What time did the devil fall?

 In case you've ever wondered exactly when the devil and his buddies fell from heaven, an Ethiopic text provides the answer. The Miracles of Jesus narrates the fall of the devil and his angels, telling us:

ወኮነ ፡ ድቀቶሙ ፡ በሳድስ ፡ ዕለት ፡ ወበሣልስ ፡ ሰዓት ፨  

"And their fall was on the sixth day and in the third hour."

Compare this with the Cave of Treasures:

"He was cast down and fell, he and his whole rank, on Friday, the sixth day, and their fall from heaven lasted for three hours" (3:3; trans. Alexander Toepel).

Which chapters do scriptural commentaries focus on? Ethiopic Commentary on Daniel

Sometimes us ancient and religious studies folks get to play with charts and graphs too. Here is a graph I put together for an upcoming Kolloquium presentation on my dissertation project (which I explained in an earlier post). I'm working on an edition and translation of the Ethiopic commentary materials on the Book of Daniel. One of the important questions we can ask when studying scriptural commentaries is: which parts of the scriptural text receive the most attention and commentary? Ancient and medieval commentaries can be fairly uneven in their treatment of the text, offering long discourses on a handful of key verses while glossing over larger blocks of text.
I've done some Ethiopic word counts of my transcription of the Daniel Commentary, and this chart shows both the number of words for each chapter in its version of Daniel and the number of words in the commentary on that chapter. The disparities are significant. Chapters eleven, seven, twelve, and three are the ones that attract the most commentary. This is not too surprising. Daniel 7 and 12 have been significant texts for Christian eschatology and Christology. For commentaries with an interest in historical questions, Daniel 11, with its extensive descriptions of events from the Hellenistic era, gives opportunity for lots of explication. Daniel 3 has an important place in Christian lectionaries.

Hipster Nativity

You may have already seen pictures of the 2016 Hipster Nativity Scene floating around the web. For a mere $130 you can replace your traditional Nativity set with something a little more modern:

This is a fun contemporary example of the visual reception history of the Nativity. If you're leading any discussions in the classroom or the church on the birth of Jesus this Advent season, I suspect this could create some interesting discussion.

As tempting as it is, I think if I'm going to dish out $130 on a Nativity set it'll be for something a little more traditional. Or, more likely, I'll use it as a down payment on a Brill book 😜

A couple more resources:
A short bibliography from the Glencairn Museum.

"The Nativity in Art" at Bible Odyssey, by Robin M. Jensen.

The Nativity, by Jeremy Wood.

Illuminating Luke: The Infancy Narrative in Italian Renaissance Painting, by Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal Carl Parsons.

Who Staged the First Nativity Scene? by L.V. Anderson.

A Critical Edition and English Translation of the Classical Ethiopic Commentary Materials on the Book of Daniel

"Habakkuk and the Angel" (Bernini)

For my dissertation at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München I am preparing a critical edition of the Ge'ez commentary materials on the Book of Daniel. A little bit about the project:

The significance of Second Temple Judaism for religious scholarship lies partly in its influence on later religious movements and traditions.  The literature, institutions, and ideas that emerged during the time of the Second Temple, both in the Persian and Greco-Roman periods, were foundational for Rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and Islam.  To appreciate Second Temple literature in all of its richness we must give attention not only to the texts in their earliest contexts, but also to their reception histories.  While the study of the influence and reception of Second Temple texts will naturally include the antique and medieval Hebrew, Greek, and Latin traditions, it must also include the “oriental” traditions, which have to this point not been adequately examined by modern western scholarship.  

Among these traditions the classical Ethiopic corpus is quite significant, as it preserves texts like 1 Enoch and Jubilees that are not fully extant in their original languages or in any of their other versions.  These Ethiopic versions are indispensable for the study of these important Second Temple texts (fortunately, a new edition and translation of Ethiopic 1 Enoch is currently underway).  The Ethiopic tradition also contains versions of early Jewish texts for which the original language(s) manuscripts and other versions do exist, such as the Wisdom of Solomon or the Book of Daniel.  While their value as text-critical witnesses to the “original” text or earlier versions is open for debate, these versions are at the very least valuable for reception-oriented text-critical work that aims to understand and appreciate the textual development of a composition as a worthy pursuit in its own right.  In addition to versions of Second Temple texts, which can be studied from the perspective of reception history, the Ethiopic tradition also preserves interpretations of and commentaries on some of these texts.  While many of these works are in Amharic and are part of the andemta tradition, some are extant in classical Ethiopic/Ge'ez.  These are helpful for understanding the reception history of Second Temple literature in late antiquity and the medieval period.

The objective of my research is to contribute to the study of the reception of Second Temple Jewish literature in the classical Ethiopic tradition by offering a critical edition, English translation, and analysis of the Ge'ez Tergwāmē materials on the Book of Daniel, which contain both Ge'ez versions of the text of Daniel as well as commentary on the book.  Manuscripts of these materials have been known to western scholarship for some time, and the text of Daniel in one of the manuscripts was even collated by Oscar Löfgren in his critical edition of Ethiopic Daniel.  However, no one has yet published, critically edited, or translated these commentary materials.  My dissertation is an attempt to fill that lacuna.

The Akedah on the Radio

I heard this song from Nova Scotian folk musician Ben Caplan on the radio today, which references the Akedah, or Near-Sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22: "Birds with Broken Wings."

The story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham's obedience, and a last minute divine intervention to prevent Abe from following through is well-known in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions (check out Levenson's Inheriting Abraham).  It has appeared throughout western history in art and music, and over the past several years has popped up at least a few times on the radio.  In addition to the Ben Caplan song, Arcade Fire's "Abraham's Daughter" showed up in the Hunger Games soundtrack, and a bit further back we heard Sufjan Stevens' "Abraham."

Caplan and Arcade Fire both tap into the highly disturbing nature of the Akedah.  For many of us today, someone who is willing to sacrifice their son because they believe a deity told them to do it is not really a hero.

Medieval Interpretations of Genesis

Eerdword, the Eerdman's blog just posted something by Joy Schroeder on her book The Book of Genesis, a new volume in The Bible in Medieval Tradition series.  Schroeder has translated major excerpts from seven different medieval Christian commentators on the Book of Genesis, many (most?) of which have not been published in English translation before.

Be sure to check out her post by clicking here, and consider buying the book!  It appears to be available in Kindle edition now and paperback at the end of the month.  

As someone who studies the interpretation of Genesis in ancient Judaism, I am very excited to take a look at this resource and get a better sense of how the book was interpreted by medieval Christians.  The history of interpretation is fascinating in its own right, but it also gives us important and often revealing insights into our own modern assumptions about text, meaning, and interpretation.
Some other works that also take us into the world of the historical interpretation of Genesis:

Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Jon D. Levenson.

The Bible as it Was, by James Kugel.

In Potiphar's House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts, by James Kugel.

"The End of All Things"

Did Frodo quote the Apostle Peter (or whoever wrote in his name)?

In 1 Peter 4:7 we read:

"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer" (KJV).

Near the end of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, while Frodo and Sam are at Mount Doom, we read:

"'Yes,' said Frodo.  'But do you remember Gandalf's words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do?  But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring.  The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end.  So let us forgive him!  For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over.  I am glad you are here with me.  Here at the end of all things, Sam'" (926).

And again a little later:

"'I am glad that you are here with me,' said Frodo.  'Here at the end of all things, Sam'" (929).

Was Tolkien drawing on a biblical phrase, or is this just coincidence?  Tolkien's work was indebted to biblical apocalypticism, and I suspect he was consciously drawing on 1 Peter.  Whatever the case, Peter's phrase is potent and memorable.  The film version of the "end of all things" is currently viewable here.  And the song from Howard Shore's Return of the King soundtrack bearing the same name can be listened to here.

Tobit in the Duino Elegies

In reading Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies I came across a reference to the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal book of Tobit.  While their canonical status has been debated since late antiquity, the Old Testament Apocrypha have left their imprint on western art and literature.  The passage from Rilke:

"Jeder Engel ist schrecklich.  Und dennoch, weh mir,
ansing ich euch, fast tödliche Vögel der Seele,
wissend um euch.  Wohin sind die Tage Tobiae,
da der Strahlendsten einer stand an der einfachen Haustür,
zur Reise ein wenig verkleidet und schon nicht mehr
    furchtbar;
(Jüngling dem Jüngling, wie er neugierig hinaussah).
Träte der Erzengel jetzt, der gefährliche, hinter den Sternen
eines Schrittes nur nieder und herwärts: hochaufschlagend
erschlüg uns das eigene Herz.  Wer seid ihr?" (from the Second Elegy)

"Every angel is terrifying.  And yet, alas,
I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul,
knowing about you.  Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of you, veiling his radiance, stood at the front
     door,
slightly disguised for the journey, no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the
     window).
But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating
higher and higher, would beat us to death.  Who are you?" (trans. Stephen Mitchell)

The reference ("one of you") is to the angel Raphael in the book of Tobit, who disguises himself as a human and serves as a guide for Tobit's son Tobias in his journey.  In the end he reveals his true identity to Tobit and Tobias and they fall on their faces in fear (12:6).

For Rilke, angels are creatures that inspire holy terror: "Jeder Engel ist schrecklich."  He draws on the ancient theme of a direct, unmediated experience of divine/heavenly beings causing fear and even death and contrasts this with the veiled presence of Raphael in the story of Tobit.  Back in those days a human could rub shoulders with a disguised Raphael, but now if he were to emerge from behind the stars and approach humanity our own hearts would "beat us to death."

If you've never read Tobit, check it out!    

Scripture in the Mishnah

An excellent resource for those interested in early Jewish interpretation of scripture is Alexander Samely's Midrashic Units in the Mishnah.  The website is a companion to his fascinating work Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).  Find it in a library here, or purchase it here. 

The website has a database and accompanying resources for all of the examples of biblical interpretation in the Mishnah with the exception of Avot (which the author indicates will be added in the future).  Samely has provided an English translation of each Midrashic unit and an analysis/commentary that uses the categories and terms he developed in his book.

You can search by tractate, biblical book, the code/category, the rabbi, formal features, or use a search term field.

This is a fantastic online resource for those interested in early scriptural interpretation and Rabbinic literature.  

A good summary quote from chapter 2 of Samely's book:

"Mishnaic interpretations do not target the whole of Scripture, or any one of its larger parts, but rather segments approximately of sentence length.  The hermeneutic licence to cut the text into small units which can be interpreted as if they stood alone creates a wide hermeneutic choice.  Its fundamental effect is that the segment, taken in isolation, is less determined in topic, reference, or meaning than as part of a Scriptural environment (co-text).  The Mishnah, in surrounding the segment with different co-text, can thus appoint a fresh topic, reference, or meaning for the biblical words" (31).

"Maimonides and Slavery: Rambam's approach to human dignity" [Video]

Chabad.org has a video lecture by Joshua Getzler entitled "Maimonides and Slavery: Rambam's approach to human dignity."  The first sixteen or seventeen minutes give a nice little overview of his life and works, and the remainder focuses on the specific issue of slavery.  If you register with the website you can download an MP3 of the talk.

You can see manuscript images of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, mentioned in the video, here.

This video is one of the many fun resources we'll be exploring in our upcoming Ancient Bookshelf online course, Slavery as Moral Problem in the Bible.

Review: "Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."

Since the Torah portion for this week is Lech Lechah, which begins with the calling of Abram, I thought it would be an appropriate time to post a brief review of Jon D. Levenson's fascinating new book on Abraham.  

In an age of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue Abraham is often touted as a source of unity and fraternity among western religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which are called "Abrahamic faiths."  But while Jews, Christians, and Muslims all cherish father Abraham, they have distinct traditions and sources that they use to understand the patriarch.  Thus Abraham can actually illustrate the differences between the faiths as much as, or perhaps more than, he can serve as a source of unity.  In his Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Jon D. Levenson questions the idea of Abraham as a unifier by exploring the different ways these western faiths have received and understood the patriarch, with particular attention given to Abraham in the Jewish tradition.  

At its heart Inheriting Abraham is a fascinating work on the history of interpretation that also raises important questions about the nature of religious traditions and contemporary interfaith dialogue.  Levenson gives a good deal of attention to what the book of Genesis tells us about Abraham.  But along the way he emphasizes that the book of Genesis by itself cannot tell us what Abraham has meant and continues to mean for the Abrahamic faith communities.  For Muslims Genesis is not canonical, so it is actually the Qur'an that provides the primary source for understanding Abraham's significance.  While Jews and Christians do consider Genesis canonical, both faiths have additional traditions about the patriarch that shape their understanding.  The Protestant impulses ingrained in our culture might urge us to get behind these traditions to the "real" Abraham, but the figure that we would end up with would not be the Abraham who is meaningful to Jews, Christians, or Muslims.  And how can an Abraham who is foreign to these faith traditions or which privileges one tradition's methods or sources over another foster real unity or dialogue?  In his conclusion Levenson argues: 

Thru the Torah in a Year

Simchat Torah takes place this week, which means that the Jewish annual Torah reading cycle is about to restart.  In Jewish tradition the Torah is divided up into 54 sections which are read throughout the course of a year.  Even if you're not Jewish you might consider spending a year tracking along with the weekly readings.  If you're a student of ancient literature, the Torah is an incredibly fascinating and engrossing anthology, and giving it a year of sustained study will be very rewarding.  If you've studied Hebrew the weekly Torah portion is a great way to keep your reading skills sharp.  If you're a Christian, the Torah/Pentateuch is the heart and soul of the Old Testament, and contains an interesting blend of texts that most of us are overly-familiar with (the Garden of Eden for instance) and texts that most of us have never touched (like just about all of Leviticus).  This means that reading the Torah through the year will give you the opportunity to see familiar texts with fresh eyes and encounter unfamiliar texts perhaps for the first time.  It's also a lot shorter than the "Bible in a year" reading programs many churches do.

Some resources you might find useful:

General Resources
Reading Schedule
This tells you what sections to read each week.

Chabad.org Parsha Resources
Resources on the weekly portion.

Aish.com Torah Portion Resources
More weekly resources.

Torah from JTS
Torah commentary from the Jewish Theological Seminary

The Torah: A Beginner's Guide by Joel S. Kaminsky and Joel N. Lohr
This is a great basic overview of the Torah that gives attention to historical issues as well as the use and interpretation of the Torah in both the Jewish and Christian traditions.  Affordable and accessible.  

The Bible as it Was by James L. Kugel
I try to recommend this book or its more expansive brother as often as I can.  Kugel gives us insights into how the earliest interpreters of the Torah understood it.

Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch, by Gordon J. Wenham 
This is a good introductory textbook on the Pentateuch.

Ancient Sukkot Passages: Zechariah, Jubilees, Maccabees, Plutarch, John, and Bar Kokhba

Tonight the Jewish holiday Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles begins.  It is a rich and wonderful holiday that has its origins in the first temple period, and is one of the three pilgrimage festivals prescribed in the Torah:

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the LORD.  On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. For seven days you shall present food offerings to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work. . . . . . On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the LORD seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest.  And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 23:34-36, 39-43; Cf. Exodus 23:16, Numbers 29:12-38 and Deuteronomy 16:13-15)

Like some other biblical festivals, Sukkot has both an agricultural and an historical meaning.  Agriculturally, it is a harvest festival, but historically it commemorates the time Israel spent in the wilderness.  Sukkot is quite significant in the Bible, where it is known simply as "the festival of the LORD" or even just "the festival."  It continued to be an important holiday throughout the 2nd Temple period and beyond.  Here are a few interesting passages on Sukkot from that time (and a little bit afterwards):

Sukkot and the Nations

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.  And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. (Zechariah 14:16-19)

The post-exilic prophet Zechariah includes Sukkot in his eschatological vision.  For Zechariah, Sukkot will one day include not only Israel but also the nations, who will make an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to observe the feast.  If they do not, they will experience drought (Sukkot is connected not only with harvest but also prayer for rain in the coming growing season).  The Talmud also mentions the significance of Sukkot for the nations, by identifying the 70 bulls sacrificed as representing each of the 70 nations (b.Sukkot 55b).  The Talmud also predicts that God will give the Gentiles an opportunity to prove that they are willing to obey the Torah by asking them to observe Sukkot.  However, when God sends hot weather the Gentiles will give up and kick their booths.   

When Blood Cries: Abel and the Appeals of the Dead

I've been waiting a long time to work a Prince allusion into a blog title.  You might recall from Sunday school that after Cain kills his brother in the book of Genesis he decides to play dumb. Unfortunately for him, YHWH finds out about the crime, and confronts him during their little post-murder interrogation: "What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground." (Gen 4:10)  

One of the fascinating things about the history of interpretation is that one little verse can give rise to a rich and varied tradition.  When we look at later Jewish and Christian literature we see that YHWH's claim that Abel's blood cried out from the ground inspired some sacred speculation about Abel and the postmortem cries of the murdered and the martyred.  For instance, in 1st Enoch 22 the antediluvian visionary Enoch gets a tour of the abode of the dead by an angelic docent.  While there are some difficulties with the text as we have it, the gist is this: the souls of the dead are being kept in hollows/caves carved into a mountain in the west.  Unlike popular Protestant conceptions of the afterlife, the souls of the dead are not divided into two realms with the righteous souls ascending to heaven and the unrighteous descending to hell.  Instead, all souls go to the same non-heavenly realm where they are placed into four (or three?) bins for safekeeping until judgment day.  When traveling towards judgment you can fly first class, business class, coach, or be neatly stowed in the baggage compartment.  Kensky compares this intermediate state to a jail, where prisoners are kept during trial, which is different from prison where they get sent after sentencing (the final judgment).  

While surveying the mountain Enoch notices something interesting, which he asks Raphael to explain for him:

"There I saw the spirit of a dead man making suit, and his lamentation went up to heaven and cried and made suit.  Then I asked Raphael, the watcher and holy one who was with me, and said to him, 'The Spirit that makes suit -- whose is it -- that thus his lamentation goes up and makes suit unto heaven?'  And he answered me and said, 'This is the spirit that went forth from Abel, whom Cain his brother murdered.  And Abel makes accusation against him until his posterity perishes from the face of the earth, and his posterity is obliterated from the posterity of men." (22:5-7)

Second Temple Rosh Hashanah Passages

Horns, honey-dipped apples, and some rest -- does it get any better than that?  Tonight Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins.  While it does not seem to have taken on its current name or some of its traditional meanings until the Rabbinic period, it has roots in the Hebrew Bible and 2nd Temple Judaism when it was sometimes called "the Day of Memorial" or "the Feast of Trumpets."  These names were drawn from the Torah, where the Israelites are commanded to observe a memorial day of rest and sacrifice that is proclaimed with trumpet blasts:

“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Say to the people of Israel, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work; and you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD.’” (Lev 23:23-25; see also Numbers 29:1-6 for another description of the festival and Nehemiah 8 for the reading of the Law on the first of the seventh month)

What exactly is supposed to be remembered isn't stated in the text, and in the ancient Jewish tradition we find a variety of things that come to be associated with the day.  This includes the giving of the Law on Sinai, peace, Abraham's calling, the draining of the waters from the Flood, God's judgment, and creation.  Below are a few of the texts that mention the first day of the seventh month in the 2nd Temple period.

The Jewish philosopher Philo identified two different elements of this "feast of trumpets," a Jewish national significance and a common, universal significance.  The practice of sounding trumpets was intended to recall the trumpet blast at Sinai, a significance peculiar to the Jewish nation (though the reach and implications of the law was not constrained to them alone).  It's universal significance is based on the trumpets' use as an instrument of warfare, which is meant to remind people that God is the giver of peace in the human and non-human realms. 

"THE EIGHTH FESTIVAL: Immediately after comes the festival of the sacred moon; in which it is the custom to play the trumpet in the temple at the same moment that the sacrifices are offered. From which practice this is called the true feast of trumpets, and there are two reasons for it, one peculiar to the nation, and the other common to all mankind. Peculiar to the nation, as being a commemoration of that most marvellous, wonderful, and miraculous event that took place when the holy oracles of the law were given; for then the voice of a trumpet sounded from heaven, which it is natural to suppose reached to the very extremities of the universe, so that so wondrous a sound attracted all who were present, making them consider, as it is probable, that such mighty events were signs betokening some great things to be accomplished. And what more great or more beneficial thing could come to men than laws affecting the whole race?And what was common to all mankind was this: the trumpet is the instrument of war, sounding both when commanding the charge and the retreat. ... There is also another kind of war, ordained of God, when nature is at variance with itself, its different parts attacking one another. And by both these kinds of war the things on earth are injured. They are injured by the enemies, by the cutting down of trees, and by conflagrations; and also by natural injuries, such as droughts, heavy rains, lightning from heaven, snow and cold; the usual harmony of the seasons of the year being transformed into a want of all concord. On this account it is that the law has given this festival the name of a warlike instrument, in order to show the proper gratitude to God as the giver of peace, who has abolished all seditions in cities, and in all parts of the universe, and has produced plenty and prosperity, not allowing a single spark that could tend to the destruction of the crops to be kindled into flame. (Philo, The Special Laws, 2:188-192) 

St. John Chrysostom -- Premodern Social Psychologist?

From AOCANA

When someone does something nice for me I usually assume they're doing it in the hopes that their god will throw some burning coals on my head.

In a roughly 1600 year old sermon St. John Chrysostom discusses the passage from Romans 12:20 where the apostle Paul says “No, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.’” 

Chrysostom notes the odd nature of the verse: it seems that Paul is encouraging people to do nice things for others out of a spirit of vengeance, which undermines the overall thrust of the context which tells the Roman Christians not to seek revenge but to overcome evil with good. There are a variety of ways that interpreters have tried to resolve this tension, and Chrysostom gives an interesting example of one such way:

“. . . That great and noble-minded man [Paul] was well aware of the fact that to be reconciled quickly with an enemy is a grievous and difficult thing; grievous and difficult, not on account of its own nature, but of our moral indolence. But he commanded us not only to be reconciled with our enemy, but also to feed him; which was far more grievous than the former. For if some are infuriated by the mere sight of those who have annoyed them, how would they be willing to feed them when they were hungry? And why do I speak of the sight infuriating them? If any one makes mention of the persons, and merely introduces their name in society, it revives the wound in our imagination, and increases the heat of passion. Paul then being aware of all these things and wishing to make what was hard and difficult of correction smooth and easy, and to persuade one who could not endure to see his enemy, to be ready to confer that benefit already mentioned upon him, added the words about coals of fire, in order that a man prompted by the hope of vengeance might hasten to do this service to one who had annoyed him. And just as the fisherman surrounding the hook on all sides with the bait presents it to the fishes in order that one of them hastening to its accustomed food may be captured by means of it and easily held fast: even so Paul also wishing to lead on the man who has been wronged to bestow a benefit on the man who has wronged him does not present to him the bare hook of spiritual wisdom, but having covered it as it were with a kind of bait, I mean the 'coals of fire,' invites the man who has been insulted, in the hope of inflicting punishment, to confer this benefit on the man who has annoyed him; but when he has come he holds him fast in future, and does not let him make off, the very nature of the deed attaching him to his enemy; and he all but says to him: 'if thou art not willing to feed the man who has wronged thee for piety’s sake: feed him at least from the hope of punishing him.' For he knows that if the man once sets his hand to the work of conferring this benefit, a starting-point is made and a way of reconciliation is opened for him. For certainly no one would have the heart to regard a man continually as his enemy to whom he has given meat and drink, even if he originally does this in the hope of vengeance. For time as it goes on relaxes the tension of his anger. As then the fisherman, if he presented the bare hook would never allure the fish, but when he has covered it gets it unawares into the mouth of the creature who comes up to it: so also Paul if he had not advanced the expectation of inflicting punishment would never have persuaded those who were wronged to undertake to benefit those who had annoyed them. Wishing then to persuade those who recoiled in disgust, and were paralysed by the very sight of their enemies, to confer the greatest benefits upon them, he made mention of the coals of fire, not with a view of thrusting the persons in question into inexorable punishment, but in order that when he had persuaded those who were wronged to benefit their enemies in the expectation of punishing them, he might afterwards in time persuade them to abandon their anger altogether.” 

From John Chrysostom, "To those who had not attended the assembly," in St. Chrysostom: On the Priesthood; Ascetic Treatises; Select Homilies and Letters; Homilies on the Statutes (Ed. Philip Schaff; Series 1 vol. 9 of NPNF; Grand Rapids: CCEL), 316-317.

The Jewish Homer

The blind bard, not Simpson.

Hisdem temporibus Sosates cognoscebatur ille Ebraicus Omirus in Alexandria.  (Excerpta Latina Barbari, 278)

There are all sorts of seldom studied texts from the medieval world, and sometimes scholars find fascinating nuggets tucked away in such writings.  In an article published in 1981, Shaye Cohen alerted scholars to one of these nuggets (it had been noted by some scholars before, but Cohen really put it on the academic radar).  In a 7th/8th century Latin translation of an earlier (5th or 6th century) Greek work, we find the line quoted above, which Cohen translates as: "At this same time Sosates, the Jewish Homer, flourished in Alexandria." (391)

The Epic of Theodotus

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries some brave and adventuresome souls began to experiment with mixing peanut butter with other food stuffs, including oranges, mayonnaise, and cream cheese.  In a bold act whose specific origins have been lost, someone combined peanut butter with jelly on a sandwich, and from this act of culinary syncretism an American staple was born.  (The first published reference to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was in 1901)

Much like food, fascinating things happen when cultures collide.  It can be a wonderfully messy business, as stories and styles combine to form something entirely new.  The Epic of Theodotus illustrates this well.  Written by a Jew possibly in the 2nd century BCE, this text retells stories of the Jewish patriarch Jacob and his family in the language and style of Greek epic.  Like the blind bard Homer, the Epic is written in Greek hexameter and uses Homeric vocabulary.  Interesting, right?  This is just one of many examples of Jewish writings from the Greco-Roman period that synthesized Jewish and Greek traditions and cultural expressions in creative ways.