The degree to which scholars can reasonably reconstruct the early Jewish compositional phases of texts that survive only in late-antique and medieval Christian manuscripts has long been a pressing concern for the study of the so-called “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.”[1] Recent scholarship inspired by “New Philology”/“Material Philology” has presented challenges for scholars seeking to retrieve early Jewish texts from Christian manuscripts. As Liv Ingeborg Lied remarked in her insightful New Philological study of Syriac manuscripts of 2 Baruch, “since we do not have access to the early Jewish book, we do not know its constitution and we cannot even be sure that an early 2 Baruch in fact existed” and “some of the features that scholars have identified to argue the Jewishness of 2 Baruch may very well be a Jewishness that Greek, Syriac and Arabic Christians had created in their own image.”[2] Elena Dugan’s new book is, as far as I am aware, the most sustained attempt at meeting this challenge by operating within the framework of New Philology to reconstruct Jewish phases of transmission for a text without early manuscript evidence.[3]
The Apocalypse of the Birds is the third title in the already excellent new series Edinburgh Studies in Religion in Antiquity. A transmission of Dugan’s Princeton dissertation, this bold and erudite book represents, on my reading, a pathbreaking refinement of traditional philological methods for dating and conceptualizing the Jewish phases of transmission for a text that only survives in Christian manuscripts. Dugan’s book focuses on the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–90). Based on material analysis of manuscripts from Qumran and literary and other considerations, Dugan argues that the Animal Apocalypse comprises two subsidiary works, neither of which likely emerged from the Maccabean Revolt as per scholarly consensus. The later of these, dubbed the Apocalypse of the Birds, is absent from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Internal and external factors lead her to propose a new provenance: the First Jewish Revolt against Rome.
The Introduction defines key concepts drawn from New Philology: “document” is used for a manuscript, or “text-bearing object;” “text” is reserved for “a series of words in a particular order” and is characterized as fluid and “subject to change;” and “work” refers to “conceptual constructs that readers agree have enough in common with each other, and enough not-in-common with other entities, to be separated into their own category” (5). Dugan introduces 1 Enoch (“Henok”) as a work that we can only be sure to have existed in its 108-chapter form in Gəʽəz starting in the fourteenth century. She redescribes its five booklets as “subsidiary works” which once circulated independently. Each subsidiary work may be hypothesized as containing additional subsidiary works evincing different sites of composition. It is on these subsidiary works that we should focus our reconstructions of compositional histories, but always with “primary guidance” from documents.
In chapter 1 Dugan observes that one of the five books of 1 Enoch was not at Qumran—the Parables—while subsidiaries of the other works may have been absent too. Her analysis of documentary evidence supports three claims: 1) it is a serious “possibility that the absence of evidence for these subsidiary works is evidence of absence from Qumran” (21) rather than an accident of survival; 2) a subsidiary work missing from Qumran should not acquire a terminus ante quem based on the dating of manuscripts containing other subsidiary works with which it circulated in later contexts; 3) losing this terminus ante quem multiplies the possibilities of the sites of composition for subsidiary works.
Chapter 2 musters internal evidence for subsidiary works in the Animal Apocalypse. Building on scholars’ recognition of divergent literary-theological structuring devices in different parts of the text as well as a “literary seam,” Dugan argues that the Animal Apocalypse comprises two subsidiary works, which she calls the “Vision of the Beasts” (85.1–89.58) and the “Apocalypse of the Birds” (89.59–90.42). To test this, chapter 3 delves into material analysis of the four Aramaic manuscripts of the “Animal Apocalypse,” though at a higher level of abstraction than issues surrounding the configuration of fragments into manuscripts. Dugan demonstrates that only the Vision of the Beasts is present at Qumran, thereby removing the second-century BCE terminus ante quem (based on paleographical dating of 4Q207) for the Apocalypse of the Birds. Together with literary clues, this absence of the Apocalypse of the Birds leads Dugan to propose that it was composed in Greek as a supplement to the independently circulating Vision of the Beasts either subsequent to, or in concert with, the translation of that earlier work into Greek.
Dugan’s fourth chapter debunks the consensus that events surrounding the Maccabean Revolt are the referents of the text’s allegory. Decoupling the two subsidiary works leaves the Vision of the Beasts with an allegorical schematization of history ending with the Babylonian destruction of the Jerusalem temple. With no concrete internal dating clues, this Aramaic work could have been composed anytime between the sixth and second centuries BCE, most likely between the fourth and second. As a starting point for redating the Apocalypse of the Birds, this chapter emphasizes the imprecision of its chronological schema and identifies weaknesses in the theory that the ram portrayed as an emergent leader (90.9) is Judas Maccabeus.
Chapter 5 presents external support for a terminus ante quem for the Apocalypse of the Birds prior to its first documentary appearance in fourteenth-century Ethiopia. Dugan argues persuasively that the Epistle of Barnabas, which cites “Enoch” as a source, knows the Apocalypse of the Birds. Her claim that the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs also relies on this work is intriguing but more speculative. Importantly, these early Christian texts attest to a Greek version of the Apocalypse of the Birds in circulation by the early second century CE.
The sixth chapter proposes that the text alludes to the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt and betrays 66 CE as its terminus post quem. Three arguments are especially noteworthy: 1) the leading avian opponents of the sheep (Israel) are the eagles (Rome), subverting a widespread symbol of Roman imperial prowess (cf. 4 Ezra; Matthew); 2) under the leadership of the eagles, the ravens who attack the sheep in 90.11–15 represent the legions led by the Syrian legate Cestius Gallus, with details in the text nicely matching the Josephan account of early victories by the Jewish revolutionaries (especially defeating Legio XII Fulminata at Beth Horon and capturing their eagle standard); 3) the ram that rises up against the raptors is one of the leaders of the rebel groups, perhaps Simon bar Giora. If correct, the Apocalypse of the Birds would constitute our only surviving textual evidence of apocalyptic “optimism” amid the early phases of the Jewish “revolution” against Rome. Dugan is cautious about using historical allusions to establish a terminus ante quem earlier than Barnabas’s attestation in the early second century. She describes the text as written by Jews, which does not exclude Jesus followers. In her final chapter, she shows how the text advances themes that cross the boundaries of nearly contemporaneous Jewish and Christian literature.
The author and press should be commended: this superb book is finely polished, featuring clear charts, carefully organized footnotes, an appended translation of the Apocalypse of the Birds,[4] and subject index. An ancient sources (or works!) index would have been useful, however.
Dugan’s argument is rigorous, nuanced, judicious, and admirably reflexive throughout. Her breadth of expertise in different materials, languages, corpora, and periods make this a richly complex and original study. I found her proposal for decoupling the two works of the Animal Apocalypse and case for a Roman-era primary composition for the Apocalypse of the Birds wholly convincing. The further hypothesis that the text alludes to events surrounding the early phases of the First Revolt strikes me as plausible. Still, other possible conflicts may reward further consideration. I agree with Dugan that the lack of description of the second temple’s destruction makes it unlikely that the diaspora or Bar Kokhba revolts are in view. But the allusions may also be understood as referring to the Jewish resistance movements confronted by Syrian legates around 4 BCE and 6 CE, [5] so long as the initial acts of resistance were considered victories unto themselves or as inaugurating an eschatological victory.
Dugan’s generative study leaves me with two questions that may be fruitful avenues for future research.
First, might the influence of pentateuchal texts on the choice of predatory birds as symbols complicate the connection of the eagle to Rome? Several scholars have noted that non-Jews are represented in the Animal Apocalypse as animals deemed unclean to eat in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.[6] This connection finds support in Ep. Barnabas 10.4, where Moses’s prohibition against eating four types of birds (ἀετός, ὀξύπτερος, ἴκτινος, κόραξ) is interpreted allegorically as condemning human behaviors—i.e., greed. As Olson (2013, 250–1) has shown, this abbreviated list is likely borrowed from the Greek of 1 En. 90.2. This pentateuchal lens may account for why eagles—even if interpreted as subversive of the Roman aquila—are not singled out further in the Apocalypse of the Birds and why all the Roman legions descending on Judaea from nearby provinces are not represented as eagles.
Second, what scribal social circles should we envision producing the Apocalypse of the Birds? How might we make sense of its composition in Greek in relation to its revolutionary ideology and universalistic eschatology?[7] Dugan suggests that the work may have emerged among a relatively elite circle of revolutionaries, expressing “conflict among the ruling class” during the First Revolt (191). As comparanda for its optimism in the revolution, she points to coin slogans like “For the freedom of Zion” (Hebrew) and documents dated according to the year of “the redemption of Israel in Jerusalem” (Hebrew and Aramaic). But a work written in Greek that culminates in the redemption of both Jews and non-Jews seems at odds with what other evidence has led us to expect about the ideological output of Judaean revolutionaries in the throes of a revolt and more commensurate with what we would expect of, for example, Jewish apocalypticists in diaspora settings. A great achievement of this book, however, is that it urges readers to revisit such ingrained assumptions and envision new constellations not only of ancient literature but also of the individuals and groups involved in textual transmission.
This book should be required reading for scholars and advanced students of Jewish and Christian literature and will also be of interest to specialists in ancient textual practices, book history, and provincial responses to Roman imperialism. I look forward to the creative new conversations it will stimulate about textual transmission across the boundaries of periods, languages, and religious traditions.
Bibliography
Bryan, David. 2015. Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality. London: Bloomsbury.
Coblentz Bautch, Kelley. 2020. “The Textual History of Enochic Literature.” In Textual History of the Bible, Volume 2: The Deuterocanonical Scriptures. Edited by Frank Feder and Matthias Henze. Leiden: Brill.
Davila, James. 2005. The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other? Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 105. Leiden: Brill.
Feder, Frank, and Matthias Henze, eds. 2019. Textual History of the Bible, Volume 2: The Deuterocanonical Scriptures. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill.
Keddie, Tony. 2018. Revelations of Ideology: Apocalyptic Class Politics in Early Roman Palestine. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 189. Leiden: Brill.
Knibb, Michael A. 1978. The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
Lied, Liv Ingeborg. 2021. Invisible Manuscripts: Textual Scholarship and the Survival of 2 Baruch. Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 128. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Lied, Liv Ingeborg, and Hugo Lundhaug, eds. 2017. Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Olson, Daniel C. 2013. A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch: ‘All Nations Shall Be Blessed.’ Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 24. Leiden: Brill.
Reed, Annette Yoshiko. 2009. “The Modern Invention of the ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.’” Journal of Theological Studies 60: 403–36.
Thiessen, Matthew. 2018. “Paul, the Animal Apocalypse, and Abraham’s Gentile Seed.” Pages 65–78 in The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus. Edited by Lori Baron, Jill Hicks-Keeton, and Matthew Thiessen. Early Christianity and Its Literature 24. Atlanta: SBL.
Notes
[1] For key issues: Davila 2005. On the corpus: Reed 2009.
[2] Lied 2021, 269–70, 271–2. Cf. Lied and Lundhaug 2017 and “Lied’s Invisible Manuscripts: A Review Forum,” Ancient Jew Review, 7 Mar. 2022, including a response by Dugan.
[3] Although Feder and Henze 2019–2020 is indispensable for the text history of early Jewish works.
[4] Dugan adapts Knibb’s (1978) translation of MS Rylands 23. This document is usually ascribed to the “manuscript family” Eth. 2, which is often thought to show more signs of standardization by Ethiopian scribes than the earlier Eth. 1 manuscripts (Coblentz Bautch 2020). Dugan’s choice is based on her preference to follow a single document instead of an eclectic text (53 n. 30), reducing scholarly interference. Dugan also defends the use of this single manuscript on the basis of the work’s relatively stable transmission (48), though I would have appreciated discussion of how semantic differences between Gəʽəz words and syntax and their Greek correspondents are managed when teasing out subtle details of the text’s allusions.
[5] This would make it contemporaneous with the Testament of Moses, also likely composed in Greek (Keddie 2018, 175–21).
[6] Among others: Bryan 2015.
[7] In 90.37–38, all unclean beasts and birds are transformed into white cows (like Abraham and Isaac) to experience eschatological redemption together with the sheep (Thiessen 2018).