O' Brother Christ

O’ Brother Christ—A Plea and a Prayer

{Help me, I cried

I insist, oh I insist, I exist.

Sailing in each tiny caravel a cavalcade of camaraderie’s from the commodore coming with callous calipers.

Sir, I exist!

The fact has not created in me

A sense of urgency.}

o brother Christ,

it seems that you have not come near as you used to

it seems that you no longer come here as you used to

o my Christ, o my Christ, why have you have abandoned us?

                                    (mashihi mashihi, lema sabahthanu)
You have abandoned your own for the new "chosen ones"

But we were the chosen ones, why hast thou cast us off?

Why have you chosen a new possession?

For whom did you die, to whom did you preach

For whom did you sigh, to whom did you teach

To whom did you cry, as you decided whether to be taken away or go off, do your own thing and reject your father’s will like the christ as portrayed in the last temptation

Why did you stay on that cross, why did you submit to such dross

You, the son of god, could have had any life you wished, any girl you kissed

Servants would have waited you, women would have lavished you,

Warriors would have fought for you, gods would have bowed down to you.

You could have been king, The King, king of kings

But you chose to let your blood pour forth, and as it flowed down, it sang and bubbled along and formed a stream into which doubters and sinners can dunk their heads and assuage their thirst.

Drink my blood and eat my flesh. For every time you do this, you do it in remembrance of me.

And by inaugurating that meal, you left your people, the little people of this world, a people small and few of number

You entered the upper room as a Jew celebrating a pesah seder, and you left as a Christian celebrating your own feast

You entered the world as the son of a poor girl from the house of bread, and you left as the exalted son of a god whom the little people no longer recognize

You taught as a rabbi, walked in halachah, studied from torah, — but died as a Grecian martyr

You changed from man to myth

You were one of us, until you decided to leave your domain, and become one of them,

the resurrected son of a triune god —

from echad to epikoros

why did you leave? Why did you go your own way?

You have chosen the worship of Christians over the reverence of Jews,

The adulation of Gentiles to the respect of your people

Why have you desired this glory for yourself?

After your death, you went to them and taught the gentiles

During your life, when the gentile woman approached, you reproached her,

But now you gloat in the glory of the goyyim.

Two-faced Yeshua, fat in the heavens, you enjoy your premature adoration.

If you would have just waited, if you would have waited three more days,

If you would have sat,

If you would have suffered,

You would have found your purpose in your people, as you taught.

G-d, your g-d, would have exalted you to his right hand,

If you dwelt and suffered with your people, you would have seen light.

By his knowledge, he will make many righteous.

Why couldn’t you wait?

Instead, you ceased to be a man and you left your people, and you became a god, a god whose resurrection was patterned after the gods of the goyyim.

You neglected the love of your community

For the adulation of millions.

And are you ever going to come back to your people, or will you stay in your gold-encrusted, lavishly decorated palace of the Greek gods and drink the immortal juice,

Or will you appear, bedraggled and beaten, bruised and bitter, among your people

Again make your appearance with the ghettos and the ghosts and the lost souls and lost lives, where you found yourself at the crossroads of your death.

You chose the path more travelled by.

O my Yeshu, o my Yeshu, why hast thou forsaken us?
                                    (yeshui,  yeshui, lema sabahthanu)

Yeshu ben Yosef haNotsri, alav ha-shalom, haShem yinkom damo

ישו בן יוסף הנוצרי עליו השלום השם ינקום דמו

May g-d have mercy on his soul            

Spiritual Truths in Popular Music: "Roses" by The Chainsmokers ft. Rozes

There's a reason songs are popular. It's because these songs resonate with many people across boundaries and divides. These pop songs are called pop because they are popular, something about them touches on the human condition that many people can relate to.

One such song is "Roses" by the American EDM duo The Chainsmokers, featuring vocals by the American singer Elizabeth Rose Mencel, better known by her stage name Rozes.

Whenever I hear this song, I feel some sort of a nostalgia and a sense of finding something again, of rekindling a relationship, and that I'm missing something until that happens.

The song, from the video and lyrics, is about a boy and girl who are rekindling a relationship.



"Deep in my bones I can feel you," the female vocalist sings, amidst visions of a female dancer, "Take me back to a time when we knew / Hideaway." Take me back to that time when we "We could waste the night with an old film / Smoke a little weed on the couch in the backroom." The singer pines for the time when the two could hang out together, could just watch an old film and smoke together, relax. In an alternate version, the lyrics are "take me back to a time when we knew / how to be." The time when we knew how to be, when we could just sit together and just ''be.'' No agendas, no plans, no worries—just ourselves, our eyes, and our bodies. We could just be.

But that time of innocence, you could call it, has been broken. We have moved on, we had better things to do, we forgot how to just be, how to just hang out together.

In the video, it shows the man spending the night with the girl where they do light it up and make some love (there's nothing R-rated), but then it shows him in leaving the girl in the morning. He has to move on, he has plans, he has shows to catch.

When I watched that, I thought something about this isn't right. That's not the way we were meant to be. We weren't meant for hook-ups. We weren't meant to leave our partners on the couch. Instead, we were meant to ''be'', we were meant to stay with each other, to be committed to each other.

The video shows the disappointment of the two lovers now that they are apart. The girl lights some more up and wanders her apartment without purpose. The man drives away and frets.

Yet the girl, like the girl in the Song of Songs, searches for her lover and finds him. Suddenly, as the two come together, the tempo picks up and the beat drops just as they kiss. The scenes of the female dancer became more exaggerated. Rose petals fall from the sky. All is better, all has been re-united. It's a joyous occasion.

The video ends with them embraced in another kiss.

This video, I believe, is a microcosm of the human experience. It starts out searching, looking for something, then it finds that object of desire, then they are separated, and finally they are brought back together. We could call it desire, consummation, separation, and re-unification. I believe that's the story of our lives, either in our relationships with others or in our relationship with the divine.

As single people, we are always looking for that person, that person who will make our heart sing and make our dreams come true. We know that it is not "good" to be single. There is an achingness, a missingness, without that person. Then we find them, and everything is wonderful, we can be ourselves.

But unfortunately, that love is short-lived. Something comes up, our own messed up behavior draws the person away, and we are separated. What was whole is now broken.

And so we live our lives in quiet desperation. We know that ''if only'' we could be reunited with that person, it will all be well (so we think). We live our lives aimlessly and try to forget and move on.

Some of us find other lovers and are content with that. But if we are lucky, we are reunited with the ones our soul loves. And it is good. Rose petals fall from the sky. The peace and satisfaction has returned. We no longer have to wander. All is well. And it is better than the first time because we have worked through the problems that broke the relationship up. It is for the better.

So it is with God.

We start our lives looking for that something to fill us. (Those of us raised in situations where they are already connected with the divine don't necessarily have this step.) Some us find God. And it is good.

We feel like our lives are new, we have an inner peace. Everything is in harmony. It's the age of innocence.

But through the struggles of life, that relationship is neglected. We lose contact with God. We forget to pray. We find other things to distract us.

When we find him again, it is amazing. The grace has returned, our lives are clear again, we have peace.

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There was a time when humanity was in relationship with God. All of us. But since that primeval time, humanity has lost that. We are broken. We sin. We kill each other. We are wandering. We search for something to fill us, but not for God.

It was God, however, that can fill that hole. Nothing else works. Other things can distract, but not satisfy. God created us with that relationship with him, but we lost it, so only he can fill it. We must be re-united with God. And when it happens, it is good.

"I'll take you to paradise
Say you'll never let me go"

God will take us to paradise and never let us go. The search will be over. Our satisfaction has been attained. We have found our home.

Daniel Boyarin - The Jewish Gospels book review

I had a Facebook friend recommend this book to me, and the title certainly caught my eye, so I read it. It is called The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ. The author is Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley and a self-described Orthodox Jew.¹ Jack Miles, the Christian author of the famous God: A Biography, wrote the praising forward. The book was published by The New Press, a publisher dedicated to publishing "books that promote and enrich public discussion and understanding of the issues vital to our democracy and to a more equitable world."

As I read, I was shocked by what I was reading. Here was a Jew, not a Jew for Jesus, not a Messianic Jew, not a Christian in any way—an Orthodox Jewish talmudic scholar—claiming that Jesus legitimately fulfilled the messianic prophecies. Boyarin also argues that ideas such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, central to mainstream Christian theology, are essentially Jewish ideas, not only hinted at in the Tanakh itself, but also believed by Jews up until the first few centuries of the Common Era. Here is this Jewish scholar claiming that ideas that modern, mainstream Judaism rejects as heresy and idolatry are inherently Jewish ideas, not later Greek-influenced, Christian ideas.

These arguments, on Boyarin's part, are actually injurious to modern, mainstream Judaism. So why would a Jew be arguing such things? In reality, it seems, from reading his book, that he wished to take a stab at Christianity by arguing that Jesus and Christianity were not original, but simply took their pre-existing ideas from Judaism. So, in a way, he denigrates Christianity. At the epilogue at the end, Boyarin discredits Jesus. He says that even Jesus' extraordinary nature cannot explain the perceived 'newness' or uniqueness of Christianity: "Taking even the remarkable nature of Jesus—and I have no doubt that he wasa remarkable person—as the historical explanation for a world-shifting revision of beliefs and practices seems to me hardly plausible" (159). Rather, everything that Jesus had, Judaism had (this may be an exaggeration of the argument), and so Judaism had a pre-A.D. idea of a dying and rising messiah: he writes that "the notion that some kind of experience of the risen Christ preceded and gave rise to the idea that he would rise seems to me so unlikely as to be incredible" (159). Jesus' followers did not believe that he had risen because they saw him risen. Rather, they saw him risen, because they believed him risen. That is, they already had believed that the messiah would rise from the dead, so when their perceived messiah died, they saw him risen, even though he did not. "Perhaps his followers saw him arisen," Boyarin continues, "but surely this must be because they had a narrative that led them to expect such appearances, and not that the appearances gave rise to the narrative" (159). Boyarin, after demolishing the central tenet of Christianity, then gives a footnote trying to be kind, relegating belief in the resurrection to mere faith: "Let me make myself clear here: I am not denying the validity of the religious Christian view of matters. That is surely a matter of faith, not scholarship. I am denying it as a historical, scholarly, critical explanation" (159n). Postmodern revisions of Christianity aside, how is demolishing one's belief as ahistorical and then saying, "Oh, you can still believe it [even though it is not historically true]," supposed to make Christian believers feel any better? Also, such an argument completely ignores the Gospels' depictions of the post-resurrection witnesses as shocked and surprised, certainly not expectant and eager (NBC's New Testament-based TV show A.D.'s depiction of Mary Magdalene and John as eagerly awaiting his resurrection despite the boo-hooing of the rest of the disciples notwithstanding). Well, what should I have expected from academia?

Let us move on to the more uplifting parts of the book. The first move of Boyarin's book is to demonstrate that the Judaism of Jesus' day (called Second Temple Judaism, the history of Israel from the rebuilding of the Temple in the sixth century BCE until its destruction at the hands of General Titus in CE 70) was much more diverse and pluralistic than modern Judaism. This idea is a well-known scholarly fact by now—in fact, the Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, titles its article on Judaism "Judaisms of the Second Temple Period." Judaisms—plural. To give you a sense of the Judaisms of Jesus' day, consider that there were apocalyptic communities such as the Essenes, innovators such as the Pharisees, secularists and assimilators such as the Sadducees and the Herodians, as well as messianic spectators and regional variations in outlook and language (e.g., Galileans versus Judeans). Thus, Judaism was far from being a monolithic entity.

But Boyarin takes this idea a step farther. He argues that through the first three centuries of the Common Era the relationship between Judaism and Christianity was fluid and undefined. In fact, according to him, it may even be anachronistic to even speak of them as two separate religions at that point in time. People belonged to groups with a common identity, but the idea of Jewish "religion" itself, in the modern sense of a set of beliefs, a priesthood, and scriptures did not exist. "Everybody then—both those who accepted Jesus and those who didn't—was Jewish (or Israelite, the actual ancient terminology)," Boyarin writes; continuing, "Actually, there was no Judaism at all, nor was there Christianity. In fact, the idea of 'a religion,' that is one of a number of religions to which one might or might not belong," did not exist at that time (2).

Here is how Daniel Boyarin paints the Jewish religious landscape of the first few centuries: "There were no Rabbis yet, and even the priests in Jerusalem and around the countryside were divided among themselves.…Some [Jews] believed that in order to be a kosher Jew you had to believe in a single divine figure and any other belief was simply idol worship. Others believe that God had a divine deputy or emissary or even son…" Basically, Boyarin's picture allows for a broad spectrum of Jewish belief.

Buy this book on Amazon.

Amazon link

Jewish Bible

For an article-length summary of Boyarin's argument, see his article in the Jewish journal Tikkun.

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¹For an article summary of Boyarin's work and his relationship with the Jewish and academic communities, see the article in the Jewish San Francisco Bay Area periodical JWeekly.↩

OT canon

The canon of what Christians call the Old Testament and what Jews call the Hebrew Bible or TaNaKh has an interesting history. It may be commonly accepted that the Jewish canon has 24 books divided into three sections—Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings)—but this has not always been the case. Indeed, Jews have even had 22-book, 3-division and also 4-division canons during their history. The establishment of the 24-book, tripartite canon is a relatively new development. Christians may feel that their 39-book, quadripartite canon is inferior or less valid than the tripartite canon, but as this analysis of early canon lists shows, the quadripartite was a viable alternative to the tripartite canon for many years until the Jewish community established the tripartite canon as normative.

We will first look at the canon list of the church father Origen who lived in the third century Common Era (two hundred years after Christ). His canon is interesting because it has 22 books, not 24, and appears to support a quadripartite division rather than a tripartite, although that is not clear because he does not state the divisions himself. Another peculiarity of Origen's canon is that he only lists 21 books, even though he says there are 22 books. From comparison with the traditional canon, one realizes that Origen forgot to enumerate the single book of the Twelve Minor Prophets. (Although it may be possible that Origen intended to count Maccabees as the 22nd book, which, however, he states is outside of the rest of the books.)

Origen's Canon c. 240 CE/A.D.

From the account of Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, vi. 25, copied from Michael D. Marlowe's Bible-Researcher.com.

τὸν μέν γε πρῶτον ἐξηγούμενος Ψαλμόν, ἔκθεσιν πεποίηται τοῦ τῶν ἱερῶν γραφῶν τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης καταλόγου, ὧδέ πως γράφων κατὰ λέξιν· «οὐκ ἀγνοητέον δ' εἶναι τὰς ἐνδιαθήκους βίβλους, ὡς Ἑβραῖοι παραδιδόασιν, δύο καὶ εἴκοσι, ὅσος ἀριθμὸς τῶν παρ' αὐτοῖς στοιχείων ἐστίν». εἶτα μετά τινα ἐπιφέρει λέγων· «εἰσὶν δὲ αἱ εἴκοσι δύο βίβλοι καθ' Ἑβραίους αἵδε· ἡ παρ' ἡμῖν Γένεσις ἐπιγεγραμμένη, παρὰ δ' Ἑβραίοις ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς βίβλου Βρησιθ, ὅπερ ἐστὶν «ἐν ἀρχῆι»· Ἔξοδος, Ουελλεσμωθ, ὅπερ ἐστὶν «ταῦτα τὰ ὀνόματα»· Λευιτικόν, Ουϊκρα, «καὶ ἐκάλεσεν»· Ἀριθμοί, Αμμεσφεκωδειμ· Δευτερονόμιον, Ελλεαδδεβαρειμ, «οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι»· Ἰησοῦς υἱὸς Ναυῆ, Ιωσουεβεννουν· Κριταί, Ῥούθ, παρ' αὐτοῖς ἐν ἑνί, Σωφτειμ· Βασιλειῶν αʹ βʹ, παρ' αὐτοῖς ἕν, Σαμουὴλ, «ὁ θεόκλητος»· Βασιλειῶν γʹ δʹ ἐν ἑνί, Ουαμμελχδαυιδ, ὅπερ ἐστὶν «βασιλεία Δαυίδ»· Παραλειπομένων αʹ βʹ ἐν ἑνί, Δαβρηϊαμειν, ὅπερ ἐστὶν «λόγοι ἡμερῶν»· Ἔζρας αʹ βʹ ἐν ἑνί, Εζρα, ὅ ἐστιν «βοηθός»· βίβλος Ψαλμῶν, Σφαρθελλειμ· Σολομῶνος παροιμίαι, Μελωθ· Ἐκκλησιαστής, Κωελθ· Ἆισμα ἀισμάτων οὐ γάρ, ὡς ὑπολαμβάνουσίν τινες, Ἄισματα ἀισμάτων, Σιρασσιρειμ· Ἡσαΐας, Ιεσσια· Ἱερεμίας σὺν Θρήνοις καὶ τῆι Ἐπιστολῆι ἐν ἑνί, Ιερεμια· Δανιήλ, Δανιηλ· Ἰεζεκιήλ, Ιεζεκιηλ· Ἰώβ, Ιωβ· Ἐσθήρ Εσθηρ. ἔξω δὲ τούτων ἐστὶ τὰ Μακκαβαϊκά, ἅπερ ἐπιγέγραπται Σαρβηθσαβαναιελ». ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἐν τῶι προειρημένωι τίθησι συγγράμματι·

When expounding the first Psalm he gives a catalog of the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament as follows: It should be stated that the canonical books, as the Hebrews have handed them down, are twenty-two, corresponding with the number of their letters. Farther on he says: The twenty-two books of the Hebrews are the following: That which is called by us Genesis, but by the Hebrews, from the beginning of the book, Breshith, which means in the beginning; Exodus, Welesmoth, that is, these are the names; Leviticus, Wikra, and he called; Numbers, Ammesfekodeim; Deuteronomy, Eleaddebareim these are the words; Joshua the son of Nun, Iosoue ben Noun; Judges and Ruth, among them in one book, Saphateim; the first and second of Kings, among them one, Samoel, that is, the called of God; the third and fourth of Kings in one, Wammelch David, that is, the kingdom of David; of the Chronicles, the first and second in one, Dabreiamein, that is, records of days; Esdras, first and second in one, Ezra, that is, an assistant; the book of Psalms, Sfarthelleim; the Proverbs of Solomon, Meloth; Ecclesiastes, Koelth; the Song of Songs (not, as some suppose, Songs of Songs), Sir Hassirim; Isaiah, Iessia; Jeremiah, with Lamentations and the Epistle in one, Ieremia; Daniel, Daniel; Ezekiel, Iezekiel; Job, Iob; Esther, Esther. And outside of these there are the Maccabees, which are entitled Sarbeth Sabanaiel. He gives these in the above-mentioned work.

If we were to divide Origen's canon, we might count books 1–5 as Torah, books 6–11 as History, books 12–15 as Wisdom, and books 16–19 as Prophets. However, that leaves books 20 and 21 (Job and Esther) without a category. A quadripartite division seems to be the only way to subdivide Origen's canon, as a tripartite division would have to include the Prophets with the Wisdom/Writings books, which seems unprecedented throughout history. However, a tripartite understanding of Origen's canon would give Job and Esther a category. A tripartite division would count 1–5 as Torah, 6–11 as History, and 12–21 as Wisdom/Prophets/Writings. Nevertheless, such a tripartite understanding is not identical to Judaism's modern-day canon and therefore represents an alternate canon. It is possible that Origen's canon reflects a two-part (bipartite) canon, consisting of Torah, and then everything else.

Let us see if a comparison with other canon lists can help us.

Another church father, Jerome, wrote a canon list which is more complete than Origen's. The reason I chose these two church fathers, Origen and Jerome, is that both of these church fathers were the only ones to study Hebrew. Since we are discussing the canon of a Hebrew text, I am limiting my search to those church fathers who studied Hebrew and therefore were able to learn the canon with local Jews that they met. If Jerome had not learned Hebrew, he would not have translated the Latin Vulgate from Hebrew and would not have known that almost none of the books of the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha have any Hebrew text behind them—most of the Apocryphal books were written in Greek, not Hebrew.

Jerome lived a century after Origen and almost four hundred years after Christ.

Jerome's Preface to the Books of the Kings, Circa A.D. 391, copied from Michael D. Marlowe's Bible-Researcher.com

Viginti et duas esse litteras apud Hebraeos, Syrorum quoque et Chaldeorum lingua testatur, quae hebraeae magna ex parte confinis est; nam et ipsi viginti duo elementa habent eodem sono, sed diversis caracteribus. Samaritani etiam Pentateuchum Mosi totidem litteris scriptitant, figuris tantum et apicibus discrepantes. Certumque est Ezram scribam legisque doctorem post captam Hierosolymam et instaurationem templi sub Zorobabel alias litteras repperisse, quibus nunc utimur, cum ad illud usque tempus idem Samaritanorum et Hebraeorum caracteres fuerint. In libro quoque Numerorum haec eadem supputatio sub Levitarum ac sacerdotum censu mystice ostenditur. Et nomen Domini tetragrammaton in quibusdam graecis voluminibus usque hodie antiquis expressum litteris invenimus. Sed et psalmi tricesimus sextus, et centesimus decimus, et centesimus undecimus, et centesimus octavus decimus, et centesimus quadragesimus quartus, quamquam diverso scribantur metro, tamen eiusdem numeri texuntur alfabeto. Et Hieremiae Lamentationes et oratio eius, Salomonis quoque in fine Proverbia ab eo loco in quo ait: «Mulierem fortem quis inveniet», hisdem alfabetis vel incisionibus supputantur. Porro quinque litterae duplices apud eos sunt: chaph, mem, nun, phe, sade; aliter enim per has scribunt principia medietatesque verborum, aliter fines. Unde et quinque a plerisque libri duplices aestimantur: Samuhel, Malachim, Dabreiamin, Ezras, Hieremias cum Cinoth, id est Lamentationibus suis. Quomodo igitur viginti duo elementa sunt, per quae scribimus hebraice omne quod loquimur, et eorum initiis vox humana conprehenditur, ita viginti duo volumina supputantur, quibus quasi litteris et exordiis, in Dei doctrina, tenera adhuc et lactans viri iusti eruditur infantia.	That the Hebrews have twenty-two letters is testified also by the Syrian and Chaldean languages, which for the most part correspond to the Hebrew; for they have twenty-two elementary sounds which are pronounced the same way, but are differently written. The Samaritans also write the Pentateuch of Moses with just the same number of letters, differing only in the shape and points of the letters. And it is certain that Esdras, the scribe and teacher of the law, after the capture of Jerusalem and the restoration of the temple by Zerubbabel, invented other letters which we now use, for up to that time the Samaritan and Hebrew characters were the same. In the book of Numbers, moreover, where we have the census of the Levites and priests [Num. 3:39], the same total is presented mystically. And we find the four-lettered name of the Lord [tetragrammaton] in certain Greek books written to this day in the ancient characters. The thirty-seventh Psalm, moreover, the one hundred and eleventh, the one hundred and twelfth, the one hundred and nineteenth, and the one hundred and forty-fifth, although they are written in different metres, are all composed [as acrostics] according to an alphabet of the same number of letters. The Lamentations of Jeremiah, and his Prayer, the Proverbs of Solomon also, towards the end, from the place where we read Who will find a steadfast woman? are instances of the same number of letters forming the division into sections. Furthermore, five are double letters, viz., Caph, Mem, Nun, Phe, Sade, for at the beginning and in the middle of words they are written one way, and at the end another way. Whence it happens that, by most people, five of the books are reckoned as double, viz., Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Jeremiah with Kinoth, i.e., his Lamentations. As, then, there are twenty-two elementary characters by means of which we write in Hebrew all we say, and the human voice is comprehended within their limits, so we reckon twenty-two books, by which, as by the alphabet of the doctrine of God, a righteous man is instructed in tender infancy, and, as it were, while still at the breast.
Primus apud eos liber vocatur Bresith, quem nos Genesim dicimus; secundus Hellesmoth, qui Exodus appellatur; tertius Vaiecra, id est Leviticus; quartus Vaiedabber, quem Numeros vocamus; quintus Addabarim, qui Deuteronomium praenotatur. Hii sunt quinque libri Mosi, quos proprie Thorath, id est Legem appellant.	The first of these books is called Bresith, to which we give the name Genesis. The second, Elle Smoth, which bears the name Exodus; the third, Vaiecra, that is Leviticus; the fourth, Vaiedabber, which we call Numbers; the fifth, Elle Addabarim, which is entitled Deuteronomy. These are the five books of Moses, which they properly call Thorath, that is, Law.
Secundum Prophetarum ordinem faciunt, et incipiunt ab Iesu filio Nave, qui apud eos Iosue Bennum dicitur. Deinde subtexunt Sopthim, id est Iudicum librum; et in eundem conpingunt Ruth, quia in diebus Iudicum facta narratur historia. Tertius sequitur Samuhel, quem nos Regnorum primum et secundum dicimus. Quartus Malachim, id est Regum, qui tertio et quarto Regnorum volumine continetur; meliusque multo est Malachim, id est Regum, quam Malachoth, id est Regnorum dicere, non enim multarum gentium regna describit, sed unius israhelitici populi qui tribubus duodecim continetur. Quintus est Esaias, sextus Hieremias, septimus Hiezecihel, octavus liber duodecim Prophetarum, qui apud illos vocatur Thareasra.	The second class is composed of the Prophets, and they begin with Jesus the son of Nave, which among them is called Iosue ben Nun. Next in the series is Sophtim, that is the book of Judges; and in the same book they include Ruth, because the events narrated occurred in the days of the Judges. Then comes Samuel, which we call First and Second Kings. The fourth is Malachim, that is, Kings, which is contained in the third and fourth volumes of Kings. And it is far better to say Malachim, that is Kings, than Malachoth, that is Kingdoms. For the author does not describe the Kingdoms of many nations, but that of one people, the people of Israel, which is comprised in the twelve tribes. The fifth is Isaiah; the sixth, Jeremiah; the seventh, Ezekiel; and the eighth is the book of the Twelve Prophets, which is called among them Thare Asra.
Tertius ordo αγιογραφα possidet, et primus liber incipit ab Iob, secundus a David, quem quinque incisionibus et uno Psalmorum volumine conprehendunt. Tertius est Salomon, tres libros habens: Proverbia, quae illi Parabolas, id est Masaloth appellant, et Ecclesiasten, id est Accoeleth, et Canticum canticorum, quem titulo Sirassirim praenotant. Sextus est Danihel, septimus Dabreiamin, id est Verba dierum, quod significantius χρονικον totius divinae historiae possumus appellare, qui liber apud nos Paralipomenon primus et secundus scribitur; octavus Ezras, qui et ipse similiter apud Graecos et Latinos in duos libros divisus est, nonus Hester.	To the third class belong the Hagiographa, of which the first book begins with Job; the second with David, whose writings they divide into five parts and comprise in one volume of Psalms. The third is Solomon, in three books: Proverbs, which they call Parables, that is Masaloth; Ecclesiastes, that is Coeleth; and the Song of Songs, which they denote by the title Sirassirim. The sixth is Daniel; the seventh, Dabre Aiamim, that is, Words of Days, which we may more descriptively call a chronicle of the whole of the sacred history, the book that amongst us is called First and Second Paralipomenon [Chronicles]. The eighth is Ezra, which itself is likewise divided amongst Greeks and Latins into two books; the ninth is Esther.
Atque ita fiunt pariter veteris legis libri viginti duo, id est Mosi quinque, Prophetarum octo, Agiograforum novem. Quamquam nonnulli Ruth et Cinoth inter Agiografa scriptitent et libros hos in suo putent numero supputandos, ac per hoc esse priscae legis libros viginti quattuor, quos sub numero viginti quattuor seniorum Apocalypsis Iohannis inducit adorantes Agnum et coronas suas prostratis vultibus offerentes, stantibus coram quattuor animalibus oculatis retro et ante, id est et in praeteritum et in futurum, et indefessa voce clamantibus: «Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens, qui erat et qui est et qui futurus est».	And so there are also twenty-two books of the Old Law; that is, five of Moses, eight of the prophets, nine of the Hagiographa, though some include Ruth and Kinoth (Lamentations) amongst the Hagiographa, and think that these books ought to be reckoned separately; we should thus have twenty-four books of the ancient Law. And these the Apocalypse of John represents by the twenty-four elders, who adore the Lamb and offer their crowns with lowered visage, while in their presence stand the four living creatures with eyes before and behind, that is, looking to the past and the future, and with unwearied voice crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and will be.

Let us compare the canons of Origen and Jerome.

Origen's Canon*	Jerome's Canon
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges + Ruth 1, 2 Samuel 1, 2 Kings 1, 2 Chronicles Ezra—Nehemiah Psalms Proverbs of Solomon Ecclesiastes the Song of Songs Isaiah Jeremiah–Lamentations—Baruch Daniel Ezekiel Job Esther ? (?Maccabees?) *missing the Twelve	Torah Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Prophets Joshua Judges + Ruth* 1, 2 Samuel 1, 2 Kings Isaiah Jeremiah + Lamentations* Ezekiel The Twelve Hagiographa = Holy Writings Job Psalms of David Proverbs of Solomon Ecclesiastes Song of Songs Daniel 1, 2 Chronicles Ezra—Nehemiah Esther total = 22 *some put Lamentations and Ruth in Hagiographa = 24 books

It should be noted that Jerome's canon is exactly the same as today's Jewish 24-book tripartite canon, especially when one places Ruth and Lamentations in the Hagiographa. Origen's canon seems to be a melding of the Greek quadripartite canon and the Hebrew tripartite canon.

The first-century Jewish writer Josephus mentions a canon in his works but does not enumerate the books, so we are left to guess the order.

Josephus, Against Apion, I.8, copied from University of Chicago, translated by William Whiston.

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another: [as the Greeks have:] but only twenty-two books: which contain the records of all the past times: which are justly believed to be divine. And of them five belong to Moses: which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind, till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years. But as to the time from the death of Moses, till the reign of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the Prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times, in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God; and precepts for the conduct of human life. ’Tis true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly; but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers; because there hath not been an exact succession of Prophets since that time. And how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident by what we do. For during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold, as either to add any thing to them; to take any thing from them; or to make any change in them. But it is become natural to all Jews, immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain divine doctrines; and to persist in them: and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them. For ’tis no new thing for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to endure wracks, and deaths of all kinds, upon the theatres; that they may not be obliged to say one word against our laws, and the records that contain them. Whereas there are none at all among the Greeks who would undergo the least harm on that account: no nor in case all the writings that are among them were to be destroyed. For they take them to be such discourses as are framed agreeably to the inclinations of those that write them. And they have justly the same opinion of the elder writers: since they see some of the present generation bold enough to write about such affairs, wherein they were not present; nor had concern enough to inform themselves about them from those that knew them. Examples of which may be had in this late war of ours: where some persons have written histories, and published them, without having been in the places concerned; or having been near them when the actions were done: but these men put a few things together, by hearsay; and insolently abuse the world; and call these writings by the name of Histories.

As you can see, Josephus states that the Jews held to a 22-book canon, of which 5 were Torah, 13 comprised the Prophets, or History books, and the remaining 4 were Writings. By comparing the various canon lists, we can deduce what Josephus' canon consisted of. Obviously, the Torah is the same in all of them. Since it was a 22-book canon, we know that two books were combined, namely Ruth with Judges, and Lamentations with Jeremiah, instead of being in the Writings. Since there are only 4 in the Writings, we will assume that Chronicles, Ezra—Nehemiah, and Daniel will assume their alternate position in the Prophets, not the Writings. Since Josephus says the Writings is composed of hymns to God and precepts for human conduct, we can assume that his Writings is mainly Wisdom books, namely, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (or Job). I am leaning towards the three Solomonic works being together in the Writings, and Job being in the Prophets. For the rest of the books, we can start placing them in their hypothetical order:

1. Torah
1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
2. Prophets
1. Joshua
2. Judges + Ruth
3. 1, 2 Samuel
4. 1, 2 Kings
5. 1, 2 Chronicles
6. Ezra—Nehemiah
7. Esther
8. Job
9. Isaiah
10. Jeremiah + Lamentations
11. Daniel
12. Ezekiel
13. The Twelve
3. Hagiographa = Holy Writings
1. Psalms of David
2. Proverbs of Solomon
3. Ecclesiastes
4. Song of Songs

It is interesting to see the various canon lists because it shows how the ordering of the canon has changed over the years. Note that except for Origen's mention of Maccabees as outside the rest, all the books are the same, it's only the order that is different. In Josephus, we see a sort of hybrid canon—it is tripartite and has 22 books, but its categorization of those books bears more resemblance to the quadripartite system. Origen's canon is a representative of a 22-book quadripartite system, although it is hard to tell exactly where his boundaries are between the subdivisions. Finally, Jerome's canon is the precursor to the modern Jewish Tanakh canon. Therefore, we know that by Jerome's day, a 22-book (or 24-book, depending on how you count Ruth and Lamentations) tripartite system was in the process of normalization. For the 1600 years since Jerome's day, Jews have maintained their Hebrew canon, deciding to count Ruth and Lamentations as Writings.

Near that time, Judaism codified the tripartite system of its Scriptures in order to differentiate itself from Christianity. (Or Christianity might have differentiated itself from Judaism.) Even though that is what Judaism decided on, they could have just as easily decided on the quadripartite canon, with Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, Job, Esther, and Daniel finding their place earlier in the biblical narrative, as in the modern-day Christian canon. It is unfortunate that Judaism has latched on to the tripartite system and that Christianity has latched onto the quadripartite system, when in fact, both canons were authentically Jewish. The quadripartite system probably arose among Greek-speaking Jews and is divided into a more straightforward, chronologically intact order. The tripartite system separates the books from their narrative order and places them in a thematic or genre-oriented order. It is possible that the tripartite system is more ancient and that it captures the order of the admissions of the books into the canon.

As the Jewish Study Bible states, The time of the origin of the name Tanakh is not clear. Rabbinic texts recognize a tripartite canon, where the names we know of, Torah, Neviʾim and Kethuvim, are used for each part of the canon (2073).

It continues,

The origin of the tripartite canon has been a topic of recent dispute, with several scholars suggesting that a two-part canon, the Torah and other works, was the original form, and that only later was it divided into three parts. It is more likely, however, that the tripartite canon is primary, and evidence for it appears in such sources as the prologue to the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, which says that many great teachings have been given to us through the Law and the Prophets and the others (or, other books) that followed them and Luke 24.44, which refers to the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, and in parallel expressions in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The tripartite canon likely reflects the gradual nature of the canonization process, with Neviʾim canonized before Kethuvim. This would explain why the Kethuvim contain the book of the prophet Daniel (dating from the 2nd century BCE), and several late historical books, such as Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles, which would seem more appropriately to belong with similar works such as Joshua and Kings. The tripartite canon most likely suggests, therefore, that Torah was canonized in the Persian period, followed by the canonization of the Neviʾim in the late Persian or early Greek period, while the Kethuvim were canonized last, around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE). (page 2074)

I disagree with the later dating for canonization (I would move it back several centuries), but I agree with the insights discussed in this paragraph. The information continues to discuss the quadripartite canon:

The tripartite order is not the only one known in antiquity, nor is the number of twenty-four books the only number mentioned in ancient Jewish sources. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the 1st century CE, refers to twenty-two biblical books (Against Apion 1.42). It is not clear if he simply had a smaller canon or if, instead, his canon had the texts in a different order, combined in different ways. Some traditions put Ruth after Judges and Lamentations after Jeremiah, treating these smaller books as appendices to the ones they follow, rather than independent works. Such an arrangement of would yield twenty-two books, a number which conveniently corresponds to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet; some early Christian sources also cite this as the number of books in the Bible. … According to this originally Jewish tradition, mentioned in some early church fathers and reflected in the arrangement of the earliest comprehensive Septuagint manuscripts (4th century CE), the Hebrew Bible is divided into four parts: Torah, Histories, Poetical and Wisdom books, and Prophets. This order continues to be used by Christians in their organization of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) materials. Older scholarship spoke of this four-part, twenty-two book arrangement as the Alexandrian canon, in contrast to the tripartite, twenty-four book Palestinian canon, but scholars now recognize that such a clear dichotomy never existed and therefore avoid the use of those terms. (page 2074)

Whichever canon is original or current, the canon should not be used as a polemic against other faith communities or as a hammer to beat people with. As we can see, there are historical reasons why certain orderings and categorizations took place. We should not disparage other's canons by claiming that ours is more authentic (e.g., the Jewish 24-book or the Christian four-part canon). As we saw, there were many variations and re-arrangements and it took many years for the canon to normalize into its present forms.

What follows is a chart of the books of the canon, with their Hebrew names, English names, and the names that Origen and Jerome provided for them. The list follows Origen's order. It is interesting to see the linguistic changes from Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then the English names we have today.

English Name	Hebrew Name	Hebrew Transliteration	Origen's Name	Jerome's Name
Genesis	בְּרֵאשִׁית	Bĕrēšīt̲ (B'reshith)	Brēsith	Bresith
Exodus	וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת	Wĕʾēlleh Šĕmôt̲ (W'elleh Shemoth)	Ouellesmōth	Hellesmoth
Leviticus	וַיִּקְרָא	Wayyiqrāʾ	Ouikra	Vaiecra
Numbers	בְּמִדְבַּר	Bemidbar	Ammesfekōdeim	Vaiedabber
Deuteronomy	אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים	ʾēlleh haddb̲ārîm (W'elleh hadvarim)	Elleaddebareim	Addabarim
Joshua	יְהוֹשֻׁעַ	Yehōshuʿa	Yōsoue-ben-noun	Iosue Bennun
Judges Ruth	שֹֽׁפְטִים רוּת	Shōphtim Ruth	Sōphteim Routh	Sopthim Ruth
I and II Samuel	שְׁמוּאֵל	Shemuʾēl	Somouēl	Samuhel
I and II Kings	מְּלָכִים	Melakim	Ουαμμελχδαυιδ Wamellech Dawid	Melachim
I and II Chronicles	דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים	Divrei hayamim	Δαβρηϊαμειν Dabrēyamein	Dabreiamin
Ezra + Nehemiah	עֶזְרָא נְחֶמְיָה	ʿEzraʾ Nĕḥemyāh	Ezra	Ezras
Psalms	תְּהִלִּים	Tĕhillîm	Sfarthelleim (contraction of sefer tehillim, book of psalms)	Psalms of David
Proverbs	מִשְׁלֵי	MišlêMishlei	Melōth	Masaloth (parables)
Ecclesiastes	קֹהֶלֶת	Qōheleṯ	Kōelth	Coeleth
The Song of Songs	שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים	Shir haShirim	Sirassireim	Sirassirim
Isaiah	יְשַׁעְיָהוּ	Yĕshaʿyāhû	Iessia	Esaias
Jeremiah + Lamentations	יִרְמְיָהוּ אֵיכָה	Yirmĕyāhû ʾEicāh	Ieremia	Hieremias + Kinoth
Daniel	דָּנִיֵּאל	Dāniyyēʾl	Daniēl	Danihel
Ezekiel	יְחֶזְקֵאל	Yĕḥezqēʾl	Iezekiēl	Hiezecihel
The Twelve (Minor Prophets)	תרי עשר	Trei ʿAsar	N/A	Thareasra
Job	אִיּוֹב	ʾIyyôv	Iōb	Iob
Esther	אֶסְתֵּר	ʾEstēr	Esthēr	Hester

Sources:

Brettler, Marc Zvi. The Canonization of the Bible. In The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, 2072-2077. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Of Kings and Prophets Episode 2 review

In the second episode of the biblical saga Of Kings and Prophets, much goes awry—Rizpah betrays King Saul to King Achish, Eshbaal hires an assassin to kill the prophet Samuel, and tensions rise as Saul realizes that the people no longer see him as a valid king.

And King Saul's wife, Ahinoam, seduces David.

Yeah...

Any people of faith who viewed the first episode and expected an uplifting, biblical show should have known better. And all of us who continued watching to the second episode, you have no excuse. That includes me.

I was repulsed by the depiction of Ahinoam seducing David—not that it was graphic, in fact, nothing is shown at all, except them kissing and then it skips ahead to him walking out of the chamber tightening his belt. It is depicted through suggestion. —But the idea that David would sleep with King Saul's wife and queen was revolting, adulterous, and a defiance of Torah. (Not that those factors stopped King David from sleeping with Bathsheba later on...)

How could David, who is depicted in the bible as the loyal yet mistreated servant of Saul (even as Saul undergoes a manhunt for him to kill him), break faith with the king and do such a thing? Why is Hollywood so stupid?

Or are they?

As I did research, I found out that the idea of a relationship between David and Ahinoam, while not explicitly stated in the text, is a possibility of interpretation and further shows the writer's engagement with the text.

There are seven mentions of Ahinoam in the Tanak. These seven mentions either refer to one woman named Ahinoam or to two. Ahinoam is called the wife of Saul once and then all of the following six times she is called David's wife. Let us look at these instances.

The first mention of Ahinoam—and the only reference to her as Saul's wife—is in 1 Samuel 14:50 amidst a brief section on Saul's genealogy and family. It states, "And the name of the woman(wife) of Saul [was] Ahino'am daughter of Ahima'az" (וְשֵׁם אֵשֶׁת שָׁאוּל אֲחִינֹעַם בַּת־אֲחִימָעַץ). Here, Ahinoam is called the daughter of a certain Ahima'az and Saul's wife. There are no mentions of any other wives of Saul, so Ahinoam may have been his only wife. (He also had a concubine named Rizpah, whom we will at another time.)

The second mention of Ahinoam is in 1 Samuel 25:43, after the story of Nabal. Nabal, whose name means "fool," was being protected by David while he was hiding from Saul and undergoing guerilla raids of neighboring areas. David was a cross between an rebel insurgent and a guerilla vigilante—not that those are too different! David had protected Nabal's flocks from others and yet Nabal gives David no indication of respect or reward in return. So David sets out with his three hundred armed men to teach Nabal a lesson. En route, Nabal's wife, Abigail, goes out to David and offers him clothing and food. David relents from his plan and returns to his hiding place. Then the text mentions that Nabal died. Upon Nabal's death, David comes and swoops Abigail into his arms and makes her his wife. "And Abigail hasted and she rose and she rode upon the donkey—and five of her lasses who went with her. And she went after the messengers of David—and she was to him as a woman(wife)" (וַתְּמַהֵ֞ר וַתָּ֣קָם אֲבִיגַ֗יִל וַתִּרְכַּב֙ עַֽל־הַחֲמֹ֔ור וְחָמֵשׁ֙ נַעֲרֹתֶ֔יהָ הַהֹלְכֹ֖ות לְרַגְלָ֑הּ וַתֵּ֗לֶךְ אַֽחֲרֵי֙ מַלְאֲכֵ֣י דָוִ֔ד וַתְּהִי־לֹ֖ו לְאִשָּֽׁה׃). Abigail becomes David's second wife, the first who was Mikal.

The next verse says, "And Ahinoam David took from Jezreel—indeed, the two of them were to him as women(wives)" (וְאֶת־אֲחִינֹ֛עַם לָקַ֥ח דָּוִ֖ד מִֽיִּזְרְעֶ֑אל וַתִּהְיֶ֛יןָ גַּֽם־שְׁתֵּיהֶ֥ן לֹ֖ו לְנָשִֽׁים׃ ס). Here we learn that after Abigail, David "takes" Ahinoam as his wife from the city of Jezreel.

Interestingly, the next verse shows retaliatory action upon King Saul's part. Saul takes David's first wife, Mikal, and give her to another. "And Saul gave Miykal his daughter, the woman(wife) of David, to Palti, the son of Layish who [is] from Gallim [Springs]" (וְשָׁא֗וּל נָתַ֛ן אֶת־מִיכַ֥ל בִּתֹּ֖ו אֵ֣שֶׁת דָּוִ֑ד לְפַלְטִ֥י בֶן־לַ֖יִשׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר מִגַּלִּֽים׃). For whatever reason, Saul gives David's first wife Mikal to another man. What a jerk! I find it interesting that this event takes place immediately following David's taking of Ahinoam—whose name also happens to be the name of Saul's wife. Could it possibly be that David took Saul's wife as his own and so Saul, in retaliation, gave his daughter to another man?

Every following mention of Ahinoam in the bible is as David's wife. 1 Samuel 27:3 "And David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, [even] David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's wife."

1 Samuel 30:5 "And David's two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite." (David goes to rescue them, by the way.)

2 Samuel 2:2 "So David went up thither, and his two wives also, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail Nabal's wife the Carmelite."

2 Samuel 3:2 "And unto David were sons born in Hebron: and his firstborn was Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess..." - here, Ahinoam mothers David's son Amnon

And finally, 1 Chronicles 3:1, which is a retelling of all that happened in the books of Samuel and Kings: "Now these were the sons of David, which were born unto him in Hebron; the firstborn Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; the second Daniel, of Abigail the Carmelitess"

Every mention Ahinoam as David's wife is in reference to the city of Jezreel, apparently where she was born. The King James translates this as "Jezreelitess," that is, a woman of Jezreel. It could be that the biblical writer was seeking to distinguish the two Ahinoams—Ahinoam the daughter of Ahimaaz, Saul's wife, vs. Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, whom David took.

But is there any evidence that there was only one Ahinoam—Saul's queen, whom David took?

Yes.

While David is hiding from King Saul, Saul rages at his son Jonathan/Yonatan for supporting David. Saul yells at his son: "Son of a perverted, rebellious woman! Did not I know that you had chosen the son of Jesse to your shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness!" 1 Samuel 20:30 (בֶּֽן־נַעֲוַ֖ת הַמַּרְדּ֑וּת הֲלֹ֣וא יָדַ֗עְתִּי כִּֽי־בֹחֵ֤ר אַתָּה֙ לְבֶן־יִשַׁ֔י לְבָ֨שְׁתְּךָ֔ וּלְבֹ֖שֶׁת עֶרְוַ֥ת אִמֶּֽךָ׃). It is not perfectly clear what Saul is referring to, but it seems that some sexual sin is the point. The fact that he calls his wife "perverted" and the reference to his mother's "nakedness" (which is a euphemism for the pudenda, or female genitalia) seems to indicate that Ahinoam may have been promiscuous, which could refer to a liason between her and David. Saul is obviously angry that Yonatan is in league with the rogue David and that he "chose" him over his own father. Alternately, this verse could have Saul angry at his son for engaging in a potential homoerotic relationship with David (whether it actually happened or Saul thinks it did). The first line can read, "Son of perverted rebelliousness!" in the abstract, in which case Saul is calling Yonatan perverted for shamefully "choosing" David and thereby violating his mother's nakedness, that is, the means by which Yonatan entered the world. This verse can be read as a reference to Ahinoam's adultery, Yonatan's (alleged) homosexual relationship with David, or Yonatan's political support of David instead of his father. All three are possible interpretations.

Another point that may support David's taking Saul's wife is a statement that the prophet Nathan makes to the now-King David after he commits adultery with Bathsheba. Nathan tells King David that God has given King Saul's house and wives into his possession: "And I gave to you the house of your master and the women(wives) of your master into your bosom—and I gave to you the house of Yisra'el and Y'hudah. And if that [had been too] little, I [would have] added to you such and such things" (2 Samuel 12:8 וָאֶתְּנָ֨ה לְךָ֜ אֶת־בֵּ֣ית אֲדֹנֶ֗יךָ וְאֶת־נְשֵׁ֤י אֲדֹנֶ֨יךָ֙ בְּחֵיקֶ֔ךָ וָאֶתְּנָ֣ה לְךָ֔ אֶת־בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל וִֽיהוּדָ֑ה וְאִ֨ם־מְעָ֔ט וְאֹסִ֥פָה לְּךָ֖ כָּהֵ֥נָּה וְכָהֵֽנָּה׃). Nathan tells David that God gave David everything he wanted—the king's house, the king's harem, and the kingdoms of Yisra'el and Y'hudah, and if that wasn't enough, he would have provided more. It is interesting the reference to "thy master's wives" because, when David was enthroned after Saul's death, there is no mention of David taking Saul's harem. We are left with the possibility that David preemptively took Saul's wife before his death.

The Jewish Women's Archive states that David's taking of Queen Ahinoam was a political statement to the effect that Saul was in decline. "[The scholars] Levenson and Halpern argue that David’s marriage to Ahinoam constituted a claim to Saul’s throne (see Absalom’s actions in 2 Sam 16:22). Perhaps David, like other kings who appropriated the harems of their predecessors or rivals, strengthened his claim to the throne in this way." Since God had already spurned Saul and chose David, David's action may have been a symbolic enactment of that divine choice. Saul was on the way out, so this adultery can be justified.

But can it really? The sins recorded in the bible do not make God or the Bible sinful—the bible simply describes what people do. Adultery was still sinful, but David went ahead and committed it with Bathsheba, so it is not inconceivable that David took Queen Ahinoam.

But this is all speculation. What it shows, however, is that the makers of Of Kings and Prophets are thoughtfully engaging the biblical text, even if it, unfortunately, goes against our tastes and values.

Sources:

Levenson, John D., and Baruch Halpern. “The Political Import of David’s Marriages.” Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980): 507–18.

Schearing, Linda. "Ahinoam: Bible." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on March 24, 2016) .

Hebrew Gospel of Matthew?

Some scholars maintain that idea of a Semitic origin to the Gospel of Matthew is preposterous. Nevertheless, here I will delineate several features of the Gospel of Matthew in Greek that lends credibility to the idea that it is was originally written in Hebrew.

1. First is the idea of biblical numerology, or gematria.

In the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel, the author employs a technique that would either only make sense in the Hebrew language or that would require his readers to immediately understand or know the Hebrew language. The author begins his book with the words, the book of the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (βιβλος γενεσεως ιησου χριστου υιου δαυιδ υιου αβρααμ, Biblos geneseōs Yēsou Xristou hiou David hiou Abraam). He then begins to recount Jesus' genealogy from the patriarch Avraham, through King David. Matthew divided the genealogy into three segments:

1. The first segment is from Avraham to King David.
2. The second segment is from King David to the deportation of Babylon (της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος, tēs metoikesias Babulónos).
3. The final and third segment is from the deportation of Babylon to Jesus, who is called Christ (ο λεγομενος χριστος, ho legomenos Xristos).

After Matthew is done recounting the genealogy, he notes that each segment happens to have 14 generations.

1:17 Therefore all the generations from Abraam until David [were] 14 generations, and from David until the deportation of Babylon [were] 14 generations, and from the deportation of Babylon until the Christ [were] 14 generations. (πασαι ουν αι γενεαι απο αβρααμ εως δαυιδ γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες και απο δαυιδ εως της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες και απο της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος εως του χριστου γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες, pasai oun hai geneai apo Abraam heōs David geneai deka-tessares (14) kai apo David eōs tēs metoikesias Babylónos geneai deka-tessares (14) kai apo tēs metoikesias Babylónos eōs tou xristou geneai deka-tessares)

I will argue that Matthew has some purpose for 14, that it is more than simply an antiquarian note. In fact, 14 is tremendously important, not just in the genealogy itself, but in the reason why Matthew incorporates the genealogy in the first place. Matthew needed to make sure that the three segments of the genealogy each had 14 generations.

What's so important about 14? Return to the first line: the book of the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew is, obviously, trying to show that Jesus is the descendant of David and hence a candidate for the messianic redemption. But Matthew is not just doing so through the genealogical descent, he is also using gematria.

In Hebrew, each letter of the alphabet has a numeric value. That is, if you wanted to write 1 in numeral form in Hebrew, you would write the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph. If you wanted to write the numeral 2 in Hebrew, you would write the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, bet.

1. aleph א
2. bet ב
3. gimel ג
4. daleth ד
5. he ה
6. waw ו

...and so on down the alphabet

In this genealogy, Matthew is using gematria on David's name in Hebrew. David's name in Hebrew is D-V-D (דוד), or Dalet-Waw-Dalet. Can you figure out the numerical value of that name? (Daleth = 4) + (Waw = 6) + (Daleth = 4). 4 + 6 + 4 = 14. David in Hebrew has the numerical value of 14! And Matthew's important number is 14! Basically, Matthew is saying that Jesus is David three times, or in other words, Jesus' fulfills David's kingly role thrice. Jesus is thrice David.

This feature is only apparent in the Hebrew language, in Greek it does not work. This fact means that Matthew wrote in the Hebrew language or that he wrote in another language but intended his audience to understand this Hebrew-language gematria. As to the latter possibility, it would be unlikely that Matthew would have written in another language (Greek) and would have intended his audience to understand Hebrew. If they understood Hebrew, he might as well have written in Hebrew. Since it would have been unhelpful to write in Greek—the gematria would have been lost—it appears that the former option is more likely. The gematria is only present in the Hebrew, and therefore it is more likely that he wrote in Hebrew.

2. The second line of evidence for an Hebraic autograph of Matthew is the Gospel's introduction of the name Jesus.

Matthew introduces Jesus' name first in the genealogy, and then in the narrative recounts how the messenger, or angel, of the lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary was having a child from holy spirit (no definite article, interestingly enough). The angel tells Joseph:

v. 20 Yosef, son of David, do not fear to take Miryam, your wife, for the thing in her, begotten out of spirit, is holy. (ιωσηφ υιος δαυιδ μη φοβηθης παραλαβειν μαριαν την γυναικα σου το γαρ εν αυτη γεννηθεν εκ πνευματος εστιν αγιου) Yōsēf, huios David, mé phobētés paralabein Marian tēn gunaika sou to gar en auté gennēten ek pneumatos, estin hagiou.

v. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you shall call his name Yesous, for he himself shall save his people from their sins. (τεξεται δε υιον και καλεσεις το ονομα αυτου ιησουν αυτος γαρ σωσει τον λαον αυτου απο των αμαρτιων αυτων) Texetai de huion kai kaleseis to onoma autou Yēsoun, autos gar sōsei ton laon autou apo tōn hamartian autōn.

That's all well and good until you realize that Yesous or Iesous has absolutely no meaning in the Greek language. (In Greek, if an i, or iota, appears at the beginning of a word followed by a vowel, it ends up making a /y/ sound; hence why Iesous in Greek is pronounced Yesous.) It is clear from the grammatical construction that the angel intends the statement to be an explanation of the child's name (you shall name him...because he will...). There is something about that name that the angel intends to connect with the following statement.

People who are familiar with the Messianic movement will know that Jesus' Hebrew name is Yeshua. Such people may also know that Yeshua is the Aramaic shortened form of the Hebrew Yehoshua (from whence we derive Joshua). In Hebrew, the Yeho- prefix, as in Yehoshua, refers to Yah, the god of the Israelites. Shua means salvation, and so Yehoshua means Yah is salvation. Since Yeshua is a shortened form of Yehoshua, Yeshua also means Yah is salvation.

In Hebrew, the angelic announcement would have an alliteration on the name of Yeshua. One Hebrew version, the Hebrew version of Delitzsch, translates it thus:

וְהִיא יֹלֶדֶת בֵּן וְקָרָאתָ אֶת־שְׁמוֹ יֵשׁוּעַ כִּי הוּא יוֹשִׁיעַ אֶת־עַמּוֹ מֵחַטֹּאתֵיהֶם
v'hi yoledet v'qarata et-shemó Yeshuá, ki hu yoshia et-amó me-ḥato'teihem

In English transliteration, the angel says: you shall his name, Yeshua, ki hu yoshia (...Jesus, because he will save...).

Notice the alliteration. In the explanations of name in the Book of Genesis, one will find a lot of these explanatory alliterations. If we were to reproduce this alliteration into English it could be something like:

You shall call his name Savior, because he will save...

This alliteration is significant, because it links the name (Yeshua) with the act (yoshia). However, this alliteration, which the author intended, is not found in the Greek. The alliteration is only found in Hebrew, which is another reason why it is more likely that Matthew wrote in Hebrew.

The scholar and poet Willis Barnstone offers this comment on the angel's introduction of Jesus' name:

The naming of the infant messiah as Jesus, Iesous in the Greek, is followed by the reason for naming Jesus, explaining that the name means he will save. But the name Jesus in the Greek, Iesous (Ἱησοῡς), has no meaning in the Greek other than being a transliteration of the Hebrew Yeshua, from Yehoshua, which does mean Yahweh saves. This passage suggests either an earlier text in the Hebrew or the Aramaic or that the author of the Greek Matthew was a Greek- and Hebrew-speaking who had in mind the Hebrew or Aramaic name Yeshua or Yehoshua for the salvific lord and expected the readers or listeners to understand the name of the salvific lord in Hebrew embedded in the name Yeshua or Yehoshua. There seems to be no other explanation for attributing he will save to a Greek name which itself is meaningless.

Thus writes Barnstone. As far as we can tell, either Matthew wrote in Hebrew or he was a bilingual Jew who thought in Hebrew, wrote in Greek and expected his readers to do the same. While the latter would be fun, the former seems to be more likely.