.
He brought him camels.
He (Aquila) loaded the camels with burdens, stood them up and made them
kneel, took them and strangled them. He (Aquila) said to him (Hadrian):
Here you go; stand them up.
He (Hadrian) said to him: After you strangled them?!
He said to him: I have taken nothing from them; is it not (merely) wind that
I took from them?16
The rst thing to note17 is that there are numerous similar stories in rabbinic
literature, involving prominent Greeks, Romans, and Persians (including emperors)
conversing or interacting with rabbis.18 Hadrian himself appears in the classical
14
Tanhuma Bereshit 5 provides a later parallel which is clearly reworked and eshed out (and
translated into Hebrew).
15
Hadrian does not specify the particular group to which he perceives Aquila belonging. While
theoretically there are a variety of options (e.g., Jewish or Christian Bible readers, thinkers from
the Roman East, philosophers, etc.), given the context, it is most likely that the author intended
Jews, and possibly rabbis.
16
17
VKLWP]U?PPEpW[R]]VHELH[]]FV]F]W[]]FVpF]^TVFLH[]]FV
?EN[VP?]]UEQP?]LH]VQE[XE]Jp[U
.]EL]PVQE
?]P?H[QXELQL]PVQE
.]RK[L]P]X]]EL]PVQE
.[Q]UEPELL]PVQE.[URN[[XWR.[?FVE[[Q]UE.[L]R[?J[R[R[?JE.]RK[LL]P]X]]E
!?[XURNHQL]PVQE
?[LR]QXUTRHE]LEN[VEP[RXVWN[POL]PVQE
As Veltri also does (Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 173).

For a discussion of this phenomenon in general and numerous examples, see Moshe David
Herr, The Historical Signicance of the Dialogues between Jewish Sages and Roman Dignitaries,
in Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature (ed. Joseph Heinemann and Dov Noy; Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1971) 12350.
18
358
midrashim asking R. Joshua b. Hananiahthe same R. Joshua with whom Aquila

is associatedsimilar questions to the one posed to Aquila.19 Therefore, there is
little about Aquila specically, or the rabbinic perception of Aquila, that we can
derive from this story.
What we can conclude is that Aquila is portrayed as an insider among the
Jews; if there is an us and them relationship between Jews and Romans, the
text portrays Aquila squarely on the Jewish side (Is it true that you (plural) say
. . .). But again, we should not overstate the matter; not only do important sages
like R. Joshua converse with non-Jews, but sometimes a person who specically
lacks prominence is chosen to speak with an emperor.20 Therefore, as above, we
see that while Aquila is remembered as a Jew, there is no indication that he is a
prominent gure or a learned disciple of any sort. This remains a possibility, of
course, but there is no evidence for that conclusion from the narratives involving
Aquila that we have seen.
Yerushalmi Megillah 1:8, 71ab
The next narrative text is the one most commonly cited in the scholarly literature
about Aquila, as it refers explicitly to his translation of the Bible.
It is taught (in the Mishnah): Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says:
Scripture was only permitted to be written in Greek (or Hebrew).
They investigated and found that the Torah is able to be sufciently
translated only into Greek.
A barbarian (or watchman) took out for them the Latin from the Greek.21
(Said) R. Yirmiyah (early-fourth century) in the name of R. Hiyya bar Ba
(late-third century): Aquila the proselyte translated the Torah22 before R.
19
Gen. Rab. 10:3, 78:1, Lev. Rab. 18:1, Lam. Rab. (Buber) 3.
See the story of Gaviha ben Pasisa approaching Alexander the Great: Megilat Taanit, 25
Sivan (Vered Noam, Megilat Taanit: Ha-nusaim, pesharam, toldotehem [Jerusalem: Yad BenZvi, 2003] 19899), b. Sanh. 91a, and Gen. Rab. 61:7.
21
On this translation see Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Feldheim, 1965;
repr., New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1994) 17. Took out implies that he rendered it. As
for the Latin, Lieberman takes this to be the denitive translation of X]QVE, which usually means
Aramaic, based on a parallel text in the later Midrash Esther. While emending the Yerushalmi
based on a later parallel should be done only with great caution, in this case the context indicates
Latin (]Q[V[pP) and Aramaic makes little sense. Lieberman takes this to refer to the Vetus Latina.
Even if Liebermans reading is potentially questionable, I follow it here since it makes sense, and
since the meaning of this line has no bearing on my arguments below.
22
Strictly speaking this could mean either Scripture in its entirety, or the Pentateuch. We should
not rule out the latter possibility merely because the Talmud cites Aquilas translations from the
Prophets and Writings as well as the Pentateuch, since this tradition only describes what he translated
before these two sages, not necessarily the entirety of his translation.
20
JENNY R. LABENDZ
359
Eliezer and R. Joshua, and they praised him, saying to him You are fairer23
than the children of men (Ps 45:3).24
Scholars have drawn various conclusions from this text about Aquilas relationship
to these two sages, about his translations general acceptance or popularity within
the Jewish community at large, and about these two sages perspectives on his
translation. I believe, however, that close attention to the particular wording of this
passage in the context of similar usages throughout rabbinic literature can offer a
more nuanced understanding of this text and its implications. First, however, in
response to previous scholarship, I will point out what the text does not say:
1) The text does not indicate that Aquila composed his translation under the
auspices of any sage.25
2) The text does not indicate any wider rabbinic approbation of Aquilas
translation than that of R. Eliezer and R. Joshua.26
This is a pun on the word X]T]T] (you are fairer), since the rabbis identify the biblical Japeth
(XT]) as Greece (see Gen 10:2). The comment also resonates with traditions such as y. Meg. 1:9,
71b (and parallels): pPp[PL[EFXT]Pp[R[pPF]VFHQ[]L]pp]PLEF[Op]XT]P]LPEXT]
(May God dwell in the tents of Japeth [Gen 9:27][meaning] that they shall speak the language
of Japeth in the tent of Shem [=Jews]).
24
.X]R[[]EPE[FXO]p[V]XLEP]VTWFEVQ[EPE]PQKF[?QpFV]RX
23
.X]R[[]EPELOV[\POKVX]LPLP[O]LV[XL]Ep[E\Q[[UHF
.X]R[[][XQX]QVELPEH]FHNE]RKV[F
?p[L]]FV]RTP[V^?]PE]FV]RTPLV[XLVKLWP]U?KV]XEFVFE]]N]FVpFL]QV]]FV
.HE]RFQX]T]T],[P[VQE[[X[E[WP]U[
25
The opposite is often either claimed in passing or explicitly stated as a conclusion based on this
passage of Yerushalmi, even by formidable scholars, but I respectfully disagree with this position,
as I will explain below. For previous scholarship on this particular issue, see: Francis Crawford
Burkitt, Aquila, in JE 2:34; Louis Ginzberg, Aquila, in JE 2:36; Dominique Barthlemy, Les
devanciers dAquila. Premire publication intgrale du texte des fragments du Dodcaprophton
trouvs dans le dsert de Juda, prcede dune tude sur les traductions et recensions grecques de
la Bible ralises au premier sicle de notre re sous linuence du rabbinat palestinien (Leiden:
Brill, 1963); Louis Isaac Rabinowitz, Onkelos and Aquila, in Encyclopedia Judaica (ed. Cecil
Roth; 16 vols.; Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972) 12:1406. Nicholas de Lange, Origen and
the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in Third Century Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1976) 51, states, it was a rabbinic translation, produced, so tradition has it, at the
instance of the Rabbis and approved of by them. Lester Grabbe, Aquilas Translation and Rabbinic
Exegesis, JJS 33 (1982) 528, notes based on this text that Aquila supposedly [used] their aid in
doing his translation. Philip S. Alexander, How Did the Rabbis Learn Hebrew? in Hebrew Study
from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda (ed. William Horbury; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999) 84, says, There are
no serious grounds for questioning the Rabbinic tradition that Aquila was prepared under Rabbinic
auspices in Palestine in the early second century C.E., possibly in the school of Aqiva. Arie van
der Kooij, The Origin and Purpose of Bible Translations in Ancient Judaism: Some Comments,
ARG 1 (1999) 210, commenting on our passage writes, This implies that the translation was made
on the authority of these two scholars. I will show that despite these scholars other important
contributions to our understanding of Aquila and his translation, there is good reason to reject the
idea that the translation was produced specically under the auspices of the sages.
26
Various scholars have summarized our passage or concluded from it a general Jewish
appreciation of Aquilas translation. Whether or not that was the reality, it is not expressed in this
360
3) The text does not indicate that any written text was physically presented to
the sages,27 much less adopted as a synagogal Targum.
4) The text does not indicate at what stage in Aquilas life this interaction
occurred.
I turn now to what this text does indicate, beginning with R. Hiyya bar Bas
opening word: KVX. Our understanding of this verb colors the entire picture of this
interaction.28 First of all, it refers to speech: Aquila verbally translated Scripture
before these two sages.29 This verb is never used in rabbinic literature to denote
studying (whether Scripture in general or Targum); almost everywhere else it is used
in the Yerushalmi it is followed by a quotation.30 Thus, KVX stands in only for words
like VQE (said)31 or pVH (expounded),32 and not Fp] (sat) or HQP (studied).33
While there are instances of this verb denoting the synagogal practice of
Targum (the interlinear recitation of an Aramaic translation during the weekly
public reading of the Torah),34 it is also clear that translations of individual words
or verses sometimes served a midrashic, scholarly function entirely separate from
text. The signicance of this point will become clear below, as I contrast the implications of the
rabbinic texts with those of the relevant early Christian texts.
27
Cf. van der Kooij, Origin and Purpose of Bible Translations, 210.
28
For the etymology of KVX and its usage in rabbinic literature, see Shemuel Safrai, The
Targum as Part of Rabbinic Literature, in The Literature of the Sages: Second Part (ed. Shemuel
Safrai et al.; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2006) 244. See also Chaim Rabin, Cultural Aspects of Bible
Translation, in Armenian and Biblical Studies (ed. Michael E. Stone; Jerusalem: St. James, 1976)
44. For lexical translations see Sefer arukh ha-shalem (ed. Alexander Kohut; 8 vols.; Vienna: Hotzaat
Menorah, 1926) 8:274, s.v. KVX; Wilhelm Bacher, Erkhe midrash (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Karmiel,
1969) 2:32021, s.v. KVX; Jacob Lewy, Wrterbuch ber die Talmudim und Midraschim (4 vols.;
Berlin: Benjamin Harz, 1924) 4:668, s.v. KVX; Jastrow, Dictionary, 169596; Michael Sokoloff,
A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002)
591, s.v. KVX.
29
In order to communicate that he presented a written work, or that he studied and created a
written work, the text would require words like Fp] or HQP or FXO and some verb to represent the
handing over of a physical object. For example, when the Mishnah describes the composition of
the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 27, it states: NF^QLXE[RF[]RFELXE[E]FLOVNE[
[pP]?FpFLV[XL]VFHPOXE[]P?[FXO[H]WF[L[HW[ (And then they brought the stones and
built the altar and plastered it with plaster, and they wrote on it all the words of the Torah in
seventy languages) (m. Sotah 7:5). Similarly, regarding the book of Esther, the Yerushalmi states:
[R]X[FVP[NPp[XVKE[FXOVXWE[]OHVQ[p?LQ (What did Mordechai and Esther do? They wrote
a letter and sent it to our sages) (y. Meg. 1:5, 70d). Another example is the frequent reference in m.
Git. to the writing and giving of bills of divorce: ]XpEP[RX[JK[FXOLpPpP. . .VQE ([If] he said
. . . to three people: Write a bill of divorce and give it to my wife) (m. Git. 6:7).
30
See, e.g., y. Bik. 3:3, 65d, and y. Sanh. 2:6, 70c.
31
See, e.g., Gen. Rab. 61:5, where we nd the phrase ]VQE[]QKVXQ (we translate, saying).
32
In fact, where Gen. Rab. 80:1 (not in connection with Aquila) employs the verb KVX, its
parallel in the later collection Midrash ha-Gadol (Gen 34:1) reads pVH.
33
The Babylonian Talmuds use of EQKVX or LQKVX has the added valence of explain, but this
is a uniquely Babylonian usage.
34
For example y. Sanh. 2:6, 20c, where a certain sage is said to utter a translation specically in
the synagogue of Tiberias. For the most recent scholarship on the practice of Targum in synagogues,
JENNY R. LABENDZ
361
their liturgical functions.35 I do not believe there is sufcient evidence to deduce

in which sphere these translations originatedthat of liturgy or scholarshipbut
there is ample evidence that they were used in both.
Biblical translations may have been useful in rabbinic scholarly circles in a
variety of ways. A frequently cited Tannaitic midrash states: Scripture leads to
targum, targum leads to mishnah (the legal teachings), mishnah leads to talmud
(argumentation).36 There are plenty of examples of either the entirety of a midrashic
comment consisting of no more than a translation, or of a translation being embedded
within a midrashic discussion, among other types of midrashic techniques. That is
to say, not only could a translation as an extended composition be useful for Jews
(whether in the academy or the synagogue), but the translations of individual words
and phrases embedded within itatomistically, separate from the composition
as a wholecould be useful pieces of midrash.37 Rabbinic citations of Aquilas
see the literature cited in Steven D. Fraade, Locating Targum in the Textual Polysystem of Rabbinic
Pedagogy, BIOSCS 39 (2006) 6991.
35
A number of recent studies have focused on additional non-liturgical aspects of Aramaic
Targum. Fraade, Locating Targum, seeks mainly to draw attention to the midrashic (as opposed
to liturgical) function of interlinear synagogal translations, but see pp. 7984 where he deals
specically with the interpretive, explanatory, or instructive nature of Targum, and see the literature
he cites there as having overlooked this important aspect of Targum. See also Veltris comments,
Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 15960, as well as the rest of his chapter three. Another
useful study (with extensive bibliography) is Steven Fine, Their Faces Shine with the Brightness
of the Firmament: Study Houses and Synagogues in the Targumim to the Pentateuch, in Biblical
Translation in Context (ed. Frederick W. Knobloch; Bethesda, Md.: University Press of Maryland,
2002) 6392, esp. 6367, though Fine adopts a perspective on Targum as rewritten Bible, which is
in stark contrast to Fraades portrayal. Van der Kooij, Origin and Purpose of Bible Translations, 207,
213, and passim, argues for a scholarly milieu as the primary setting where the Bible translations,
either in Greek or in Aramaic, were produced. While I do not believe the evidence indicates the
setting of the translations origins, van der Kooij does succeed, like Fraade and Fine, in highlighting
ways in which Targum functioned as midrash. Other important studies in this area are: Avigdor
Shinan, The Aggadah of the Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch and Rabbinic Aggadah: Some
Methodological Considerations, in The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context (ed.
Derek R. G. Beattie and Martin J. McNamara; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1994) 20317;
Rimon Kasher, The Aramic Targumim and their Sitz im Leben, in Proceedings of the Ninth World
Congress of Jewish Studies: Panel Sessions, Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (ed. Moshe
Goshen-Gottstein and David Assaf; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988) 7485; Anthony York, The Targum
in the Synagogue and School, JSJ 10 (1979) 7486.
36
Sifre Deuteronomy 161. Saul Lieberman has written, But the rst rudiment of the interpretation
of a text is the I.VQLRIMZE, the literal and exact equivalent of the Hebrew [KVX, which means both
translation and interpretation. . . . The elementary task of the interpreter of the Bible was to explain
the realia and to render the rare and difcult terms in a simpler Hebrew, or, sometimes, in Aramaic.
The Tanaaitic Midrashim swarm with such translations. . . . These translations are sometimes quite
instructive. Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950; repr.,
New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1994) 4849. Immediately following these statements
Lieberman provides several examples, including rabbinic citations of Aquilas translations.
37
In our text about Aquilas recitation of his own translation, he is portrayed translating the entire
Torah: LV[XLVKLWP]U?KVX. Nevertheless, no use of the extended translation is mentioned.
362
translations (below) will serve as clear examples of this sort of atomistic translation
functioning as midrash.
A further indication that Aquilas recitation of his translation t into the normal
routine of rabbinic activity is the phrasing of the sages response. In the Yerushalmi,
there are numerous instances of one sage offering a praiseworthy interpretation
(legal38 or otherwise39) or behaving in a proper way (such as reciting one or the other
of a disputed formula for a certain blessing),40 and a teacher responding just as R.
Eliezer and R. Joshua do hereby praising the person (using the same verb as is
used here: W-P-U),41 and often expressing that praise with a biblical verse appropriate
to the situation.42 Thus, Aquilas recitation of his biblical translation was received
by the sages to whom he presented it just as any clever, proper, or insightful point
offered by a sage or student might similarly be received.
In contrast to the previous two narratives concerning Aquila, here he occupies
an unambiguous position within the normal rabbinic social structure. Thus the
perspective on Aquila expressed in this text is somewhat different from that of the
other two. It seems that the sages related to Aquila as a person slightly differently
from how they related to him as a Bible translator. In the two stories about Aquila
that have nothing to do with his identity as a translator, his role is ambiguous. But
when discussing Aquila as a Bible translator, there is no ambiguity about his value
and his welcome place within the rabbinic fold. This phenomenon may be explained
by noting that since the sages used Aquilas translation for their midrashim (see
the citations below), they needed to portray the translations entrance into their
purview in terms of a familiar rabbinic context.
In addition, several other Palestinian rabbinic passages feature a scholar
translating a biblical phrase before (]RTP) a teacher, as in our case.43 It should be
noted in this context that speaking, expounding, or asking a question before a
38
E.g., y. Maas. Sh. 1:3, 53a; y. Yoma 3:5, 40c; y. Yeb. 15:4, 15a; y. Nid. 3:4, 40d. In y. Ned.
9:10, 41c, R. Ishmael is eulogized as having praised sages when they would offer LOPL?J (an
explanation or reason for a legal ruling).
39
E.g., the explicit statement in y. Sotah 5:2, 20a (see also y. B. Bat. 10:10, 17d) that in a certain
case, R. Joshuas praise of R. Akiva was only for his midrash (his exegesis), even though the legal
ruling does not accord with that midrash.
40
E.g., y. Ber. 6:1, 10a; 7:5, 11d.
41
I have not found this expression used quite this way in Tannaitic sources, which is notable
since in our passage the two sages who praise Aquila are Tannaim. It is possible therefore that R.
Hiyya bar Ba is not quoting a baraita (Tannaitic source), but rather is formulating the content of
an older tradition in the parlance of his own day. It is even possible that the only authentic element
of the tradition is the notion that R. Eliezer and R. Joshua heard Aquilas translation. However, I
do not see t to dismiss R. Hiyya bar Bas tradition without further evidence simply because his
locution is amoraic. If the reader would in fact dismiss it for this reason, I submit that the tradition
is still useful simply as an indication of how a slightly later rabbi (R. Hiyya bar Ba) viewed Aquilas
entrance into rabbinic circles. On this term, see Saul Lieberman, Keles kilusin, in MeUEVMQFIXSVEX
)VIXW=MWVEIP (ed. David Rosenthal; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991) 43339.
42
E.g., y. Kil. 8:1, 31b and parallels.
43
E.g., y. Sukkah 5:3, 55b; 5:5, 55c (=y. Shek. 5:1, 48c); Gen. Rab. 70:16.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
363
given sage does not indicate that this sage is ones primary teacher, though we can
assume the perception of some relationship (whatever its precise nature) between
Aquila and R. Eliezer and R. Joshua since they appear together in more than one
text. In another place in the Yerushalmi, Aquila is recorded as having translated a
particular verse before R. Akiva.44 No source indicates that Aquila was either the
principal student of these sages, or that they were his principal teachers. The rabbis
portray him in contact with them, but this may simply be because they were three
of the most prominent sages of their day. Jerome mentions two centuries later that
Aquila was a student of R. Akiva,45 but again this tradition may have developed
since R. Akiva was such a prominent sage. Alternatively, this may reect Jeromes
perception that he was a full-edged disciple of the sages, but as we have seen, this
is not expressed unequivocally in rabbinic texts.
The description of Aquila translating before certain sages shows that he is
perceived to have afforded them respect and shared his knowledge with them, but
this may be true even of one who is not himself a sage. Thus, from this text, like
the above two narratives, while Aquila is most certainly depicted in a rabbinic
context, there is no clear depiction of him as a sage or as a disciple. He is present
in rabbinic circles, but overstated conclusions should be avoided.
I turn now to the question of the acceptance of, or enthusiasm for, Aquilas
translation among sages other than the two who are mentioned in our passage. The
rabbinic authors and editors were quite able to express general consensus among
sages (at least of a certain time and place) with the term ]QON (sages), whose
collective positions are often opposed in rabbinic texts to minority positions, and
with expressions such as ]QON[P[H[L (the sages assented to him). Here, we have
no such expression of general agreement; only these two rabbis are mentioned.
Moreover, in numerous cases of individual sages praising (WPU) a person for
their insight or behavior, that insight or behavior accords specically with oneof
at least twoextant possible traditions.46 In our case, I would not suggest that R.
Eliezer and R. Joshua necessarily reect a minority opinion in appreciating the
44
Most scholars have assumed Akiva to have been his teacher according to y. Qid. 1:1, 59a,
which says that Aquila translated a certain verse before R. Akiva.
45
Jerome, Comm. Isa. 8:11: Akibas quem magistrem Aquilae proselyti autumant. For
bibliography on R. Akiva as Aquilas supposed teacher, see Grabbe, Aquilas Translation and
Rabbinic Exegesis, 527, and Ginzberg, Die Haggada bei den Kirchenvtern VI. Der Kommentar
des Hieronymus zu Jesaja, in Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut (ed. S. W. Baron and
A. Marx; New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1935) 291, where already seventy
years ago he doubts, based on both Jerome and the Talmud, that R. Akiva was Aquilas teacher.
See also Grabbe, Aquilas Translation and Rabbinic Exegesis, 528 n. 9.
46
For example, in y. Ber. 6:1, 10a, after recording a disagreement between R. Nahman and the
other sages (RFV) as to the specic formula of the blessing over bread, the Talmud records that
R. Jeremiah uttered the blessing in accordance with R. Nahmans formula, whereupon R. Zeira,
before whom he did so, praised him (L]WPU) for thisusing the same verb as did R. Joshua and
R. Eliezer for Aquila. In that case neither R. Nahmans behavior nor R. Zeiras praise reected the
general consensus of the sages.
364
translation, but it is clear that it does not imply anything beyond the opinion of
these two sages.47
Furthermore, we cannot draw any conclusions about the point in Aquilas life
or career at which his translation before the sages occurred. The verb KVX, as I
noted, does not mean to compose a translation; Aquila recited something already
composed (since we assume he did not compose it on the spot).48 Therefore, it is
plausible, for instance, that he composed the translation ten or twenty years prior and
enjoyed considerable popularity (or the opposite) in synagogues in, say, Asia Minor,
and only then approached the rabbis. It is equally possible that he rst offered his
translation to the rabbis, and only then branched out to other communities of Jews
or to the synagogues. The point is simply that some questions regarding the origin
of Aquilas translation are not answerable based on the rabbinic evidence, and this
evidence should not be used for historical reconstruction of Aquilas career.
To summarize my conclusions about this group of texts, in each story Aquila is
depicted as a Jew somewhat integrated into rabbinic society, but only in his role as
Bible translator is he depicted as fully within the fold. Still, in none of these texts
do we nd a clear depiction of Aquila as a sage or disciple of the sages; indeed we
need not assume that everyone who interacted with Palestinian rabbis was himself
a rabbi.49 Aquila is present in rabbinic circles, but his role is ambiguous.
Citations of Aquila in Rabbinic Literature

Giuseppe Veltri50 has already provided translations and explanations (particularly
valuable due to his analysis of the Rabbis transliterated Greek) of each of the
citations of Aquila in rabbinic literature, so I shall not reproduce all the texts
here. What I shall add to Veltris analysis is specic attention to the context of the
citations, and a closer analysis of what the citations (in form and content) can tell
us about the role Aquilas translation played within Palestinian rabbinic circles of
Late Antiquity.
47
In fact, Azariah de Rossi suggested the possibility that at least one sage specically opposed
Aquilas translation, namely R. Judah, who said (t. Meg. 3:41): Anyone who translates a verse
literally ([XV[\O)he is a liar. De Rossi writes, after noting Christian criticism of Aquilas literalism
(see below): In my opinion, this is one of the meanings of their [the Sages] statement . . . Anyone
who translates . . . (Meor Einayim, ch. 45). In addition, while there is evidence that R. Eliezer
and R. Joshua were procient in Greek, it is also the case that many other rabbis were not, and
therefore might have no opinion or interest whatsoever in Aquilas translation. See Lieberman,
Greek in Jewish Palestine, 1528.
48
This is corroborated by the fact that elsewhere in rabbinic literature, sages who live well
after Aquilas lifetime cite him with the same active verb: VKLWP]U?KVX (Aquila the proselyte
translated).
49
On Palestinian rabbinic contact with non-rabbis, see Richard Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish
Society of Late Antiquity (New York: Routledge, 1999) 2750, and Lee I. Levine, The Rabbinic Class
of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1985) 19295.
50
Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 17685.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
365
Aquila is cited51 eleven times52 in the Yerushalmi and the Palestinian amoraic
midrashic collections (Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Lamentations
Rabbah).53 Veltri provides translations for the following verses and words (given
here in Hebrew with English translation from the Koren edition of The Holy
Scriptures):54
Gen 17:1 (Genesis Rabbah 46:3)
]Hp
Almighty (Shaddai
name/description of
God)
Lev 19:20 (Yerushalmi Qiddushin XTVNRLNTp

1:1, 59a)
a bondmaid designated
Lev 23:40 (Yerushalmi Sukkah 3:5, VHL

53d; Leviticus Rabbah 30:8)
hadar (type of tree)
Isa 3:20 (Yerushalmi Shabbat 6:4, pTRL]XF[

8b)*
and the perfume boxes
LQUV
Ezek 23:43 (Leviticus Rabbah 33:6) LPFP
Ps 48:15 (Yerushalmi Megillah 2:4, X[QP?
embroidered cloth
Ezek 16:10 (Eichah Rabbah 1:1)**
to her that was worn out

to the death
73b; Mashqin 3:7, 83b; Leviticus

Rabbah 11:9)***
Prov 18:21 (Leviticus Rabbah 33:1) ]]N[X[Q
death and life
in ornaments
X[]OpQF
lamp stand
Dan 5:5 (Yerushalmi Yoma 3:8, 41a) EXpVFR
Dan 8:13 (Genesis Rabbah 21:1)
VFHQL]R[QPTP to that certain one who
Prov 25:11 (Genesis Rabbah 93:3)
spoke
*
And see Louis Ginzberg, Seride ha-Yerushalmi min ha-genizah asher be-Mitsrayim (New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary, 1909) 80.
**
Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 17980, cites the parallel in Song of
Songs Rabbah.
***
Veltri does not note the parallel in Leviticus Rabbah, which happens to provide a better
transcription of the Greek.
51
Only two of the citations of Aquila are transmitted by rabbinic tradents, namely R. Yohanan
(third century) and R. Tanhuma (late-fourth century).
52
Not including parallels. That is, some of these citations appear more than once within the
same or contemporaneous rabbinic compilations.
53
Lamentations Rabbah exists in two recensions; see Paul Mandel, Between Byzantium
and Islam: The Transmission of a Jewish Book in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods, in
Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and Cultural Diffusion (ed. Yaakov Elman and
Israel Gershoni; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000) 74106. In the Buber edition,
the text reads (correctly), Aquila translated, exactly as all the other attributions to Aquila read,
whereas in the standard edition, the text reads (erroneously), Onkelos translated, which is surely
a mistake (and the only extant example of its kind).
54
Jerusalem: Koren, 1997. English text revised and edited by Harold Fisch.
366
Two of the translations (Lev 19:20 and Dan 8:13) are recorded, however, only
in Hebrew,55 and several are followed by Hebrew56 or Aramaic57 explanations of the
Greek. A few of the rabbinic citations58 contradict the Greek witnesses to Aquila
(others have no parallel in the extant fragments). These points can help us evaluate
the source or sources from which the rabbis drew in citing Aquila.
If the rabbis had written copies of Aquilas translation to consult, one would
expect that their citations would come closer to those of our extant texts,59 and that
the original Greek would not be omitted, even if it had to be re-translated. This
observation, in conjunction with the more important fact that the word introducing
all of the citationsKVXspecically denotes oral translation, should lead us to
rule out the rabbis possessing a written text of the translation.
Did the rabbis then possess an orally transmitted version of Aquilas translation?
Or did they simply retain atomistic translations of difcult texts? I am inclined
towards the latter view since, apart from the narrative discussed above, the rabbis
never refer to the composition as a whole. But at present there is simply not
enough evidence in this case to ascertain what the rabbis preserved, beyond what
they actually report. The narrative tradition cited above reects an awareness that
Aquila did not merely provide ad hoc translations, but it is the only source for such
an awareness. Indeed, that tradition may have been embellished to make a point
about the value of Greek translations in general, since the topic under discussion
there is the translation of the entire Torah.
As I noted in passing, citations of Aquilas translation are always introduced with
the phrase WP]U?KVX (Aquila translated). In contrast, many other translations of
words are recorded anonymously in rabbinic literature, often simply into Aramaic.
Why do Aquilas translations of a select few words merit rabbinic repetition in
Greek and citation of his name? This question is particularly apparent upon reading
Yerushalmi Shabbat 6:4, 8b. This passage provides word-by-word translations,
mainly into Aramaic (although three times the translations are into Hebrew, and
sometimes the translations are accompanied by a helpful related verse), rst of
Numbers 31:5 and then of Isaiah 3:1823. In the midst of this word-by-word
translation, we come across Aquilas translation of the phrase pTRL]XF in Isaiah
3:20, introduced as always with WP]U?KVX (Aquila translated). The passage as
a whole begins with an attribution to a sage, though it is not clear whether the
intention is Rav Yehudah (the Babylonian sage, third century) or R. Yohanan (the
55
See Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, 1920, for explanations of these two cases.
Isa 3:20, Lev 23:40, Ps 48:15, Prov 18:21.
57
Ezek 23:43.
58
Gen 17:1 (one of the two words of the translation indeed corresponds to Greek Aquila),
Lev 23:24, Isa 3:20, and Ezek 23:43, about which Veltri, Libraries, Translations and Canonic
Texts, 180, notes: The Hexaplarian fragment . . . reads quite differently in lexical terms, though
semantically very similar.
59
Unless there were different recensions of the translation.
56
JENNY R. LABENDZ
367
Palestinian sage, third century),60 and only for this one phrase (out of twenty-six
words and phrases translated) is the origin of the translation, here Aquila, cited.61
Was this the only phrase in these verses for which they knew Aquilas translation,
or was it the only phrase for which they were interested in it, and if so why?
These are only some of the many questions suggested by such a passage, but
unfortunately answers are scarce. In any case, it is more fruitful to inquire into
how the rabbis made use of whatever they did know, and into how they portray the
gure of Aquila. From this example we learn that while Aquilas translations are
uniquely stamped with the label WP]U?KVX, they otherwise fall right into place
as standard points of interest for the rabbis. One of the things rabbinic texts do is
provide translations of difcult biblical words, phrases, and verses.
The fact that each and every one of the attributed citations of Aquila begins
WP]U?KVX (Aquila translated) can help us understand the role the rabbis perceived
him to have played in their world. Aquila is always introduced this way even when
the citation appears beside a rabbis Aramaic translation introduced merely by
Rabbi so-and-so said.62 The introduction, so-and-so translated to a translationinterpretation is used in rabbinic literature many times, but Aquila is unique in that
his translations are never introduced by a different verb (VQE, pVH, etc.), and in
that these translations are his only contribution to rabbinic literature. Aquila only
translates.
This fact is difcult to interpret. It is possible either that this reects a secondclass status afforded him, or that it reects a special respect shown to him as a
professional; it is possible either that the rabbis knew that he was a professional
biblical translator, or that all they knew was that he never happened to say anything
besides translations or explanations of individual verses or words. This observation,
when considered in conjunction with the narrative texts, suggests that while he is
perceived as being integrated into rabbinic society in some way, his primary value
lies in his distinct capacity as a Bible translator.
Thus despite not being himself a sage, the traditions recorded in Aquilas name
are unambiguously valuable midrashic comments, recorded as on par with other
rabbinic exegeses of the Bible. I shall now emphasize this point with a few examples
which also generally illuminate the rabbinic usage of Aquilas translations.
In y. Qid. 1:1, 59a, Aquilas translation of Leviticus 19:20 is incorporated by
R. Yohanan into a halakhic discussion about the designated maidservant and
the annulment of her marriage. R. Samuel son of R. Isaac asks a question, and the
60
See Ginzberg, Seride ha-Yerushalmi, 80. The geniza fragment reads: LH[L]FVRN[]'VVQH, while
MS Leiden reads: LH[L]FVVQH. Both R. Yohanan and R. Yehudah are mentioned in the previous line,
and R. Yehudah is mentioned after the translations, so either name could be an inadvertant addition.
Due to chronology, it is impossible for R. Yohanan to be quoting R. Yehudah. R. Yohanan would
make more sense if it is he who cites Aquila, but that citation may also be an interpolation.
61
Though the word ^Q[O[ is explained with two options, each introduced as there are those
who say.
62
Veltri also points this out but differs in his explanation.
368
Talmud then includes two alternative possibilities, each based on a statement of R.

Yohanan. The Talmud then buttresses the second possibility with a further statement
of R. Yohanan, namely his citation of Aquilas translationin Hebrew63of Lev
19:20. This is followed immediately by yet another statement, again in the name of
R. Yohanan: ]QON]RTP[?Qp]FV]FV^?P]FVLpV]TO (Similarly R. Lazar son of
R. Shimon explained it before the Sages), followed by the exact same translation
and explanation as R. Yohanan had cited in the name of Aquila.64
Thus, the exact same statement is introduced rst as Aquila translated, and then
R. Lazar son of R. Shimon explained. But it is Aquilas translation that is cited
rst and solves the halakhic question posed by R. Samuel at the beginning of the
pericope; the sages explanation buttresses Aquilas translation, not the other way
around. Thus, while R. Yohanan appears aware that Aquilas role was as translator,
the editor of this talmudic pericope understood these translations as exegeses with
legal force like the statement of any sage.
The Talmud uses Aquilas translation uniquely in Yerushalmi Yoma 3:8, 41a.
Here the question under discussion is how to interpret a Hebrew word used in the
Mishnah: Helene, the mother of Munbaz of the royal family of Adiabene who
converted to Judaism in the rst century C.E., is reported by the Mishnah to have
donated a golden XpVFR (nivreshet) to the temple. The Talmud rst mentions the
Aramaic translations of two unnamed sages, grouping them together with the
introduction ]V[QE]VX (Two amoraim. One said . . . and the other said . . .). Next
the Talmud cites Aquilas translation of Daniel 5:5EXpVFR (nivrashta)which is
taken to be the Aramaic of the Mishnahs XpVFR(nivreshet). Presumably, EXpVFR
(nivrashta) was a difcult or uncommon enough Aramaic word that the two amoraim
cited did not bother to mention it, since it would clarify nothing (or alternatively it
simply did not occur to them). However, Aquilas translation of this biblical Aramaic
word could illuminate its cognate Hebrew word in the Mishnah.
63
Perhaps it is presented in Hebrew because of the legal context, since only the legal valence
of the verse is of interest, regardless of its lexical rendering or the precise denition of the verse.
Lieberman suggests that it is Hebrew due to R. Akivas lack of prociency in Greek (Greek in
Jewish Palestine, 20).
64
The text reads as follows:
EFP[X[UPQLQLVJ[TPLQ\?XELR[UE]LLQFLT[VNLNTpE?FUN\]FVVFPE[Qp]FV
[]\N[HF?[]\Np]QRN[]]FVpFL]]N]FVVQEHJKFLE\[]LR]EpEJ]pT ?pELQL]P?
E]LpEJ]pT.[]p[V]KP]pp[N]ELpEpV]KLX[[OH[[]p[H]UP]pp[N]ELpEpH]U]V[NF
']pp[N]ELpEpH]U[]V[NF[]\N[HF?[]\Np]QRN[]'VpFE]NV "EHEL]QJKFLE\[]
'VpF]W[]'VVQEHEL]QJKFLE\[]E]LpEJ]pT.]p[V]KP]pp[N]EpV]KLX[[OH[[]p[H]UP
VQEXEHLQOp]E]RTPLp[XOFp]EP'TVNRLNTpE]L[LF]U?'V]RTPVKLWP]U?'KV]XRN[]
]QON]RTP[?Qp]FV]FV^?P]FVLpV]TORN[]]FVpFL]]N]FVVQE .X[T]VL[]P?NJpX[
.]P?FX[T]VL[XFVQ]XHLQOp]E]RTPLp[XOFp]EPXTVNRLNTpE]L[
It is possible that R. Hiyya, who introduces this last statement of R. Yohanan, intends to contradict
the previously cited version of R. Yohanans statement, pointing out that it was not Aquila whom R.
Yohanan cited, but actually R. Lazar. However, it is more likely that if this were the case the Talmud
or R. Hiyya himself would point out the contradiction more explicitly. Rather, I see R. Hiyyas
statement as an attempt to buttress the halakhic point made via Aquilas translation.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
369
Here we see that Aquilas Bible translation is utilized as a dictionary of sorts

that can help explain the Mishnah. Aquilas role is ambiguous. He himself does
not explain the Mishnah; he does not even address the particular word in the
Mishnah under discussion. But his translation can shed light on the interpretation
of the Mishnah, which is one of the central projects of the Talmud. Aquilas role
can perhaps best be described here as a resource for the rabbis (although how
comprehensive a resource, again, is not clear). Thus, Aquila himself stands outside
this discussion of the Mishnah, having never commented on the Mishnah directly,
but his translation of Daniel ts smoothly into the discussion. Once again, Aquila
himself is not fully integrated into the social picture that the pericope reects, but
his translations are fully absorbed into the rabbinic discussion.
Most of the other references to Aquilas translation function as midrashic
explanations of the Bible, as in Yerushalmi Shabbat (discussed above); and were we
to nd Rabbi so-and-so said, instead of Aquila translated, we would nd nothing
out of the ordinary in these passages. However, in one case, Leviticus Rabbah 11:9
and its two parallels in the Yerushalmi, we observe something more.
In this example, if one were to remove Aquilas actual translation, leaving only
the explanation that follows it, we would still have a perfectly coherent midrash. The
biblical word in question is X[QP? (almut). Amidst several anonymous translations,
each based on a proposed connection to a different Hebrew stem (P[?, LQP?, P?),
we read, X[Q[F]EpP[?,LE]WRXEWP]U?KV]X65 (Aquila translated: ENUEREWMZE
[immortality], a world in which there is no death). Aquilas rendering indicates
that he interpreted (or used a text that interpreted) X[QP? (almut) as two words:
X[QP? (above death) or X[QPE (against death).66 But we did not need to know the
Greek word for immortality in order to arrive at such an interpretation; Aquilas
translation adds nothing.67 Why did the text not provide just another anonymous
interpretation of this enigmatic word as X[Q[F]EpP[? (a world in which there
is no death)?
We are familiar with the rabbinic preference for citing ones sources,68 and can
see on any page of a given rabbinic text their interest in precise attribution when it
65
For the slight manuscript variants, see Midrash Vayyiqra Rabbah (ed. Mordecai Margulies;
Jerusalem: Ararat, 1953; repr., New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993) 242.
66
See also Veltris brief discussion in Libraries, Translations and Canonic Texts, 183. The
construction X[QPE is difcult to render in English, since PE usually means do not, but X[Q is
a noun.
67
A contrast may be helpful. As noted above there are a few examples of a Hebrew or Aramaic
explanation being appended to Aquilas translation (see above nn. 56 and 57). A simple example
is y. Sukkah 3:5, 53d (and its parallel), where Aquila translates the biblical VHL, referring to a
certain type of tree as V[H]L, obviously a transliteration of the Greek Y_H[V meaning water. The
Talmud then anonymously explains (in Hebrew): a tree that grows near [literally: on] water.
The explanation is necessary for anyone who does not understand Greek, though the midrash
depends on the phonetic similarity of VHL and Y_H[V.
68
See the baraita in b. Meg. 15a and parallels (also in m. Avot 6:6, which is a later addition to
that tractate), and Sifre Numbers 157; Sifre de-ve Rav (ed. Hayyim Saul Horovitz; Leipzig, 1917;
370
comes to each generations rabbinic (or proto-rabbinic) forebears. But why should
Aquila fall into the category of a source that one must cite? Why would the sages
not simply take what they learn from Aquilas translation and convert it into their
own midrashim, leaving Aquilas translation, which is merely the linguistic trigger,
unmentioned? This example shows that the rabbis considered Aquila more important
than mere background information. He was a bona de source of knowledge and
deserved to be cited as such.
Conclusions Based on the Rabbinic Texts

We have seen that the rabbis depict Aquilas identity ambiguously. On the one
hand, both the narrative accounts and the citations of his translation indicate that
in some respects he was perceived as an insider in rabbinic culture and valued in
his lifetime by at least two or three sages with whom he interacted. Furthermore,
rabbinic scholarship appears to have used his translations for generations. On the
other hand, we have also seen indications (again, in both sets of sources) that he is
set apart from the sages, marked as a translator and only a translator.
In addition, we have seen the sort of interest that the rabbis, both as individuals
(albeit represented only by a few) and as editors and compilers of the various
Palestinian rabbinic corpora, took in Aquilas translation. However, there is not
enough evidence to determine whether the rabbis knew his translation as a complete
work, or whether they knew only atomistic translations of select words or verses.
But what they citeand the fact that they cite itreects an appreciation of the
explanatory and interpretive value of these translations.
In summary, we have seen that it is far too simplistic to view the rabbis as having
unequivocally embraced Aquila, to assume he was one of their own, or to suppose
that the translation came from or was inuenced by rabbinic circles. Aquila had
his place, but his role was limited, and the texts do not portray his integration into
rabbinic society as having been seamless. His translation was useful to the rabbis,
but only insofar as it helped with difcult words. We must keep in mind this limited
view from the Jewish sources when we see how the patristic authors portray the
Jews acceptance of Aquila.
The Patristic Sources on Aquilas Popularity among Jews

The patristic sources that portray the Jews acceptance of Aquila are potentially
useful since they mention aspects of Aquilas place within Jewish society on which
the rabbinic sources shed only limited light. The rabbinic sources we have seen
reect only a slice of Palestinian Jewish society, whereas the patristic sources derive
from a wider range of places and communities. However, these texts need to be
approached carefully and critically. A number of sources that on the surface would
repr., Jerusalem: Shalem, 1992) 213.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
371
seem to communicate a great deal about Jewish interest in Aquilas translation on

closer consideration are less clear or less reliable than we might have assumed.
One problem in navigating the patristic sources (specically on the topic of
Aquilas translation among the Jews, but also on the topic of Aquilas translation
in general, as discussed below) is that they mention the translation as though it
were a single volume, bound and portable like a modern book. This was simply
not the case. Not only was the material reality different from books of today, but
the very idea of the Bible as a circumscribed body of literature was not yet fully
formed for Christians. The material nature of the Bible and the concept of biblical
literature perforce inuenced the way early Christians in particular thought about
and used the Bible and, by extension, translations of the Bible.69 Robert A. Kraft
has recently stated:
We do an injustice to the Jewish and Christian heritage if we import our concept of Bible, with its xed and exclusive canon, back into the period when
the respected literatures known as scriptures were transmitted piecemeal,
on scrolls or mini-codices, and held together, if so desired, through lists or
physical collections or conceptual abstractions which often were more open
ended (or less closely dened) than became possible and actual with the
development of the mega-codex in the 4th century C.E.70
Along similar lines, copies of one and the same book varied from manuscript to
manuscript. Therefore, especially given that only fragments of Aquilas translation
survive, it is not clear to what extent the various references to it, as to versions of
the Septuagint, reect a stable text.71 Furthermore, it is not clear to what extent
Christian authors were aware of this problem.72
69
See Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book:
Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006);
Eugene Ulrich, The Notion and Denition of Canon, and James A. Sanders, The Issue of Closure
in the Canonical Process, both in The Canon Debate (ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A.
Sanders; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2004) 2135 and 25263; Kim Haines-Eitzen, Guardian
of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000); Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of
Early Christian Texts (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995).
70
The Birth (Gestations) of the Canon: From Scriptures to THE Scripture in Early Judaism
and Early Christianity (lecture, University of Toronto, 12 April 2007; http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/
rak/temp/toronto2/jpgs/toronto2-2007.html).
71
See the sample of 48 double readings from various witnesses given by Frederick Field, Origenis
Hexaplorum quae supersunt. Sive veterum interpretum Graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum
fragmenta (Oxonii: e typographeo Clarendoniano, 1875) xxv-xxvii; English version: Frederick
Fields Prolegomena to Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt. Sive veterum interpretum Graecorum
in totum Vetus Testamentum fragmenta (trans. Grard J. Norton; Paris: J. Gabalda, 2005) 5456.
72
Kraft states, The process of transmission in such an unregulatable world of individual small
units created problems that usually must have gone unnoticed, except by very textually aware
scholars such as Origen. The production of Origens famous hexapla was in part fueled by such
issues. The Birth (Gestations) of the Canon.
372
There is at present no scholarly consensus on how to resolve these problems,

nor of terminology that avoids all confusion. I raise these issues for two reasons.
First, knowing the limitations of understanding the evidence of the patristic sources
allows us to focus more closely on questions that we can answer. Second, I present
these questions as potential directions for further scholarship. For now, I will adopt
simple terminologies such as Bible and Septuagint, although this should not be
understood as reecting the actual material state of these books in antiquity.
There are a few sources commonly cited in the literature as Christian evidence
of the popularity of Aquilas translation among Jews. The one remark that I believe
can be made generally is that for a few early Church Fathers representing a variety
of locales, Aquilas translation is associated in some way with the Jews. For all
that my readings below may be minimalist, the point must be made that even when
Aquila gured into Christian writings in purely Christian contexts (i.e., contexts in
which neither Judaism nor particular Jews are mentioned), Aquila is knownand
moreover mentionedas an important gure, or text, to Jews as well. Yet it is hard
to know exactly what to make of each piece of evidence, and I now turn to the task
of uncovering some of their subtleties.
Origen (185254 C.E.)
In Origens letter to Africanus (c. 240 C.E.)73 he says the following about Aquila,
in the context of a reading of Aquila that accords with the Hebrew against the
Septuagint:
For so Aquila, a slave to the Hebrew language,74 gives it, who has obtained
the credit among the Jews of having translated (LNVQLRIYOIZREM) the Scriptures
with no ordinary care, and whose version is most commonly used by those
who do not know Hebrew, as the one which has been most successful.75
This testimony is of considerable importance, even as some scholars have taken

its implications too far. Origen indicates three things. First, that Jews in the third
century respect Aquila for his efforts. Second, that Aquilas translation is used
by those who would otherwise have used the original, but did not know Hebrew.
Third, that Aquilas translation is regarded by those people as comparatively more
successful than the other extant Greek translations.
73
Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1914) 60.
74
This is not a criticism; see below at n. 107.
75
3Y_ X [ KE V % OYZ P Eb HSYPIYZ [ R XL D )FVEMZ [ R PIZ \ IM IN O HIZ H [OIR IMN T [Z R JMPSXMQSZ X IVSR
TITMWXIYQIZRSbTEVE-SYHEMZSMbLNVQLRIYOIZREMXLR*VETLZR[`QEZPMWXEIMN[ZUEWMRSM.ENKRSSYDRXIb
XLR)FVEMZ[RHMEZPIOXSRGVLDWUEM[.bTEZRX[RQEDPPSRINTMXIXIYKQIZR[PG 11:52. Translation based
on Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; 10 vols.; New York: The
Christian Literature Company, 1885; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994) 4:386 (henceforth
ANF), with some changes. For slave to the Hebrew language, they provide, following the Hebrew
reading, but this is not the literal translation.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
373
However, it is not clear which Jews respect Aquila. If Origen is referring to the
rabbis, then the evidence of rabbinic literature conrms this, as we have seen. But if
he is referring rather, or in addition, to a wider Greek-speaking Jewish community,
then we lack corroborating evidence of this claim.
As for the second point, Origen is certainly not referring to the rabbinic Jewish
community when he references those who do not use the Hebrew text because they
do not know Hebrew. Where Swete concluded from this line that Aquilas translation
was used by all Jews who did not understand Hebrew,76 Veltri comments, Origen
is without doubt speaking not only about Jews ignorant of Hebrew, but also (perhaps
especially?) of Christian writers like himself who use Aquila as a dictionary of
the Hebrew language.77 My only disagreement with Veltri is the phrase without
doubt. It is possible that Origen means only Jews, in keeping with the start of his
description.78 On the other hand, it is also possible that he is now talking about
non-Jews; after all, throughout this letter he mentions Jews as those who use the
Hebrew text of the Bible, even if the Bible is the extent of their Hebrew knowledge.
And of course, as Veltri assumes, it is also possible that he means to include both
categories. If Origen is referring at least in part to Jews, this broadens Aquilas
place in Jewish society from the learned, Hebrew-speaking rabbinic community
to the broader, Greek-speaking Jewish community. But again, it is impossible to
know to whom he is referring.
Furthermore, we do not know in what contexts Aquilas translation was used.
Veltri assumes an academic context (as a dictionary), while other scholars have
cited this passage as evidence of synagogue use. In fact, Origens comment is rm
evidence of neither. If he means synagogue use, once again, this broadens the scope
of Jewish interest in Aquila from what we knew from the rabbinic texts.
My point is simply that Origens testimony is vague, so many of our conclusions
must be tentative. What we can conclude with certainty is that according to Origen,
Aquilas translation was in circulation and use (commonly, to use Origens
word) in mid-third-century Palestine, and that Aquilas translation was known and
respected among some Jews.
Augustine (354430 C.E.)
Augustine makes the following comment in The City of God 15.23 amidst a
discussion of the nature of angels:
In the Septuagint too they are called both angels of God and sons of God.
This reading, to be sure, is not attested in all the manuscripts, for some have
76
Swete, Introduction, 33.

Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 16566.
78
For recent scholarship on the question of the knowledge and use of Hebrew among Jews
in third-century Palestine, see Seth Schwartz, Hebrew and Imperialism in Jewish Palestine, in
Ancient Judaism in Its Hellenistic Context (ed. Carol Bakhos; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 8183 and the
literature cited there.
77
374
only sons of God. Aquila, on the other hand, whom the Jews prefer to the
other translators, says in his version neither angels of God nor sons of God
but sons of gods. But either expression is right.79
This comment possibly constitutes early-fth-century testimony of a Jewish

preference for Aquila. However, scholars disagree about whether Augustine had
actual contact with Jews,80 so his testimony cannot necessarily be relied upon to
reect a contemporary reality. The above passage may simply reect a tradition
that Augustine had heard from predecessors like Africanus, and even if it does
reect a contemporary perspective, the question remains as to what extent Jews
used translations in the rst place. His wording is comparative, stating only the
Jews relative appreciation of Aquila.
But in noting this comparative phrasing, we may attempt to resolve another
question. Augustines wording (whether based on his own observations or based on
the testimony of his predecessors) indicates that at least some Jews knew of other
translations, and chose (or chose to stick with) Aquilas. It is tempting to conclude
the same from Origens comment that Aquila has been the most successful of all
the othersagain, stated comparatively. But it is worth hesitating since, as has
already been shown, it is not clear that Origen was speaking about Jews in that part
of the sentence, and since we do not have any evidence of this from the rabbis.
Justinian (482/3565 C.E.)
Although I did not venture into sixth-century rabbinic sources, since as I noted
at the outset the nature of rabbinic texts shifts dramatically at that time, I will
include in this study a Christian Roman legal passage dated to 553 C.E., Novella
Justiniani 146,81 since it is often cited in literature about Aquila, in my opinion
inappropriately. This law published by Justinian deals with the question of what
version of Scripture the Jews may use in synagogue or in general, any place where
there are Hebrews.82 Justinian writes that he is responding to a Jewish petition to
resolve a dispute among Jews about admitting Greek as an acceptable language in
which to read Scripture. We do not know who submitted this petition, which side
79
Et septuaginta quidem interpretes et angelos Dei dixerunt istos et lios Dei. Quod quidem
non omnes codices habent, nam quidam nisi lios Dei non habent. Aquila autem, quem interpretem
Iudaei ceteris anteponunt, non angelos Dei nec lios Dei sed lios deorum interpretatus est. Utrumque
autem verum est. Text and translation from Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans (ed. and
trans. Philip Levine; LCL 414; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966) 4:55557.
80
The most recent scholarship on this topic (to my knowledge) is Franklin T. Harkins, Nuancing
Augustines Hermeneutical Jew: Allegory and Actual Jews in the Bishops Sermons, JSJ 36 (2005) 4164.
For prior scholarship see ibid., 43 nn. 1 and 2, and the literature cited throughout the article.
81
Greek with English translation and commentary in Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial
Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987) 40211. See also Albert I. Baumgarten,
Justinian and the Jews, in Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Memorial Volume (ed. Leo Landman; New
York: Ktav, 1980) 3744.
82
Linder, Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, 408.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
375
of the argument they were on, and how many others they represented.83 In fact,
Leonard Rutgers has recently argued that the petition was a fabrication by Justinian,
and that the emperor himself brought up the issue in an effort to eliminate Hebrew
from synagogues, for reasons having nothing to do with internal Jewish affairs.84 It
is also important to note that the question, if it really existed and from whomever
it comes, does not mention any translation specically.
Justinian answers that Jews may indeed read in Greek and any other language
that they speak, since this will allow them to see the (Christian) truth of Scripture
unencumbered by errant (Jewish) interpretations. He then species that if they
read in Greek, they should read from the Septuagint due to its accuracy and to its
miraculous origins. But he permits Aquilas translation as well, as follows:
But in order that we shall not appear to prohibit them all the other translations, we give permission to use also Aquilas translation,85 although he was a
gentile86 and in some readings differs not a little from the Septuagint.87
It is surprising that someone who wants to rid Jewish readings of Scripture

of anti- or non-Christian interpretations would permit Aquila to be used, given
that some Christian writers (see below) believed Aquila to have corrupted key
theological points in the Bible.88 Further, as Rutgers points out, since Justinian
emphasizes the importance of allegorical rather than literal understandings of the
Bible, it is surprising that Justinian permits Aquila; Aquilas translation is known
to have been literalistic.89
We might speculate that Justinian chooses Aquila precisely because, despite
Aquilas literalism, he was viewed as something of an interpreter; and if Justinian
permits that version, the Jews might be quicker to replace their postbiblical
interpretations with Aquilas biblical translation (in which case Justinian comes
out on top by far).90 But in any event, we have no idea whether Jews actually
83
For a brief discussion of this question, see Nicolas de Lange, Can We Speak of Jewish
Orthodoxy in Byzantium? in Byzantine Orthodoxies (ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casidy;
Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006) 17072.
84
Leonard Rutgers, Justinians Novella 146: Between Jews and Christians, in Jewish Culture
and Society under the Christian Roman Empire (ed. Richard Kalmin and Seth Schwartz; Leuven:
Peeters, 2003) 385407.
85
Literally, that of Aquila.
86
In this context gentile clearly means non-Christian.
87
TPLRENPP[ZbE?RQLXEbPSMTEbEYNXSMDbENTSOPIMZIMRRSQMWUIMZLQIRI.VQLRIMZEbE?HIMERHMZHSQIR
OEM XLD %OYZPSYOIGVLDWUEMOE?RIMN ENPPSZJYPSbINOIMDRSbOEM SYN QIXVMZERINTMZ XMR[RPIZ\I[RI?GL
TVSbXSYbINFHSQLZOSRXEXLRHMEJ[RMZERNovella Justiniani 146).
88
See Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 167, for his suggestion.
89
Rutgers, Justinians Novella 146, 39495.
90
Rutgers suggests that the reason Justinian permits Aquila is as follows: In Justinians view,
any translation of the Bible, including that of Aquila, was better than the original text in Hebrew.
In fact, one could even go so far as to argue that Justinians willingness to permit even Aquilas
translation serves as yet another piece of evidence in support of the interpretation I have already
put forward. In Novella 146 Justinian was only outwardly concerned with promoting the allegorical
376
responded by reading Aquila. (Perhaps Justinian assumed they would, given that
earlier Church Fathers kept mentioning Aquila as a favorite of the Jews. But we
saw already that those texts are vague, and do not necessarily represent the entirety
of the Jewish world.) Therefore, this text should not be considered evidence of
Jewish use of or interest in Aquilas translation.91 Indeed, it is barely evidence of
a clear perspective on the part of Justinian.
When dealing with Christian sources that purport to tell us about Jewish behaviors
or perspectives, we have two realities to contend with: the historical reality we are
trying to reconstruct, and the perceived reality we are trying to decipher. Regarding
the former, we have evidence that suggests that there were Jews, Christians, and
likely other non-Jews, who wanted access to the Hebrew Bible but were faced with a
language barrier of one sort or another, and Aquilas translation was useful to them.
Regarding the perceived reality, we have also seen some evidence that Christian
writersOrigen in third-century Palestine and Augustine in fth-century North
Africaassociated Aquilas translation with Jews, possibly Jews not associated with
the rabbis. I refer to this as the perceived reality mainly because it is always possible
that early on Aquila was associated with the Jews and that this association was
repeated uncritically. Whatever the case, understanding that this is how Christians
perceived reality may affect our understanding of the fact that some of them still
appreciated and utilized Aquilas translation for their own purposes, while others
disparaged it as heretical.
Moving on from the complications of navigating a perceived reality and an
historical reality, we are on rmer ground when dealing with patristic sources that
express the Church Fathers own perspectives on Aquila and his translation. It is
to these sources that I now turn.
The Church Fathers Perspectives on Aquila and His Translation

A number of Christian writers were concerned with the interpretive nature of
Aquilas translation. These writers reect what might be considered the inverse
of the rabbinic interest in its interpretive value. We have seen that for the rabbis,
mundane translations function as midrash. Not all midrashim need be ideological;
interpretation of Scripture. What Novella 146 really aimed at accomplishing was the total
elimination of one thing only: the Hebrew language (Justinians Novella 146, 395). My claim
dovetails that of Rutgers, in that I believe Justinians permission to use Aquila was a cover for his
attempt to eliminate something else, be it the Hebrew language or the Jewish interpretations of
Scripture; since Aquila was a Jewish translator, as Justinian points out, he assumes the Jews who
hesitated to abandon the Hebrew would be more likely to adopt this version of the Greek.
91
See for example the revised edition of Emil Schrers History of the Jewish People in the
Age of Jesus Christ (rev. and ed. Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar; Edinburgh: Clark, 1973) 497:
Justinian . . . also permits Aquilas translation (which was therefore evidently preferred by at least
some of the Jews). The cautious some of the Jews is commendable, but it should be pointed
out that while this is possible, it is by no means indicated that Justinian either knew or cared about
what was preferred. He specically states that his intention in permitting Aquilas version is so as
not to appear too forbidding.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
377
rendering the Hebrew text into another languagebe it Aramaic or Greekis

midrashic activity enough. So when we say the rabbis are interested in Aquilas
translations interpretive value, that is to say that they cast their net wide in terms
of what counts as interpretive. It was apparently Aquilas Greek translations that
entered their purview, so it was Aquilas that they cited.
But for the Church Fathers, by whose time and in whose circles the Septuagint92
was already in common use,93 Aquilas translation meant something else. A translation in and of itself was by no means a novelty. They therefore turned their
attention to the exegetical contents of the translation in a way that is foreign to
the rabbinic texts. Thus, while for the rabbis Aquila is primarily a translator who
is useful to the rabbinic exegetical project, for Irenaeus, for example, Aquila is
an exegete who expresses his heretical ideas about the meaning of the Bible by
means of a translation.
Irenaeus (120202 C.E.)
Irenaeus provides the rst patristic reference to Aquilas translation, and so the
publication of Irenaeuss Adversus haereses some time between 177 and 192 C.E.
is often cited as a terminus ante quem for Aquilas translation.94 Irenaeus mentions
Aquila in the context of his disapproval of Aquilas and Theodotions translation
of LQP? in Isaiah 7:14 as RIEDRMb (young girl) rather than the Septuagints
TEVUIZRSb (virgin). His choice of words is telling:
God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us, giving us the
token of the Virgin. But not as some allege, among those now presuming to
expound (QIUIVQLRIYZIMR; interpretari) the Scripture, [thus:] Behold, a young
woman shall conceive, and bring forth a son, as Theodotion the Ephesian
92
The nature of the Greek text in the early Christian centuries is not a simple matter, but is not
our concern here. See Eugene Ulrich, Origens Old Testament Text: The Transmission History of
the Septuagint to the Third Century, C.E., in Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy
(ed. Charles Kannengiesser and William L. Petersen; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1988) 320.
93
Natalio Fernndez Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the
Bible (trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 200) 338. For an account of the specic comments
of Church Fathers from Justin Martyr to Epiphanius on the authority of the Septuagint, see Mogens
Mller, The First Bible of the Church (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1996) 6878.
94
See Field, Frederick Fields Prolegomena, 41. If we trust even approximately the historical
accuracy of the rabbinic texts, this terminus ante quem is unnecessary, but it is nevertheless useful
to know how early the translation reached Christian circles, though we should be cautious. Alison
Salvesen points out: since [Irenaeus] only cites their rendering of Isaiah 7.14, we cannot be sure
that these revisions were circulating among Christians in their entirety, rather than as individual
readings pertinent to Christian theological concerns. A Convergence of the Ways? The Judaizing
of Christian Scriptures by Origen and Jerome, in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians
in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed;
Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 246.
378
has interpreted (L.VQLZRIYWIR; interpretatus), and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes.95
Whereas the rabbinic word for Aquilas translation is KVX, Irenaeus refers to
Aquilas activities with words that also connote expounding and interpreting.96
Unlike the rabbinic authors, Irenaeus did not use a word that refers strictly to
translation, such as QIXEKVEZJ[ or QIXEJIZV[, which in some measure reects the
different role Aquila plays for the rabbis and for certain Church Fathers.97 For
the rabbis he is marked as different from those who interpret because all he does
is translate. For Irenaeus he is included among the interpreters because he is a
translator.98
95
Deus igitur homo factus est, et ipse Dominus salvabit nos, ipse dans Virginis signum. Non
ergo vera est quorumdam interpretatio, qui it audent interpretari Scripturam: Ecce adolescentula
in ventre habebit, et pariet lium; quemadmodum Theodotion Ephesius est interpretatus, et Aqula
Ponticus, utrique Judaei proselyti. 3 UISb SY@R E?RUV[TSb INKIZRIXS OEM EYNXSb OYZVMSb I?W[WIR
WLQIMDSR %PP SYZG [.b I?RMSMZ TEWMR X[DR RYDR XSPQ[ZRX[R QIUIVQLRIYZIMR XLR KVEJLZR MNHSY L.
RIEDRMbINRKEWXVM I_\IMOEM XIZ\IXEMYM.SZR[.bUISHSXMZ[RL.VQIZRIYWIRS. )JIZW MSbOEM %OYZPEbS.
4SRXMOSZbENQTSZXIVSM-SYHEMDSMTVSWLZPYXSM Adversus haereses 3.21.1; Greek from Eusebius, Hist.
eccl. 5.8.10. PG 7:946. Translation from ANF 1:451.
96
See previous note. The word I.VQLRIYZ[ is commonly used in the texts I have examined
to indicate translations, so too much should not be read into that particular usage, though it is
noteworthy that etymologically it bears the sense of interpretation. Liddell and Scott, Greek-English
Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1843) 690, provide for the various forms a number of meanings:
interpretation, explanation . . . translation . . . interpreter, esp. of foreign tongues . . . expound . . .
put into words, express. G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 549,
gives translate as a second or third denition of some of its forms, including the form used here
(I.VQLRIMZEI.VQLRIYXLZbI.VQLRIYZ[), while other forms are restricted to the realm of interpretation
(I.VQLRIYZbI.VRLRIYXIZSRI.VQLRIYXMOSZb). Lampe gives translate as the rst and interpret as the
second meaning of QIUIVQLRIYZ[, citing its use regarding Theodotion and Aquila, while he gives
interpreter as the translation of QIUIVQLRIYXLZb (Patristic Greek Lexicon, 838). While the Hebrew
and Aramaic KVX in its Babylonian usage has the sense of explanation, far more commonly in the
Bavli, and always in Palestinian texts, it means simply translate, and in fact we saw a few instances
where it is used specically as opposed to pV]T (explained) and VQE (said). Sokoloff, Dictionary
of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, 591, gives only translate, not interpret. Jastrow, Dictionary,
169596, gives for the various entries related to KVX both interpret and translate, as well as
other denitions, but his denitions include Babylonian valences. In Sokoloffs A Dictionary of
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002) 123132, he
includes interpret and related denitions in his entries for forms of KVX. The Greek words here for
translation, it seems to me, have a stronger valence of interpretation. See also Mllers disccussion,
First Bible of the Church, 1079.
97
It is possible that Ireneaus was using these words in their classical sense, which does not
distinguish words for translation and interpretation. The fact that he does not go out of his way to
use a word that means strictly translate does not mean that he intended his word to be understood
otherwise. (I am grateful to Prof. Eleanor Dickey for her assistance on this matter; any mistakes
are my own.) Therefore I do not mean to overstate this point. I merely note that the rabbis did use
a word that means strictly to translate, and that Ireneauss choice of words, whether or not it in
and of itself indicates much, does agree with a difference in attitude attested in other ways, as I
will show below.
98
Justin Martyr, though not referring to Aquila, also criticizes Jews for altering the Greek text
of various biblical passages on theological grounds. For a discussion and sources, see Robert A.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
379
Irenaeus also sees Aquilas translation as an offensive act in and of itself. In

the same section, after discussing the divinely inspired nature of the Septuagint,
and its importance as the text he believes the apostles used, Irenaeus writes of the
new translators:
Truly these men are proved to be impudent and presumptuous, who would
now show a desire to make different translations.99
In this context he points out also that the new translators indeed failed to thoroughly
communicate the interpretations they intended, since they did not correct, as it
were, other similar verses. He says the translators did not understand enough to
effectively change the biblical text, try as they did.
Thus, Irenaeus critiques Aquila and Theodotion for their wrong beliefs (regarding
the virgin), their presumptuousness, and their lack of understanding. The rst two
concerns are utterly foreign to the rabbis. Aquila is everywhere described as a Jew,
and the closest he comes to wrong beliefs is his expression of dissatisfaction with
the rewards of conversion. As well, translation is a perfectly accepted rabbinic
endeavor.
As to a lack of understanding, the fact that Irenaeus is examining the entirety
of Aquilas biblical translation makes all the difference. Irenaeus nds Aquila
inconsistent and short-sighted. But he does not mention philological problems or
linguistic errors (though we will see that later Christian writers do). The rabbis
nowhere indicate awareness of the whole work, nor do they ever juxtapose two
translations of his.
Regarding all three problems with Aquila that Irenaeus raises, we see not so
much a disagreement between the rabbis and the Church Fathers as a different set
of questions and different criteria for evaluating the worth of Aquilas work. It is
not merely a matter of Jewish acceptance of Aquila and Christian rejection.
Each of their reactions was more nuanced, as well as based on their specic
contexts and interests. Each Christian writer, in turn, needs to be read on his own
terms. Irenaeuss work is concerned with doctrine, whereas Origen, for instance,
is concerned with text criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
Origen (ca. 185254 C.E.)
In considering the various Church Fathers responses to Aquila, in many cases it is
important to understand their perspectives on the Septuagint, of which they might
see Aquilas translation as a revision. Origen viewed the Septuagint from a critical
perspective. While like the other Church Fathers he seems to have accepted the
Kraft, Christian Transmission of Jewish Greek Scriptures, in Paganisme, judasme, christianism.
Inuences et affrontements dans le monde antique. Mlanges offerts Marcel Simon (ed. A. Benoit
et al.; Paris: de Boccard, 1978) 2089.
99
Vere impudorati et audaces ostenduntur, qui nune volunt aliter interpretationes facere. PG
7:949. Translation from ANF 1:452.
380
inspired nature of the original Septuagint,100 he did not consider the copies extant in
his own day to reect that original reliably. He therefore sought to reestablish the
correct text and meaning of the Septuagint101 by comparing it with the Hebrew text
in his day, and with other Greek translations that better accorded with the Hebrew
than the Septuagint did.102 Given this goal and his consequent composition of the
Hexapla, he is distinguished from Irenaeus (and Epiphanius, discussed below) in
that he uses Aquilas translation not as an interpretation, but as a textual witness.
There are only a few statements about Aquila and Aquilas translation in the
portion of Origens writings that are extant today, and our main evidence of Origens
perspective on Aquila is that he includes that translation in the Hexapla. Besides
this, Origen cites Aquilas translations as support for certain biblical readings or
understandings,103 and he uses peculiarities in Aquilas translation as a guide (at
least in part) to the proper rendering or meaning of Scripture.104
100
But see Norman R. M. de Lange, The Letter to Africanus: Origens Recantation? StPatr
15 (1985) 247: [Origen] did not dare, like Jerome, to assert publicly the primacy of the Hebrew
over the Septuagint, but he believed in it.
101
See Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei 11.14, on Matt 15:14. Origen also speaks of an
apologetic aim in his undertaking (Letter to Africanus 2.2), but that is not our concern here. See
Norman R. M. de Lange, Origen and the Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) 50,
and idem, Letter to Africanus, 24247.
102
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theoditions translations. Sidney Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern
Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 1023, writes of Origins Hexapla: His ultimate object was the
discovery of the true text of the LXX, and to this end he brings to his aid other Greek versions
known to him which might be of help in elucidating the Hebrew. Jellicoe goes on to quote Samuel
R. Driver: He assumed that the original Septuagint was that which agreed most closely with the
Hebrew text as he knew it: he was guided partly by this, partly by the other Versions (Aq. Theod.
Symm.), which were based substantially upon it (italics his). Cf., however, de Lange, Origen and
the Jews, 5051, who states: It is not true to say that Origen fully recognised the primacy of the
Hebrew over the Greek versions (see also Swete, Introduction, 68), and goes on to assert that
Origens interest in the Hebrew and his relationship to the Septuagint are somewhat more complex
than often appreciated. See Swete, Introduction, 5860, as well as Sebastian P. Brock, Origens
Aims as a Textual Critic of the Old Testament, StPatr 10 (1970) 21518; John Wright, Origen in
the Scholars Den: A Rationale for the Hexapla, in Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy
(ed. Charles Kannengiesser and William L. Petersen; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1988) 4862; and Joachim Schaper, The Origin and Purpose of the Fifth Column of the
Hexapla, in Origens Hexapla and Fragments (ed. Alison Salvesen; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998)
315. Most recently, see the discussion of Grafton and Williams, Christianity and the Transformation
of the Book, 11728. It is not my intention to assume any specic answer to the complex question
of Origens motivations in producing the Hexapla; I merely rely on this aspect of the project that is
particularly relevant to our discussion, and that numerous scholars have asserted and defended.
103
After delineating his understanding of the word law: )Y`VSR KEV XE MNWSHYREQSYDRXE XLD
PIZ\IMXEYZXLINRXLDXSYD%OYZPSYI.VQLRIMZEOIMZQIRE (And this is in effect what I found in Aquilas
interpretation.) Philocalia 9.2 (trans. George Lewis; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1911) 49.
104
Philocalia 14.1: 8SKEVXIXEKQIZR[b<OEM>ENOSYPSYZU[bX[DXIGRSPSKSYQIZR[OEXEXSRXSZTSR
TVSXIXEZGUEMXEbTVSWLKSVMZEbIM@XINTMJIZVIWUEMXE OEXLKSVLZQEXEOIOMZRLOIRL.QEDbQLZTSXIXS
TVEDQEOEMTEVEX[DUIVEZTSRXMRIRSZLXEMSY_X[bI?GSROEMQEZPMWXEINTIMOEMS.OYVM[ZXEXEI.VQLRIYZIMR
TMPSXMQSYZQIRSb%OYZPEbSYNGE?PPSTITSMZLOITEVE XLRTVSWLKSVMZEROEM XS OEXLKSZVLQE (The
orderly and systematic arrangement of the passage, the names coming rst and then the predicates,
JENNY R. LABENDZ
381
One description Origen gives of Aquila, which is sometimes misconstrued,

appears in his letter to Africanus (see above for the fuller context): HSYPIYZ[RXLD
)FVEMZ[RPIZ\IM (slave of the Hebrew language). Out of context this might seem
like a condemnation; in context he is using Aquilas translation as a support, and
goes on to describe the esteem shown to Aquila by Jews and those who do not know
Hebrew (see above). Therefore, I believe this description is a positive evaluation
of Aquilas accuracy.105
Epiphanius (c. 310403 C.E.)
In Epiphaniuss treatise On Weights and Measures, written in 392,106 he provides
an elaborate biography of Aquila which, it is commonly noted, cannot be trusted
as historical.107 For our purposes, his nal comments on Aquila are worth noting
since we are interested in early Christian perspectives on Aquilas translation, and
because Epiphaniuss followers may have taken his comments quite seriously.108
After telling of Aquilas pagan origins, his conversion to Christianity, and then his
conversion to Judaism, Epiphanius describes the translation as follows:
He was moved not by the right motive, but (by the desire) so to distort certain
of the words occurring in the translation of the seventy-two that he might proclaim the things testied to about Christ in the divine Scriptures to be fullled
in some other way, on account of a certain shame that he felt (to proffer) a
senseless excuse for himself. . . . But we must say, beloved, the words of it
are incorrect and perversely translated.109
Epiphanius does not give examples of these charges against Aquila, as other
writers do, and comments not merely on the product, but on the motivation of the
translation.
roused our suspicions that the matter was so understood by the servants of God, and all the more
because Aquila, who strove to interpret most literally, has only distinguished the name from the
predicate; Lewis, 60).
105
This follows Swetes reading, Introduction, 33. For a general discussion of Origens complex
attitude towards literalism, see Charles J. Scalise, Origen and the Sensus Litteralis, in Origen of
Alexandria: His World and His Legacy (ed. Charles Kannengiesser and William L. Petersen; Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988) 11729.
106
See Epiphanius Treatise on Weights and Measures: The Syriac Version (ed. James Elmer Dean;
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935) 2. Only the Syriac survives in full. Deans translation
notes slight differences between the extant Greek fragements, none of which are signicant for our
purposes, so I provide only the English translation.
107
See Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and Canonic Texts, 166, and Marcos, Septuagint in
Context, 111.
108
As Dean notes (Epiphanius Treatise, 1), Among the Greek Fathers of the Christian church
Epiphanius holds an important place. This is not because of his literary ability or his constructive
achievements, but rather because of his great and far-reaching inuence, in the main reactionary.
109
Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 1516; translation from Dean, Epiphanius Treatise,
3132.
382
After he writes about Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion individually,

Epiphanius refers to all three together:
Now you become the judge, O great lover of the good, of such a matter as
this, whether the truth is more likely to be found with these threeI mean
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotionwho, moreover, were not together,
but were remote from one another in both time and place; and there were not
many, but only three, and yet they were unable to agree with one another.110
Then after describing the miraculous origin of the Septuagint and the divine
inspiration of the translators, he says of the Septuagint translators:
Though they did not know what each one by himself was translating, they
agreed absolutely with one another, and the translations were identical. And
where they cast out words, they translated in agreement with one another. So
it is clear to those who through love of the truth seek to investigate that they
were not merely translators but also, in part, prophets.111
These passages show that, like Irenaeus,112 Epiphanius took issue with the very
fact of new translations, emphasizing that the Septuagint should not merely be
considered a translation, but an inspired, prophetic Bible. The proliferation of
different versions is therefore senseless.
As noted with regard to Irenaeus, this critique derives from one of the most
basic and central differences between (at least a certain) Jewish perspective
and the perspective of certain Christians. For rabbinic Judaism, the only thing
sacrosanct is the Hebrew Bible. Translations, as we have seen in the rabbinic
texts, were essentially commentaries, and when it came to scriptural exegesis, the
rabbinic world did not seek to promote orthodoxy.113 For Epiphanius, this was not
a question of divergent commentary; it was a divergent text of the Bible itself, this
time uninspired.114
110
Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 17; Dean, Epiphanius Treatise, 3334.

Dean, Epiphanius Treatise, 3334.
112
However, Irenaeus raises issues that Epiphanius does not. Note in particular that Epiphanius
says nothing about the New Testament being based on the Septuagint, but only that the Septuagint
is an inspired text.
113
There has been much scholarship on this topic. See Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Signicance of
Yavneh, HUCA 55 (1984) 2753; Lawrence H. Schiffman, Who Was a Jew: Rabbinic and Halakhic
Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav, Ltd., 1985) 4149; Catherine
Hezser, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tbingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1997) 24054; Daniel Boyarin, The Diadoche of the Rabbis; Or, Judah the Patriarch at
Yavneh, in Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire (ed. Richard Kalmin and
Seth Schwartz; Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 285318; de Lange, Can We Speak of Jewish Orthodoxy?
16872; Alain Le Boulluec, La notion dhrsie dans la littrature grecque des IIe-IIIe sicles
(2 vols; Paris: tudes Augustiniennes, 1985). This is not to say that the rabbis, or other types of
Jewish communities for that matter, were limitlessly pluralistic; far from it. But they did not seek
uniformity of scriptural interpretation to anywhere near the degree that the Church Fathers did.
114
See Mllers discussion, First Bible of the Church, 11323, and Harry M. Orlinsky, The
Septuagint as Holy Writ and the Philosophy of the Translators, HUCA 46 (1975) 89114.
111
JENNY R. LABENDZ
383
In the eyes of the rabbis, Aquila composed a translation of Scripture; in the

eyes of some Christians, he corrupted Scripture. But they were starting from
vastly different assumptions about what Scripture was.115 For this reason, it seems
appropriate to view this aspect of Christian and Jewish reception of Aquilathat
is, the issues raised by Epiphaniusas a matter of disagreement not about Aquilas
translation or the translator himself, but about the very nature of Scripture and what
is required in order to translate it. Epiphanius will not countenance anything but
the prophetically revealed text of the Septuagint.
Jerome (ca. 347420 C.E.)
In contrast to Irenaeuss and Epiphaniuss concerns about heresy and affronts
to the Septuagint, when Jerome writes about Aquila he does so as a linguist and
a translator. In his Epistle to Pammachus, written in 395, he writes on the best
method of translating:
Yet the Septuagint has rightly kept its place in the churches, either because
it is the rst of all the versions in time, made before the coming of Christ, or
else because it has been used by the apostles (only however in places where it
does not disagree with the Hebrews). On the other hand we do right to reject
Aquila, the proselyte and controversial translator (contentiosus interpres),
who has striven to translate (transferre) not words only but their etymologies
as well. Who could accept as renderings (frumento) of corn and wine and
oil such words as GIYDQE SNT[VMWQSZR WXMPTRSZXLXE,116 or, as we might say,
pouring, and fruit gathering, and shining? or, because Hebrew has
in addition to the article other prexes as well, he must with an unhappy
pedantry translate (interpretur et . . . dicat) syllable by syllable and letter by
letter thus: WYRXSRSYNVERSROEMWYRXLRKLDR,117 a construction which neither
Greek nor Latin admits.118
The question about which we should be careful not to speculate excessively is

what Jerome meant by controversial translator. Was Aquila controversial among
the Christians? Among the Jews? Or was it a point of contention between Jews
115
See Marcos, Septuagint in Context, 346, and Rabin, Cultural Aspects of Bible Translation, 43,
though they perhaps overstate the matter in apparently extending this to all Christian and all Jewish
communities. I, on the other hand, see this phenonemon as just one of the dynamics at play.
116
117
118
p[V]X[,KH,VL\].
Gen 1:1, VELXE[]QpLXE.
Et tamen jure Septuaginta editio obtinuit in ecclesiis, vel quia prima est, et ante Christi
facta adventum, vel quia ab apostolis (in quibis tamen ab Hebraico non discrepat) usurpata. Aquila
autem proselytus et contentiosus interpres, qui non solum verba, sed etymologias quoque verborum
transferre conatus est, jure projicitur a nobis. Quis enim pro frumento et vino et oleo possit vel
legere vel intelligere GIYDQE SNT[VMWQSZR WXMPTRSZXLXE, quod nos possumus dicere fusionem,
pomationemque que et splendentiam. Aut, quia Hebraei non solum habent E?VUVE, sed et
TVSZEVUVE, ille OEOS^LZP[b et syllabas interpretatur et litteras dicitque WYRXSRSYNVERSROEM WYR
XLRKLDR, quod Graeca et Latina lingua omnino non recipit. Epistle 57, PL 22:57778. Translation
from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (ed. and trans. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; New York:
Christian Literature, 1893; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994) 6:118 (henceforth, NPNF).
384
and Christians? I do not believe it is possible to know what Jerome perceived. I

therefore turn to what we can understand from this passage.
Jerome favors the Septuagint translation, at least for use in church, for two
reasons, also found in Irenaeuss writings: it was the rst, and it was used by the
apostles. But Jeromes problem with Aquila is not a traditionalist one;119 that is,
the problem is not that Aquila attempted to supercede the Septuagint,120 as we saw
with Epiphanius, or that his translation was heretical or inaccurate, as we saw with
Irenaeus. Jerome views Aquila as simply a bad translator who strove to accomplish
more than is possible for a decent Greek text. Whereas Irenaeus refers to Aquilas
work as interpretation, Jerome also uses other words besides interpres to describe
Aquilas work: dicat, transferre, and below, editionem.
This problem of the awkwardness of Aquilas translation would not have been
relevant in any of the extant rabbinic usages of Aquila, since the rabbis, as we have
seen, only cite words or phrases, never whole verses or even clauses. If anything,
Aquilas attention to detail would have found favor with them, since they sought
precise translations of difcult words (though it remains speculative whether or not
the rabbis were specically drawn to that aspect of Aquilas translations).
Once again we see that a Church Father has a problem with Aquila because he is
looking at the translation from a particular point of view. The Christian community
reads the Bible as a whole in Latin and/or Greek, and Jerome is therefore concerned
with the running text and with Greek (or as the case may be, Latin) style. Jerome
in particular, himself a translator, was sensitive to the issues involved in producing
a new version, as well as to the idiosyncrasies of different translators styles. The
rabbis, on the other hand, use the Hebrew Bible, and are only interested in atomistic
Greek translations (and presumably running Aramaic translations for synagogal
use, though that is not our concern).
As Hillel Newman has pointed out, Jeromes distaste for Aquilas running text
did not stop him from utilizing that same translation when it suited him.121 In fact,
in Jeromes Epistle 32 to Marcellawritten in 384, eleven years before the above
letterhe writes that he is in the process of comparing Aquilas version to the
Hebrew (having already completed his comparison of the prophets, which one
assumes includes Isa 7:14, which so bothered Irenaeus):
119
On traditionalism with regard to the Septuagints authority, see Mller, First Bible of the
Church, 8794.
120
On the complex topic of Jeromes relationship to the Septuagint and to biblical translators in
generalJewish and Christiansee Sarah Kamin, The Theological Signicance of the Hebraica
Veritas in Jeromes Thought, in Shaarei Talmon: Studies in Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near
East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon (ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 1992) 24353, and Adam Kamesar, Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible:
A Study of the Questiones Hebraicae in Genesim (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 4172.
121
Hillel Newman, Heyronimus ve-ha-Yehudim (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1997) 75. For
citations and discussions of Jeromes citations of Aquila, as well as his citations of Symmachus
and Theodotion, and how they gure into his own exegesis and his Latin translation, see Kamesar,
Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
385
Let me tell you, then, that for some time past I have been comparing Aquilas
version of the Old Testament with the scrolls of the Hebrew, to see if from
hatred to Christ the synagogue has changed the text; andto speak frankly to
a friendI have found several variations which conrm our faith.122
When it comes to the content of the translation, Jerome, at least at this stage,
approves (or at least does not disapprove) of Aquilas translation.123 Its Jewish
origin renders it suspect, but ultimately its inherent worth overrides the suspicion.124
Sarah Kamin125 has argued that Jerome was more tolerant of the Jewish revisions
of the Septuagint than of the original Septuagint, based on his assessment of their
respective translation techniques. Jerome writes that the Septuagint translators did
not understand what the Hebrew Bible meant when it referred to the future coming
of Jesus, so they translated vaguely or doubtfully.126 The Jewish revisions, on the
other hand, translated the Hebrew exactly, even though they did not understand (or
they rejected) its true Christian meaning.127 So Aquilas literalism had a positive
element even for Jerome. Thus we see that even within the works of a given writer,
Aquilas reception requires a nuanced answer, and it is not simply a matter of
acceptance or rejection, popularity or unpopularity.
Jeromes testimony also sheds light on the perspective of his readers. In the
prologue to his translation of Isaiah, he defends himself against those who would
criticize his translations departure from the Septuagint. He writes regarding Aquila,
Symmachus, and Theodotion:
Therefore, knowing and being wise, I place my hand in the re, and nevertheless I pray this for the scornful readers: that just as the Greeks after the
Seventy translators read Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion, either for
study of their doctrines or so that they better understand the Seventy through
their collation, that these are deemed worthy to have at least one translator after the earlier ones. Reading rst and afterward despising, they are seen not to
condemn by judgment, but rather by the ignorant presumption of hatred.128
122
Jam pridem cum voluminibis Hebraeorum editionem Aquilae confero, ne quid forsitan propter
odium Christi Synagoga mutaverit: et ut amicae menti fatear, quae ad nostram dem pertineant
roborandam, plura reperio. PL 22:446. Translation from NPNF 6:46.
123
See Swete, Introduction, 34, and the texts he cites there.
124
On Jerome and the Jews in general, see Newman, Jerome and the Jews, and the extensive
bibliography he cites.
125
Kamin, Theological Signicance, 252.
126
See ibid., 247, citing Jeromes preface to his translation of Genesis.
127
See ibid., 252 and n. 31 there, citing Jeromes Apologia contra Runum. See also Kamesar,
Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible, 69 and n. 112 there.
128
Sciens ergo et prudens in ammam mitto manum: et nihilominus hoc a fastidiosis lectoribus
precor, ut quomodo Graeci post Septuaginta translatores, Aquilam et Symmachum et Theodotionem
legunt, vel ob studium doctrinae suae, vel ut Septuaginta magis ex collatione eorum intelligant: sic
et isti saltem unum post priores habere dignentur interpretem. Legant prius, et postea despiiant:
ne videantur, non ex judicio, sed ex odii praesumptione ignorata damnare. PL 28:82627. Kevin
P. Edgecombs translation: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_isaiah.htm.
386
Jerome here encourages people to accept his Latin translation, just as they
accepted that there were translations in Greek after the Septuagint. This is quite
signicant; Jerome does not merely reect his own perception of the post-Septuagint
translations, but he expects his readers to agree that there is nothing preposterous
about putting forth a new translation of the Bible.129 This perspective stands in
stark opposition to that of Irenaeus (before Origens Hexapla) and Epiphanius
(even after the Hexapla).
As we have seen, each of the above authors and texts bears unique nuances and
perspectives. They also represent different places and time periods. Irenaeus lived
in the second century, before Origens Hexapla, and was writing in Lyon; Origen
lived in the third century in Alexandria and then Palestine; Epiphanius lived in the
fourth century in Cyprus; and Jerome lived around the same time but in Rome and
then in Palestine. Aquilas place in these authors personal study, literary work,
and teaching, like his place in their Christian communities and among their Jewish
neighbors, was anything but uniform. The only thing that can be said with certainty
is that Aquilas translation managed to work its way into the purview and interest
of some of the most signicant gures in early Christianity.
Conclusion
Aquilas legacy in the scholarship, polemic, and memory of Late Antique Jewish
and Christian tradition is particularly intriguing in that it gures in both traditions
over the course of centuries. It is equally remarkable that both traditions seem
aware of that fact, at least to some degree. Even Irenaeus and Jerome, who do
not mention contemporary Jews in connection with Aquila, mention that he was a
Jewish proselyte, as does Justinian later on. Origen and Augustine say explicitly
that Aquilas translation occupied a prominent place in Jewish communities.
From the rabbinic sources it is harder to be sure what the rabbis knew of Christian
interest in Aquilas translation. But it is plausible that part of the reason Aquila is not
portrayed by the rabbis as a standard rabbinic gure is that he and/or his translation
also functioned outside of the rabbinic sphere. Yet despite the rabbinic perception
of Aquilas identity as less than fully rabbinic, and the Christian awareness of his
Jewish connections, his translation was utilized by Jews for purely Jewish reasons,
and by Christians for purely Christian reasons.
Appreciating this phenomenon requires a clear understanding of the answers to
the following questions: How did the rabbis perceive or remember the historical
Aquila, and how did they use his translation? How did the Christians respond to
his work, and how did they perceive the Jews interests in his translation? I have
attempted to answer these questions through a detailed analysis of the sources,
keeping a close eye on what may reasonably be inferred and what is mere
129
For an in-depth discussion of Jeromes arguments of this sort, see Kamesar, Jerome, Greek
Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible, 5872.
JENNY R. LABENDZ
387
speculation, since often in the past the scarcity of evidence has led scholars to
overstate matters.
To reiterate my conclusions: Rabbinic narratives about and citations of Aquila
show that he was perceived as a gure who was in some sense integrated into the
rabbinic community, but who was not himself a sage and was not fully comfortable
with his place in rabbinic society, expressing insecurity about his own status.
He is also portrayed as having functioned outside the rabbinic sphere (albeit as
a Jew, in his conversation with Hadrian), and all of his translation traditions are
introduced with a special formula that distinguishes him from the rabbis. Yet his
translations themselves are unambiguously incorporated into rabbinic midrashic
and legal discussions. The Palestinian rabbis thus manage to express the limits of
their identication with Aquila the proselyte translator, while culling his translation
for all the insight it offered.
Christian writers have a greater diversity of opinions about Aquilas work. Being
heresiologists, Irenaeus condemns the translation as heretical and presumptuous
and Epiphanius echoes that condemnation in even stronger terms. However, in stark
contrast to them, Origen considers Aquilas translation a valuable text witness for
the original Hebrew Bible and a useful tool in correcting the Septuagint translation.
Jerome, with the critical eye of a translator who, like Origen, highly values
the original Hebrew text of the Bible, expresses mixed feelings about Aquilas
translation; Aquilas running text reects poor translation technique in Jeromes
eyes, but individual translations were useful to him, as they were for the rabbis.
Moreover, the fact that the translation as a whole was not seen as preposterous
helped Jerome claim validity for his own translation.
All of these views about AquilaJewish and Christianvaried according to
the perspectives with which the ancient authors approached the translator and his
translation: whether they saw him as Aquila the Greek-speaker, Aquila the Hebrewspeaker, Aquila the Jew, or Aquila the Roman, and whether they saw translation
as interpretation, as philological tool, or as Bible version. Therefore, examining
the different responses to Aquila and his translation is illuminating both in what it
tells us specically about Aquilas legacy in Late Antiquity, as well as in the light
it sheds on the various issueswhether issues of language, doctrine, exegesis,
or othersthat were important to different segments of the Jewish and Christian
communities of this time period.
Furthermore, the very diversity of perspectives on, concerns about, and uses
of Aquilas translation among Jews and Christians is instructive in and of itself.
Despite the similarities between Jews and Christians at this stageas they lived
in the same geographical areas, were minorities within the Roman Empire, were
readers of the Bible, and were Greek-speakersJewish and Christian perspectives
on Aquila were not at all monolithic. A Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible by
a Jewish proselyte might have served as a bridge between these communities, but
instead, it became a source of controversy that illuminates not their unity but their
388
divergence. Further still, we have seen that different opinions of Aquilas translation
do not reect a binary division between Jews and Christians.
Even more signicant than the diversity of opinions about Aquilas translation
among various writers is the diversity of their reasons for addressing the translation
in the rst place. For Irenaeus it is a matter of heresy; for Jerome a matter of
language; for the rabbis a matter of commentary. The rabbinic sources are more
unied on this topic than the Christian sources, but even the rabbinic sources reect
the different angles from which the rabbis viewed Aquilaas a translator, as a
non-rabbi, as a proselyte. Other Jewish sources are silent. The sources presented
here occupy a miniscule amount of space in the literature of one slice of the Jewish
worldthe Palestinian rabbinic community. We need not speculate about the
specic opinions of silent voices in the Jewish world, rabbinic or otherwise, but it
seems more than likely that the broader Jewish community included a diverse array
of perspectives on Aquilas translation, just as did the broader Christian community.
Indeed, we glimpse this possibility in the various comments Christian writers make
about the Jews interest in Aquilas translation.
The case of Aquilas Bible translation serves then as a demonstration of the
complexity of these two Late Antique communities. As such, this case may serve
as a corrective to scholarly searches for the Christian or the Jewish view of any
given matter of interest. It also demonstrates the necessity of seeking not only the
nal opinions expressed by ancient writers, but also their underlying assumptions
and their motivations for taking up a given question in the rst place.
Books Received
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2009. 127 pp. $14.95 pb.
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del settembre 256. Testi e ricerche di scienze religiose, nuova serie 43. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009. 524 pp. 34,00 pb.
Blum, Edward J., and Jason R. Young, eds. The Souls of W. E. B. DuBois: New
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2009. 538 pp. $49.99 hb.
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Clarke, Peter and Tony Claydon, eds. The Church, the Afterlife, and the Fate
of the Soul: Papers Read at the 2007 Summer Meeting and the 2008 Winter
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Clutterbuck, Richard. Handing on Christ: Rediscovering the Gift of Christian
Doctrine. London: Epworth, 2009. 211 pp. n.p. pb.
Coffey, John, and Paul C. H. Lim, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 385 pp. $29.99 pb.
Cragg, Kenneth. A Christian-Muslim Inter-Text Now: From Anathemata to
Theme. London: Melisende, 2007. 248 pp. 15.00 pb.
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390
Cragg, Kenneth. The Iron in the Soul: Joseph and the Undoing of Violence. London: Melisende, 2009. 243 pp. 15.00 pb.
Cragg, Kenneth. Mosque Sermons: A Listener for the Preacher. London:
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State University of New York Press, 2009. 241 pp. $75.00 hb.
Engel, Katherine Cart. Religion and Prot: Moravians in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 304 pp. $39.95 hb.
Espin, Orlando O., ed. Building Bridges, Doing Justice: Constructing a Latino/a
Ecumenical Theology. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2009. 204 pp. $28.00 pb.
Firth, David G. and Jamie A., eds. Grant. Words and the Word: Explorations in
Biblical Interpretation and Literary Theory. Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity
Press, 2008. 317 pp. $32.00 pb.
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Gallagher, Robert L. and Paul Hertig, eds. Landmark Essays in Mission and
World Christianity. American Society of Missiology Series 43. 272 pp.
$35.00 pb.
Gourgues, Michel. Les deux lettres Timothe. La lettre Tite. Commentaire
biblique: Nouveau Testament 14. Paris: Les ditions du cerf, 2009. 432 pp.
42 pb.
Gross, Rita M. A Garland of Feminist Reections: Forty Years of Religious
Exploration. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2009. 340 pp.
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Gunton, Colin E. Revelation and Reason: Prolegomena to Systematic Theology.
Edited by P. H. Brazier. New York: T&T Clark, 2008. 226 pp. $34.95 pb.
Haus, Jeffrey. Challenges of Equality: Judaism, State, and Education in Nineteenth-Century France. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. 240 pp.
$49.95 hb.
Herlinger, Chris and Paul Jeffrey. Where Mercy Fails: Darfurs Struggle to Survive. New York: Church Publishing, 2009. 160 pp. $25.00 pb.
Jackson, Michael. The Palm at the End of the Mind: Relatedness, Religiosity,
and the Real. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009. 238 pp. $22.95 pb.
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391
Lee, Shayne and Phillip Luke Sinitiere. Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators
and the Spiritual Marketplace. New York: New York University Press, 2009.
199 pp. $20.00 pb.
Manning, Russell Re, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 322 pp. $29.99 pb.
Martyn, John R. C., ed. and trans. Saint Leander, Archbishop of Seville: A Book
on the Teaching of Nuns and a Homily in Praise of the Church. Lanham, Md.:
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Merton, Thomas. The Rule of Saint Benedict: Initiation into the Monastic Tradition 4. Monastic Wisdom Series 19. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press,
2009. 291 pp. n.p. pb.
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Miller, Patricia Cox. The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late
Ancient Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
288 pp. $49.95 hb.
Moran, Gabriel. Believing in a Revealing God: The Basis of the Christian Life.
Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009. 194 pp. $29.95 pb.
Mosshammer, Alden A. The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian
Era. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
474 pp. $130.00 hb.
Murphy-OConnor, Jerome. Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 307 pp. $99.00 hb.
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University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 488 pp. $65.00 hb.
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Preston, Christopher J. Saving Creation: Nature and Faith in the Life of Holmes
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Christianity and Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
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The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy

From Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century
EDITED BY STEVEN NADLER AND T.M. RUDAVSKY
The rst volume in this comprehensive work is an exploration of the history of Jewish philosophy from its beginnings in antiquity to the early modern period, with a particular emphasis on medieval Jewish thought. Unlike most
histories, encyclopedias, guides, or companions of Jewish
philosophy, this volume is organized by philosophical topic
rather than by chronology or individual gures. There are
sections on logic and language; natural philosophy; epistemology, philosophy of mind, and psychology; metaphysics and philosophical theology; and practical philosophy.
There are also chapters on the intellectual background of
Jewish philosophy, including Islamic and Greek thought
and the Jewish philosophical textual traditions. With essays by leading scholars in the eld, this volume provides
the reader with a wonderful overview of the richness and
sophistication of Jewish philosophy in its golden age.
Hardback / $180.00
920 pages
ISBN: 978-0-521-84323-2
The esteemed Cambridge Histories series is now available online for libraries.
Visit www.cambridge.org/online/histories to learn more!
Harvard Theological Review

102:3
JULY 2009
ARTICLES
From Resurrection to Immortality: Theological and Political

Implications in Modern Jewish Thought
279
Leora Batnitzky
Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Old Testament
297
Paul E. Capetz
From the Double Movement to the Double Danger:

Kierkegaard and Rebounding Violence
327
Matthew C. Bagger
Aquilas Bible Translation in Late Antiquity: Jewish and

Chritian Perspectives
353
Jenny R. Labendz
Books Received
389
Cambridge Journals Online

For further informaion about this journal please
go to the journal website at:
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Members of the Faculty of Divinity

Anne Browder, Eve Feinstein, Rebecca Hancock, Christine Thomas

From Resurrection to Immortality:

HTR 102:3 (2009) 27996

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Kantian, liberal German-Jewish philosopher; Franz Rosenzweig (18861929), the

I would like to suggest that because resurrection is associated with collective

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Jewish thought, theology without politicsthe miracle of resurrection without the

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Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, 3:27.

Spinoza refers here to Maimonides commentary, in his Law of Kings, on the

According to Maimonides, in order to earn a place in the world to come, a non-Jew

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For Maimonides, in contrast, there is no tension between the particular historical

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character, Hirschs conception of immortality is quite similar to Mendelssohns.

For Cohen, messianic mankind implies not an eschatological endpoint but

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concept of resurrection by cultural Zionists points to the most basic questions of

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Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Old

In the nineteenth century the unrestricted application of the historical-critical method

HTR 102:3 (2009) 297326

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light of historical research by exploring in detail Schleiermachers argument.2 Since

As an exercise in historical theology this essay undertakes three distinct yet

Schleiermachers Argument about the Old Testament

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Gl. 14, postscript.

expected ministerial candidates to know Hebrew and Aramaic as well as Greek.14

Kurze Darstellung, 141.

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an outward unity, reecting a denite origin in history, and an inward unity,

Once the essence is ascertained, the relations of Christianity to other religions

time: thus in no way can Christianity be viewed as a reshaping or a renewal of

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Critique of Schleiermachers Portrayal of Judaism and Early

It appears as though Schleiermacher viewed Moses as the founder of Judaism: By Judaism

in his polemic against natural religion as an articial intellectual construct.31

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Although the NT is full of polemics against non-Christian Jews as well as against

Here there appears to be an inconsistency in Schleiermachers argument. From

Gl. 9.2, emphasis added.

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The conclusion is unavoidable that the historical foundation of Schleiermachers

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The Jewish Jesus and the Nature of Christian Faith

Hermeneutics and Criticism, 43, 41.

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docetic strain at work here, notwithstanding Schleiermachers explicit rejection

If Schleiermacher had been constrained to base his view of Jesus preaching on

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Wildman, Basic Christological Distinctions, 302.

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Historical Criticism and the Canon of Scripture

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Beckmann, Die fremde Wurzel, 349.