Regarding the issue of the audience and setting of the sermon. The audience is primarily the “disciples” but also the “crowd” that assembled. So we should read his teaching in that context and regard it as an address to Jewish followers and not specifically directed to the leaders, teachers, or officials, as he does at other times. And so I think it is pretty clear that it is addressed to a crowd of individuals and not a nation as a whole or to national leaders. It is true that he sits on the mountain and that this may intentionally parallel Moses on Sinai. However, this parallel need not be interpreted as Jesus giving a new Law to a new people. In fact, we all know that this is explicitly contradicted by his statement that he came to fulfill the Law and would by no means abolish it. So the new law idea is not an option. Alternatively, we could easily view the Sinai parallel as an additional hint toward Jesus’ affirmative exposition of the Torah. In others words, as his sitting and teaching on the mountain echoes Moses on Sinai, so his teachings echo Sinai.

Now I don’t really understand why Christians tend to struggle so much with this issue of the unity of the OT/NT. Clearly if Jesus had contradicted the Scriptures in any of his teachings, then he was not the Messiah. Even Jacob Neusner recognizes this and rejects his messiahship on that basis. When it comes to him speaking about “fulfilling” the Scriptures it is meant both in the sense of living it out and in the sense of correctly interpreting it. In other words, not only is Jesus saying that he will abide by the Law, but he also teaches (i.e. interprets) the Law for the people so that they could also fulfill the Law. And it’s the latter that matters the most here.

Hence, he goes on to his “You have heard it said...But I say to you...” sayings. None of these sayings that he addresses are teachings from “the Torah and the Prophets.” It’s true that the commandment about adultery appears word for word in v.27, and so does the one for murder in v.21 (yet in an expanded version), and the “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in v.38 (yet is a fragmentary form of the command from the Torah), but the other three sayings do not appear in the Torah. They resemble its teachings but Jesus’ comments on each of them illustrate that none of the 6 sayings are taught in the Torah or the Prophets.

By this I mean that we should not interpret the quoted command as something that is understandable apart from Jesus’ remarks in response to them. To illustrate this let us consider the example of the divorce command in v.31: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” A proper understanding of this rejected teaching cannot be understood if isolated from Jesus’ response because the most plausible interpretation would regard it as simply the requirement for men whenever they get divorced that they must give their wife a divorce certificate. But if the statement is taken with Jesus’ response, then we could interpret it as a teaching that has the giving of the certificate as its only requirement for divorce. This Jesus rejects and recalls the teaching in Deuteronomy 24 that the certificate is only written after the husband has found an “indecency” with his wife. And so the only true grounds is sexual immorality and not the certificate.

Moreover, Jesus is using a Rabbinic rhetorical formula. Rabbis would quote another rabbi’s interpretation of Scripture and reject it by contrasting it with their own interpretation. In doing so they would commonly summarize the interpretation in a very abbreviated form like Jesus does here with the “You have heard it said... But I say to you...” formula. Rabbinics scholar David Daube dedicated a chapter to exploring this specific issue of Rabbinic rhetoric used by Jesus in this passage in his book, ”The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism.” And so even though some of the sayings have an identical form to sayings in the Torah it does not mean that Jesus is rejecting or changing the meaning of a commandment in the Torah. Many people try to reject a disunity in OT/NT teaching by saying that Jesus intensified the commandments. But this is also not acceptable. Neusner also puts forward the view that Jesus is “fencing” the Torah like the Pharisees did. Really I think the only proper way to understand it is to view it as a proper interpretation of Torah, which is put forward in contrast to teachings by Pharisees, by the scribes, or by common ideas prevalent in the their culture.
Now to specifically address the relevant passages, we should first observe that nowhere in either paragraph (vv.38-42 or 43-48) is there any mention of “killing” or violence. Regarding the first paragraph (vv.38-42), the citation in v.38 of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is not a reference to the commandment in the Torah. Andrew is correct to view this commandment in the Torah (which this verse does not refer to) as directed to the representatives, or judges, since it is in the context of punishing criminals. However, Jesus is referring to an aberration of the commandment not the commandment itself. It would be helpful, as you said, if we had some extant source that explicitly teaches this, but it isn’t necessary. Some debate over texts in the DSS but recourse to that is not necessary. Moreover, even without recourse to rhetorical formulations being employed here, I think it’s apparent that Jesus is not referring to the commandment given to the judges and officials in the Torah. This is because of what he says in the next 4 verses. All of which make sense for regular people in day to day situations and none of which are directed to policy-making or judicial decision-making for someone in an official position.

Verse 39 teaches that one is not to oppose wicked or malicious people. And that if you are insulted, exemplified by a slap on the right cheek, the reaction should not be to jump to restore one’s dignity through retaliation.

Verse 40 is about someone going to court in order to obtain a person’s undergarment. In Jewish law you could sue for the undergarment but not the outer garment. Hence, it says to even let him have your outer garment too. The point is to counter the attitude that people so often have about asserting and defending their legal rights.

Verse 41 is about a legal right government officials had to commandeer individuals to transport baggage for a certain distance. Here there is an attitude countered, namely, a person’s resentment toward duties imposed on them by governing authorities, especially things viewed as unreasonable or burdensome.

Verse 42 is the odd verse out here, especially for pacifists, because it does not seem to relate at all to the “eye for an eye” citation if Jesus were quoting the commandment from the Torah. But since he’s citing an aberrant interpretation that, as we have seen from the contrasts in the last 3 verses, teaches a self-centered approach to things, it is understandable why this verse appears here. It’s because it is relevant to attitudes individuals have towards others but more importantly about themselves. Here we see countered an attitude that is an unwillingness to share possessions. I’m not sure how this verse could be consistently viewed with a Pacifist hermeneutic. Would it result in a communist political system or a does it advocate an ascetic lifestyle? I don’t mean to belittle here, but only to note that a hermeneutical consistency should lead in a direction like that because to have interpreted the ‘slap on the right cheek’ or the ‘non-opposition to wicked people’ as a command for non-violence demands the same literalist hermeneutic in this verse as well.

The point is that so far it is abundantly clear that this is not about policy-making or whether judges should not render certain decisions that include violent punishments. That can only result far an over-literal reading of this passage and one that does not take into consideration all of its formal characteristics. In fact, in some ways I’m not even sure the pacifist could even claim a literal interpretation here because there is no mention of violence or killing at all, so I’m not sure where it would even come from except a misunderstanding of the ‘eye for an eye’ citation, and an unawareness that the slap on the right cheek is symbolic of personal insults, and then misunderstanding the slap as representative of violence, and then finally combined with an extreme overgeneralization of Jesus’ teaching.

Moreover, it should be said that the phrase lex talionis is not a proper way to understand the principle of an “eye for an eye” because the Latin phrase expresses a notion that is essentially retaliatory, which the Torah repudiates. This is important because it reveals a long held historical misinterpretation. Really it is the “measure for measure” principle, which implies nothing retaliatory. This principle is upheld constantly throughout the NT and even a number of times by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. It is even explicitly stated in 7:2, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” It also undergirds his teaching about forgiveness, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (6:14-15). Finally, the most interesting one is the Golden Rule itself, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (7:12).

Clearly, Jesus is not rejecting the teaching of measure for measure in the Torah, since it corresponds to the teaching which he believes expresses the very essence of “the Law and the Prophets.” Instead, he is rejecting teaching that supports the actions of individuals who are vengeful, excessively defensive, selfish, and self-justifying in their attitudes.

Now the second passage (vv.43-48), in many respects echoes some of the same ideas expressed in the first passage, but it also expands on it in unique ways. The two paragraphs are even more closely related in Luke 6:27-36. Since we know that the citation is not from the Torah, even if it had more closely corresponded to it, we already know that it’s not implying that the Torah taught that people are to hate their enemies. What’s more, since Jesus is here putting forward a proper interpretation of Scripture he’s making the case that the OT teaches that people are to love their enemies. Andrew seemed to think that the OT doesn’t teach this. It doesn’t explicitly, but I think it does implicitly and by example. Certainly Joseph is an example with his forgiveness of his brothers and David should also be considered in relation to Saul.

But here Jesus points to God the Father as the example, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (5:45). And he completes the paragraph saying, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v.48). I don’t see how this has political ramifications in the way that pacifists do. The kind of love that is used here as the example is providential care not judicial administration nor even redemptive love. This is clearly not meant to be a guide for judges or government officials or else justice would have to mean no punishment for all and, therefore, no justice at all. The point here is that God loves all of his creation, whether they are good or wicked. But it does not mean he will withhold violent punishment from the guilty. In fact, we all know that the condemned will be punished violently. And so neither should the authorities he has appointed to administer appropriately measured punishment on criminals withhold it from them.

Verse 46 teaches that we are to love people who do not love us back. This is in line with how God also acts toward the wicked. This and the example of the tax collectors even recalls the same selfish attitudes that Jesus just repudiated in the previous passage. Yet now he has developed the thought by moving away from attitudes that seek a recompense for personal injury and assert personal rights to a matured or “perfected” approach that even cares for people from whom we may gain nothing in return, and even may be accosted by them for it. And so we are to be “perfect” or “complete” in the same way God is.

I know that my post is really long, but I thought I should try to be more thorough so I didn’t miss too much. I didn’t want to get into the Romans and Peter passages, but in some respects I don’t think they matter if this passage is understood properly because I don’t see any reason to try to read them in a pacifistic manner unless it stems from misunderstanding of Matthew 5-7.

Greg Armstrong
Email: gregmarmstrong@gmail.com

The town of Beth She’arim was located at the point where the coastal plain, the hills of Gallilee, and the western end of Jezreel Valley meet. The Roman Road to Legio used to run a little to the south of the cemetery, through the Jezreel Valley. Thus Beth She’arim was close to the important routes that connected the cities of the coastal lowlands with the interior of northern Roman Palestine. The site was excavated in the 1930s and 1950s by Benjamin Mazar and Nahman Avigad. An exceptionally large cemetery was discovered: 27 catacombs were uncovered, some of which contained hundreds of burial places. The largest, catacomb 1, had sixteen halls, comprising a total of 400 burial places! The cemetery and the town peaked in the 2nd to 4th century CE, probably falling in disuse somewhere in the Byzantine period.

The cemetery was uncovered in the foundational period of the State of Israel, and its remains were incorporated into the nationalist narrative of that state. When inscriptions were found with names that could be related to members of the family of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, a central figure in the Talmuds and the legendary composer of the Mishnah, “…this possibility fired everyone’s imagination. The place bustled with visitors from all sections of the community: the president of Israel, the late Yitzhak Ben-Zvi; the prime minister, the late Moshe Sharett; the late David Ben Gurion; Mrs. Golda Meir (the minister of labor); cabinet ministers; the chairman and members of the Knesseth (the Parliament of Israel); the chairman of the Jerwish Agency; the Heads of the Hebrew University; teachers and students; citizens and tourists. All shared the wish to view the inscriptions of Rabbi Shim’on and Rabbi Gamaliel — Vivid evidence of so important a chapter in jewish history and a tangible reminder of two outstanding personalities among the spiritual leaders of the people.” [2] "Rabbi Judah Ha-Nassî was 'the great builder' of Beth She’arim; it was he who adorned the city with magnificent edifices and the necropolis with monumental memorials."[3] The vision of Beth She’arim as a patriarchal cemetery has been almost as persistent as the image of an international cemetery, which I will not discuss here. The two have lived an intertwined existence in the reception of the site: "Beth She'arim attracted many people who chose to be buried near the burial site of the Patriarchal family."[4]

However, right from the start doubt has been casted upon the identification of the graves. Even the excavators concede, clearly with some regret, that it is only a "very likely" hypothesis.[5] Lifshitz in the edition of the Greek inscriptions goes as far as calling any identification "highly speculative." [6] As Martin Jacobs observes, it is highly questionable whether Rabbi Judah was buried at Beth She'arim, as not one inscription referring to a patriarch or a nasi has been discovered in Beth She'arim.[7] Surprisingly, quite a few generally careful scholars are a little gullible here. Thus Rajak: "by far the most important find related to the rabbinical world are the three graves plausibly connected with the family of patriarch Judah himself," and also Schwartz: he sees the burial of "possible members of the patriarchal family" as one of the confirmations of the atypicality of Beth She’arim.[8] Here I will propose a more radical suggestion. My impression is that we are mystified by a double mirage. Although the identification of the graves is, cum Lifshitz and Jacobs, very insecure, it remains feasible because of the support of rabbinic literature. In fact, as we saw above, the whole excavation project was charged with belief that a patriarchal enterprise was being uncovered - even before the discovery of the graves. It is time we take a closer look at the literary support.

We know of only one reference to a burial of patriarch Judah in the rabbinic literature. It is attested for the first time in the Palestinian Talmud, a document that was probably produced in the fourth and early fifth century. PT Kelayim 9:3 II-IV[9] is a midrash from the end of this period, composed about two hundred years after patriarch Judah’s death.[10] It was probably placed in PT's treatment of whether the laws prohibiting the intermingling of certain things were applicable to towels and other garments, because part of it (II.L-Y) pays attention to the kind of garments several rabbis wished to be clothed in at their burial. The original core of the tradition is the commentary upon three sayings of patriarch Judah as to what should happen after his death. These comments are followed by the story on the burial of patriarch Judah. It tells of a series of strange events that surrounded the funeral:

[III. F] …and [the people of Sepphoris] tore [their clothes], and the sound of tearing reached Gupaphta, a distance of three mîl.
[G] R. Nahman in the name of R. Mena [said], "Miracles were performed on that day. It was Sabbath eve, and all of [the people of] the towns gathered to eulogize [Rabbi (i.e. patriarch Judah)]. And they set down [his bier] eighteen times [for this purpose], and they took him down to Beth She’arim. And the day was suspended for them until everyone reached his home, filled up a jug of water, and lit the [Sabbath] light. Once the sun set, the cock crowed, [indicating that the next morning had already arrived].
[H] The people began to be distressed [and] said, 'Perhaps we have desecrated the Sabbath.'
[I] A heavenly voice went out and said to them, 'Whoever did not shirk from the eulogizing of Rabbi, let him be proclaimed for life in the world to come,'
[J] Except for the launderer, [who did not attend the eulogy].
[K] Once [the launderer] heard this, he went up to the roof, threw himself off, and died.
[L] A heavenly voice went out and said, 'Even the launderer [is proclaimed for life in the world to come].'"[11]

This narrative is laden with miracles, proclaiming the greatness of patriarch Judah, who was considered "holy" at the time of the composition of PT.[12] As with other hagiographic accounts, we cannot a priori accept the non-miraculous elements as facts. We might heed the warning Robin Lane Fox gives in his analysis of the panegyric of bishop Gregory Thaumaturgus: "it is deeply misleading to use the panegyric as if it gives a correct historical image of Gregory’s appeal in the 250s. The story was shaped to suit the tastes of an author and an audience in the 380s." Note that both Gregory and his panegyric are close contemporaries to the patriarch and his midrash! Significantly, a little further Lane Fox shows "how stories had become attached to local landmarks".[13] My suggestion is that something similar happened here. It is doubtful whether in the late fourth century anybody actually remembered where patriarch Judah was buried. When this story was composed, maybe elaborating some older traditions about miracles surrounding his death, it was linked to a well known landmark, the monumental cemetery of Beth She’arim. Not a strange choice, as in other traditions patriarch Judah was already claimed to have spent his early career in Beth She’arim. So the story of Judah’s funeral is possibly a second mirage, next to that of the identified graves. Whenever a scholar doubts one of the mirages, the other comes to mind to reassure him that Beth She’arim nevertheless was patriarchal. But in fact the midrash only tells us something about the reception of the necropolis in fourth century Palestinian society. Maybe we see here no more than that it was a well known landmark, with enough prestige to be considered worthy to receive the funeral of such a holy man.

We can thus bury the hypothesis of a close link between the patriarch and the cemetery. Beth She’arim was a fairly "normal" cemetery, although of some stature and with a rather wide catchment. The existence of such a cemetery, not necessarily connected to institutions like the patriarch or the rabbinic movement, but nevertheless distinctly "Jewish", can be seen as support for my argument that a distinctly Jewish society continued to exist in the 3rd and 4th century (see this post).

Ⓒ Paul Gill (May 2007)

Notes:
[1] Millar 2006, 147-8.
[2] Avigad 1976, 13.
[3] Avigad 1976, 263.
[4] Weiss 1992, 366-7.
[5] Avigad 1976, 65.
[6] Lifshitz and Schwabe 1974, 148 n. 6.
[7] Jacobs 1995, 247, n. 95.
[8] Rajak 1997, 351; Schwartz 2001, 155.
[9] I follow Neusner’s outline.
[10] Late midrash: Hezser 1997, 413.
[11] PT Kelayim 9:3 (translation by Neusner).
[12] Hezser 1997, 413.
[13] Lane Fox 1986, 530-1.

So much for pseudo-history. To bring this blog back on track, I will try to link my last post with next month's post on the necropolis of Beth She'arim with a short series of pictures.

1. The old cemetery of the Sephardic Community in Curaçao. Note Willemstad's massive oil refinery in the background!

2. The old Jewish cemetery I was made aware of some weeks ago. It lies around the corner from my new house in Delft.

3. And finally, the entrance to one of the catacombs of the late antiquity necropolis of Beth She'arim. More on its significance and controversies next week! (I found the picture here)

The main shortcoming of Imperialism is that it declares the marginal rabbis irrelevant for the functioning of the system as a whole. This is partly because of the method Schwartz chooses: structural functionalism (in his own words: "a tendency (...) which assumes that there are such things as societies as usually complex, organism-like systems that can be understood by analyzing the relations of their component parts"). He falls into the trap he himself recognizes as one of the main criticisms of the model, namely that it "misleadingly ignore[s] agency, the complex ways in which people constantly negotiate with each other and with normative ideologies (...)".

The 2nd and 3rd Century rabbis didn't have much formal power (if any!). Thus, when describing the relations between the component parts of the organism, Schwartz comes to the conclusion that they were not representative for the Jewish population as a whole. Again cum Schwartz: "most Jews seem to have lived mainly as pagans and looked primarily to the Roman state and the city councils as their legal authorities and cultural ideal." He sketches an uneven scale, of which the rabbis' (and their followers') end was marginal.

It is just possible that Schwartz' model and the nature of the archaeological evidence (read this post for a very basic characterization) conspire to distort the picture. The telescopic, component-based perspective pays hardly any regard to social complexities, and the archaeological evidence (mainly coins, larger buildings, inscriptions) only represents the top layer of society (to make this argument convincing, I probably shouldn't mention all the attention Schwartz gives to the nature of the objects of daily use...). This leads to a ruling culture/class focused analysis of "Jewish" Society.

Here I would like to bring in another social theory, namely James C. Scott's theory of Hidden Transcripts (Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Hidden Transcripts). Scott says that (I paraphrase) the public transcript, i.e. the open interaction between subordinates (in our case the population of Syria Palaestina) and those who dominant (the Roman Empire and its magistrates), is unlikely to tell the whole story about power relations - can even be positively misleading! And it is exactly this public transcript which Schwartz sees when he looks at city coins, bathhouses, inscriptions! Such images represent what the powerful want to believe - or what the weak think they want to believe. Like the IUDEA CAPTA coins, which were distributed somewhat prematurely as it took seventy more years, lots of troubles and the smashing of a violent revolt to really subdue Judaea, the 2nd and 3rd century public transcript probably show a much too rosy picture. Rosy from the Roman point of view, of course.

Following Scott, if we wish to get an impression of the impact of domination (or imperialism?), we should assess the discrepancy between the public transcript and the hidden transcript - the "discourse that takes place 'offstage,' beyond direct observation by powerholders." Schwartz doesn't do this, and thus misses the opportunity to fathom the subordinate side of society. Namely, as Daniel Boyarin recognized (Dying for God), "the talmudic discourse (...) gives us direct access to the 'hidden transcript' " (he doesn't develop this beyond its consequences for the discourse of martyrdom - still, I am highly indebted to him for the observation).

The hypothesis that rabbinic literature reflects the hidden transcript of at least part of Jewish Society, and therefore can tell us something not only about power relations in the Roman Province of Judae Palestina, but also about the role that the 'vestigial identity' of Judaism still played in those, will be the guiding force of my thesis research.

You don't agree? Great! Please comment! I am going to need a lot of feedback, positive and negative, to get this argument anywhere!

When I presented the rough outlines of my plans for MA Thesis on social (and/or cultural) interaction between Rome and Jews in 2nd and 3rd Century Syria Palaestina at my department's 'Thesis Seminar', both teachers and pupils tried to lure me into extending the project: I got proposals ranging from "what about the Diaspora?" via "of course the Essenes will be of interest for your research" and "you should take the Christian Empire into the equation" up to "I believe under Antioch IV the Jews fought against a statue of a god in the temple in Jerusalem." All very interesting indeed, and the thought of investigating all those landscapes of interaction is extremely alluring to me. But I am warned by the tercet preceding Goethe's famous quote:

So ist's mit aller Bildung auch beschaffen:
Vergebens werden ungebundne Geister
Nach der Vollendung reiner Hoehe streben.

(source: Goethe, "Das Sonnett", as quoted by the Humanist Discussion Group)

Having seen quite some fellow students stumble over much to extensive thesis plans, I will try to bind my Geist. Here I will propose some boundaries.

First of all, I will confine my research to a very small geographical area: the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, and within this province I will concentrate mostly on the rural backwaters of Galilee, and the poleis in and surrounding that province, such as Joppa, Sephoris and Caesarea. In effect the base of the rabbinic movement. The geographical boundary is fluid, however, as I will present the region as the scenery for the interaction I intend to investigate. Where archaeological, epigraphical and numismatical evidence from this area doesn't suffice to provide that scenery, I might use evidence from other, comparable(?) regions in the Roman Empire. But no, I won't take the Jews of the Alexandrian or Asian diaspora communities into consideration.

Another important boundary will be that of Time. Both my time and their time is limited: I plan to complete a first draft in May or June, and I will only consider the interaction of Jews and Romans from after the Bar Kokhba Revolt - excluding the revolt itself, but including the transmission and recension of the revolt's legend in later centuries - until the Christianization of the Empire's government in the East, thus roughly from 135 to 323 A.C. As such, I will exclude both early sources like Josephus and the New Testament, and the complications of the rabbi's attitude towards the Empire becoming muddled with their attitude towards that suddenly all-important sect, Christianity. These two centuries form politically a very silent age in Palestine, after the Roman reaction to Bar Kokhba's revolt subsides we see neither uprisings nor persecutions.

But socially and culturally it is a very interesting period. If we look casually, we see Syria Palaestine fully integrating into the structure and culture of the Roman Empire like all other former client kingdoms in the East in this period. As Fergus Millar (1993) and Seth Schwartz (2001) convincingly show, for this period the archaeological record presents a very 'normal' Roman province. Poleis promoted their alliance with the empire, artifacts of daily life are decorated with standard pagan themes. Schwartz concludes that "for most Jews, Judaism may have been little more than a vestigial identity, bits and pieces of which they were happy to incorporate into a religious and cultural system that was essentially Greco-Roman and pagan." However, this same age and region features the birth of a very idiosyncratic literary tradition - the rabbinical writings, most well-known of which are the Mishnah and the Talmud. Not only are they written not in Greek, but in local languages (Hebrew and Aramaic), they also present a very different Weltanschauung. The paradox of this seemingly integrated society producing such literature intrigues me.

The rabbinical literature (together with the above-mentioned archaeological and epigraphical data) will be the primary source of my investigation. This in itself raises some major methodological issues, not in the least by the volume of the literature. The Babylonian Talmud alone would take seven years to read if one would read a page a day... But I will consider the problems of using this literature for historical research in a future post. Here I will only state that I believe that the rabbinical literature, although highly idiosyncratic and probably written by a marginal movement, can give us insight in 2nd and 3rd century provincial society if carefully studied.

I will not be the first to write about the rabbis' attitude towards Roman government or pagan society. However, most studies have been compilations of sayings and legends, without much historical analysis. Moreover, most such writings don't look beyond the rabbis to the wider society of Syria Palaestina (or superimpose the Talmudic social utopia on that society). I hope to step beyond a mere compilation, and steer free from generalizing rabbinic ideas, by applying social theory to the data. To be more specific, I hope that James C. Scott's theory of public and hidden transcripts will shed some light on the nature of the interaction between Rome and Palaestinian society.

That's all for now, next week I hope to sketch a rough outline of my thesis. Dear reader, I might as well warn you: this blog will move beyond mere escapism, to serious academics... ;-)

Thus Aravis begins, 'in the grand Calormene manner,' the story of how she tries to escape from an arranged marriage with a sixty year old humpbacked, ape-faced lord, first by an abortive attempt at killing herself, then by a cunning flight. This episode in The Horse and his Boy, my favorite C.S. Lewis book, deeply impressed me when I first read it as an eight or nine year-old.

I can still recall vividly the climactic scene where Aravis decides to leave this life, but is saved by her horse Hwin:

'... I dismounted from Hwin my mare and took out [my brother's] dagger. Then I parted my clothes where I thought the readiest way lay to my heart and I prayed to all the gods that as soon as I was dead I might find myself with my brother. After that I shut my eyes and my teeth and prepared to drive the dagger into my heart. But before I had done so, this mare spoke with the voice of one of the daughters of men and said, "O my mistress, do not by any means destroy yourself, for if you live you may yet have good fortune but all the dead are dead alike." (...) When I heard the language of men uttered by my mare, I said to myself, the fear of death has disordered my reason and subjected me to delusions. And I became full of shame for non of my lineage ought to fear death more than the biting of a gnat. Therefore I addressed myself a second time to the stabbing, but Hwin came near to me and put her head in between me and the dagger and discoursed to me most excellent reasons and rebuked me as a mother rebukes her daughter.'

I was strangely disappointed by Hwin's intervention. Aravis' heroism and determination struck a cord in me, and I felt the dagger was a brave and honourable choice, especially as she would be reunited with her deceased brother. C.S. Lewis probably wouldn't agree with me, not in this case anyway. The Calormene (Muslim? Oriental?) tradition is presented by him as colourful, but Wrong in Essence. Although the Chronicles of Narnia abound in instances of self-sacrifice, a virgin suicide to preserve honour and autonomy isn't considered an option in Lewis' Anglican moral scheme. When I was eight, in my moral scheme it was.

I was reminded of Aravis' plight while pondering on Daniel Boyarin's Dying for God, which I chose to read for my oral exam next week. A lot of the issues that Aravis' narrative touches upon obliquely, are in this book on 'martyrdom and the making of Christianity and Judaism.' For example, where Aravis struggles with patriarchal oppression, in the chapter 'Quo Vadis' Boyarin treats the discourse in Rabbinical and Christian martyrology on the possible reactions to imperialistic (Roman) dominance. Where Christianity answers the 'Quo vadis' question with a uni-vocal: 'to the cross!' (i.e. to confession and the martyr's death), rabbinical Judaism keeps the option open of bypassing death by a trickster-escape. Full collaboration with the oppressor isn't an option in either system, however.

The issue isn't fully analogous, as Aravis' choice isn't between escape and martyrdom, but between escape and the (related) noble death (as explained in Jan Willem van Henten and Friedrich Avemarie's sourcebook Van Henten and Avemarie). Still, it is striking that Lewis stereotypes noble death as an un-Christian, oriental option, for a girl at least! In the chapter 'Thinking with virgins' Boyarin shows how in early Christianity, virgin martyrdom (or 'white martyrdom' - becoming a nun) was a valorized option for female christians like the virgin of Antioch and (in a way) Perpetua, as an alternative for marriage. Christianity was norm-breaking in that respect, as opposed to Rabbinical Judaism, where virginity could never be a goal an sich - the only legitimate goal of chastity was to become a virgin bride.

So cultural options keep shifting, some norms 'we' take for granted (even the norm that death, especially self-inflicted death, is something to be avoided at any cost) are turned upside-down in other (sub-)cultures and times. Even in ancient Christianity, which has been formative in creating our own norms and mind-set. I'll let early Christianity speak for itself, in the guise of another young girl, the martyr Agnes (as presented by Ambrosius in his Concerning Virginity, Book I). Both Aravis and Agnes are prepared to die rather than to be married against their will - in Agnes' case to a Roman prefect's son. Of course in Agnes' case faith is at stake, she has chosen to become the bride of Christ. But maybe you will agree that ideologically she still has more in common with Aravis than with C.S. Lewis - or the motherly Hwin.

7. She is said to have suffered martyrdom when twelve years old. (...) She was fearless under the cruel hands of the executioners, she was unmoved by the heavy weight of the creaking chains, offering her whole body to the sword of the raging soldier, as yet ignorant of death, but ready for it. (...)

8. A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory, difficult to contend with but easy to be crowned, she filled the office of teaching valour while having the disadvantage of youth. She would not as a bride so hasten to the couch, as being a virgin she joyfully went to the place of punishment with hurrying step, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ. (...)

9. What threats the executioner used to make her fear him, what allurements to persuade her, how many desired that she would come to them in marriage! But she answered: "It would be an injury to my spouse to look on any one as likely to please me. He who chose me first for Himself shall receive me. Why are you delaying, executioner? Let this body perish which can be loved by eyes which I would not." She stood, she prayed, she bent down her neck. You could see the executioner tremble, as though he himself had been condemned, and his right hand shake, his face grow pale, as he feared the peril of another, while the maiden feared not for her own. You have then in one victim a twofold martyrdom, of modesty and of religion. She both remained a virgin and she obtained martyrdom.