Introduction

Introduction

The 9^th Enoch Graduate Seminar convened on 20–22 June 2024 in Montréal, Canada. The event was organized by Jackie Wyse-Rhodes (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary), Joshua Scott (Catholic Biblical Association of America), Gerbern Oegema (McGill University), and Lorenzo DiTommaso (Concordia University Montréal). The Enoch Graduate Seminar biennially meets under the auspices of the Enoch Seminar, which was founded in 2001 for the advanced study of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Graduate Seminar offers a venue where an invited group of doctoral students from around the world can present their research in an intensive workshop setting that prioritizes critical discussion and collegial debate.

Following the seminar, the editors of this journal, Kelley Coblentz Bautch and Matthew J. Goff, invited the organizers to prepare two special issues of seminar papers. This is the first of these issues, which is edited by DiTommaso and Scott. Its general theme is “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Apocalyptic Literature.” The second issue, forthcoming, consists of articles on “Women and Gender in Ancient Judaism and Christianity.” It is edited by Oegema and Wyse-Rhodes.

The event organizers are grateful to the Enoch Seminar for its extremely generous financial support and to its founding director, Gabriele Boccaccini, for his vision, energy, and goodwill. Additional funding and in-kind support were provided by Concordia and McGill Universities and by McGill’s Council for Research on Religion (CREOR). Special thanks to Kelley Coblentz Bautch and Matthew Goff for proposing the special issues and thus facilitating the dissemination of the research of the next generation of scholars in our field.

The first four articles in this issue are revised versions of seminar papers. In “Crafty Wordplay Hiding in Ahiqar’s Leopard and Goat Fable and Proverbs 12:16, 23,” Sarah G. Turner-Smith uncovers the subtle wordplay relating to words that can be glossed as “hidden” in Genesis, Proverbs, and the Aramaic book of Ahiqar. The wordplay in Gen 2:25–3:11 raises several questions about the interpretation of םורע, which permits both a positive and negative reading. Turner-Smith claims, “Such a concentration of orthographically related lexemes focuses attention on the concepts associated with the two lexemes םורע, namely, cleverness and clothing and its lack . . ..” Turner-Smith discusses how the Aramaic book of Ahiqar records a fable of a leopard who attempts to offer a covering to a naked goat, while the leopard’s true intention is to eat the goat. Through a play on words, the goat decries the act, showing an awareness of the leopard’s true intentions: “Do not take my skin/life from me!” Building upon these two examples, Turner-Smith suggests that Prov 12:16, 23 constitutes two sayings in which םורע appears alongside הסכ, suggesting a broad semantic range that contributes to multiple meanings across couplets. Reading these narratives together highlights a close “cognitive connection between being םורע, ‘crafty, clever,’ and ‘hiding.’”

Tommy Woodward’s article, “Derisive Laughter and Shame in 4 Maccabees,” situates Fourth Maccabees within the discourses of laughter in early Judaism and Stoicism to shed light on Eleazar’s reference to laughter immediately before his martyrdom. His persecutor, the Greek king Antiochus IV, advises Eleazar to eat pork, an action that would compel him to abandon his commitment to Jewish dietary laws. Eleazar refuses, thus denying the Greeks the opportunity to laugh at him. “But you will not laugh this laugh against me” (5:27–28), he exclaims to his tormentors. Woodward interprets this scene with reference to Stoic traditions on laughter, and in particular, receiving derisive laughter and making oneself laughable. Woodward demonstrates that Stoics construed laughter in several ways: to distinguish role models from other figures, to punish the haughty, and to reveal the ignorant and immodest. As this applies to Eleazar’s comment, Stoics who gain control over their passions gain apatheia, or a state of tranquility that allows individuals to be unaffected by negative emotions (cf. 4 Macc 1.1). Woodward helps the reader chortle along with Eleazar, who in the face of his own death does not permit himself to become the object of laughter to his opponents and therefore has the last laugh in their faces for their ignorance.

The third and fourth articles in this special issue discuss two late Second Temple apocalypses, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, which were composed after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, display a certain literary correspondence, and deal with similar themes. In “Determinism and Moral Agency in 4 Ezra,” Dustin Barker pushes back against the many interpreters of 4 Ezra that contrast Ezra’s transformation as a stark dualism, the experiential over the rational. For Barker, this dualism is often accompanied by a tendency to perceive the deterministic elements of 4 Ezra as incoherent with human agency. After articulating a brief history of research, Barker contends that Ezra’s transformation is both experiential and rational. In emphasizing the rational, Barker applies Lorenzo DiTommaso’s proposition that Ezra’s conversion represents a shift from a Deuteronomic worldview to apocalypticism. He argues that this framework clarifies the difference between two different kinds of deterministic thinking within 4 Ezra. In Barker’s view, Ezra’s pre-conversion deterministic thinking is contextualized by the Deuteronomic pattern, where human agency functions as history’s driving mechanism. By contrast, Ezra’s post-conversion deterministic thinking has become thoroughly apocalyptic; the divine plan, and not human agency, serves as history’s mechanism. For Barker, the author’s articulation of human moral responsibility as “self-authored, self-propelled, and informed action” is only coherent with Ezra’s post-conversion mode of thought. This rational coherence is foundational to both Ezra’s conversion as it is depicted within the work and the author’s goal of seeking a similar kind of conversion among their audience.

Although commentators often point out differences between 2 Baruch and the Revelation of John, in his article, “God’s People in Visions and Letters: 2 Baruch and Revelation as Epistolary Apocalypses,” John Dik proposes that the two works are examples of a subgenre that he calls “epistolary apocalypses.” 2 Baruch and Revelation were composed after the destruction of the Temple, and both urge their followers to strengthen their hope in God’s intervention despite experiencing injustice and oppression. Also central to both works is the redeployment of the biblical expectation that one day, God will faithfully restore the 12 tribes of Israel. 2 Baruch combines the story of the 12 tribes with kinship metaphors, banding the people together as “brothers” who steadfastly follow the Torah. Revelation likewise reimagines God’s people as “a people from every people, nation, tribe and language, freed from the evil powers and from their sins to serve the One who sits on the throne.” As a first-century Jew, John of Patmos depicts his community as co-inheritors of Israel’s promise. As Dik explains, the authors of both works write in a comparative style that encourages their readers to dwell not upon their confusing historical circumstances but rather on God’s promises to Israel. He highlights how different parts of the epistolary format, most notably the address, created a unique familial bond between the hearers of the letters and the extended people of God.

Lorenzo DiTommaso’s contribution, “Apocalypses and Apocalyptic: A Response to Benjamin E. Reynolds,” is a reply to the latter’s article, “The Necessity of Form and Spatial Content for Defining ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Apocalyptic,’” which appears in JSP 33 (2024): 187–97. Explicit in both the article and the response is the following question: Is the Semeia 14 definition of the genre apocalypse the best yardstick to measure whether texts can be designated “apocalyptic”? For Reynolds, the answer is “yes.” The problem, he contends, is that scholars overly focus on the definition’s temporal component (as opposed to its spatial component) and on the eschatology of texts (rather than their form). The imbalance has caused the persistent misidentification of the genre and the misapplication of the label apocalyptic. The solution, Reynolds proposes, is a stricter application of the Semeia 14 definition. DiTommaso welcomes the attempt to restore balance to the investigation but rejects the solution. He demonstrates that Reynolds also uses the components of the definition selectively, and that his distinction between eschatology and apocalyptic, which informs his sense of the latter, is unsupported in the ancient evidence. Both issues undermine Reynolds’s attempt to retain the definition as the core category. Both also underscore DiTommaso’s main argument that the genre apocalypse is a weak diagnostic category and therefore is unable to function in the way that Reynolds proposes. Works such as Jubilees and the Gospel of John are indeed apocalyptic, but not because they conform to the Semeia 14 definition of an apocalypse.

The papers in this special issue address works of different literary genres that were composed in several languages over a span of many centuries. Together they underscore the ongoing relevance of the Pseudepigrapha and related literature to the study of early Judaism and Christianity in its broader cultural contexts.