Cosmos and Creation

Second Temple Perspectives

Michael W. Duggan, Renate Egger-Wenzel, Stefan C. Reif, Michael W. Duggan, Renate Egger-Wenzel, Stefan C. Reif

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110677119
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Crítica e interpretación bíblicas

This volume contains essays by some of the leading scholars in the study of the Jewish religious ideas in the Second Temple period, that led up to the development of early forms of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Close attention is paid to the cosmological ideas to be found in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible and to the manner in which the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek reflected the creativity with which Judaism engaged Hellenistic ideas about the cosmos and the creation. The concepts of heaven and divine power, human mortality, the forces of nature, combat myths, and the philosophy of wisdom, as they occur in 2 Maccabees, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon and Tobit, are carefully analysed and compared with Greek and Roman world-views. There are also critical examinations of Dead Sea scroll texts, early Jewish prayers and Hebrew liturgical poetry and how they these adopt, adapt and alter earlier ideas. The editors have included appreciations of two major figures who played important roles in the study of the Second Temple period and in the history and development of the ISDCL, namely, Otto Kaiser and Alexander Di Lella, who died recently and are greatly missed by those in the field.

Creation and Cosmos in Greek Sirach‏ ‎18:1 – 10

Jeremy Corley

Abstract

While a general creation perspective underlies the poem, the mention of God’s creating appears in the Greek of Sir 18:1, where the Syriac speaks of divine judgment. The Lucianic gloss in 18:3 depicts the Deity steering the cosmos, though elsewhere within the uncial Greek tradition the word κόσμος has its older meaning of decoration or adornment. The admiring questions (directed toward God) in 18:4 – 6 match other statements by the sage within his creation poems (e. g., Sir 42:15 – 25; 43:27 – 33). Turning from God’s almighty power, the sage contemplates the smallness of human beings, limited by their mortality (18:8 – 10). Such human limitations lead the sage to conclude that humans need God's mercy, which is freely available (18:11 – 14). Ben Sira’s creation theology is rooted in the Pentateuch’s priestly vision of a sole Creator (18:1 – 2; cf. Gen 1:1 – 2:4). His cosmology also has parallels with Stoic thinking in his attitude of praise of God (18:4 – 5; cf. vv. 36 – 38 of Cleanthes’s Hymn to Zeus) and the notion of creation’s perfection (18:6; cf. Cicero, Nat. d. 2.37). These Stoic parallels are developed in the Lucianic addition, depicting everything obeying the monarchical Deity who controls the universe (18:2b–3; cf. vv. 7 – 9 of Cleanthes’s Hymn to Zeus). Overall, we see that the sage emphasizes God’s marvelous provision for human beings, despite the shortness of their lives on earth.

Keywords: Jewish wisdom, Stoic philosophy, Cleanthes, Creator, monarchical deity

1 Introduction

Creation and cosmology are major topics within Ben Sira’s book, especially Sir 16:24—17:14; 39:12 – 35; 42:15 – 43:33. While Sir 39:12 – 35 praises God’s justice in the ordering of the world, Sir 42:15 – 43:33 celebrates God’s marvelous creation.¹ Within a longer segment on “God, Sin and Mercy” (Sir 15:11 – 18:14), Sir 16:17 – 18:14 includes a significant discussion of creation and cosmology, where Sir 18:1 – 14 serves as the conclusion.² The Greek text of Sir 18:1 – 14 opens with the statement about creation: “The one living for eternity created (ἔκτισεν) all things altogether; the Lord alone will be considered just” (Sir 18:1 – 2a).³ Then the Lucianic witnesses add a gloss about the divine government of the created world: “And there is no other besides him, steering the cosmos (κόσμον) with the span of his hand, and all things are obedient to his will” (18:2b–3). Ben Sira 18:1 – 10 also deals with divine judgement and human limitations, while 18:11 – 14 speaks of God’s mercy in the face of human weakness. The present study will consider the statements about creation and cosmos within the Greek version of Sir 18:1 – 10, including the Lucianic additions.

2 Ben Sira’s vocabulary of creation and cosmos

At the outset, it may be helpful briefly to consider Hebrew verbs used by Ben Sira to refer to God’s act of creating. Sometimes the sage utilizes the verb ‏ברא‏‎‎ (“create”), both for the creation of humanity (15:14) and of “his works,” especially the heavenly luminaries (16:26).⁴ Thus, Sir 15:14 H^B declares: “He himself from the beginning created (‏ברא‏‎‎) humanity,” while 16:26 H^A begins a sentence: “When God created (‏אל‏‎‎ – ‏כברא‏‎‎) his works from the beginning….” In three passages ‏ברא‏‎‎ is rendered κτίζω (“create”: Sir 31:13; 39:29; 40:10). Once in Sir 16:16 H^A, often considered a later gloss, we find the related noun ‏בריה‏‎‎, equivalent to the noun ‏בריאה‏‎‎ (“creature”: Num 16:30). Another verb is the more general term ‏עשׂה‏‎‎ (“make”), found in a creation context within Ben Sira (Sir 42:24 H^BM), as in the MT (Gen 2:2: Ps 136:5). Elsewhere the participle ‏עושׂה‏‎‎ (“Maker”) denotes the divine agent, as in Sir 43:11 H^BM: “See a rainbow and bless its Maker (‏עושׂיה‏‎‎).” To refer to something created, Ben Sira commonly utilizes the noun ‏מעשׂה‏‎‎ (“work”). For example, ‏מעשׂיו‏‎‎ (“his works”) denotes “his created things,” such as the lights of heaven: “By the utterance of the Lord are his works” (Sir 42:15 H^M; cf. 16:26 H^A). The sage also employs another verb ‏יצר‏‎‎ (“fashion” or “shape”), also found in creation contexts, as in Sir 33:10 H^E: “From dust humanity was fashioned (‏נוצר‏‎‎).” Echoing Gen 2:7, the verb ‏יצר‏‎‎ here denotes the divine action of “fashioning” the human being from the dust, while Sir 33:13 H^E also uses the participle of the same verb to compare God’s action to the work of a “potter” (‏יוצר‏‎‎). Finally, the sage sometimes utilizes the verb ‏חלק‏‎‎, which often means “divide” (Gen 49:27; Sir 45:22) or “allot” (Deut 4:19; Sir 16:16 Lucianic MSS), but which can occasionally mean “create,” at least in two passages (Sir 31:13, 27), and perhaps also elsewhere (Sir 38:1; 39:25).⁵

As in earlier LXX books, the Greek translation of Ben Sira sometimes follows LXX Gen 1:1 by referring to creation with the verb ποιέω (“make”): “He himself from the beginning made (ἐποίησεν) humanity” (Sir 15:14). The cognate noun ποίησις (“making”) occurs in Sir 16:26: “From their making he separated their destinies.” More often, however, the translation employs the verb κτίζω (“create”), found 23x in Greek Ben Sira, which can represent ‏ברא‏‎‎ (40:10), ‏יצר‏‎‎ (49:14), or ‏חלק‏‎‎ (31:13, 27). The Greek version also utilizes the related nouns κτίσμα (“creature”: Sir 36:20; 38:34) and κτίσις (“creation”: Sir 16:16 Lucianic MSS; 16:17; 43:25; 49:16), as well as the agent κτίστης (“Creator”: 24:8 only). Whereas LXX Gen 2:7 employs the term πλάσσω (“fashion” = ‏יצר‏‎‎), this verb is absent from Greek Sirach, though the Lucianic MSS once employ the cognate noun πλάσμα (“fashioning”: Sir 17:21) in an echo of Ps 103(102):14.⁶ Another term utilized is the plural form ἔργα for the “works” of God, since the sage speaks of “his works” (τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ = ‏מעשׂיו‏‎‎) existing from the beginning (16:26).

To introduce our discussion of cosmology, we may also briefly consider the Hebrew nouns employed by Ben Sira to speak of the world. The noun ‏חלד‏‎‎ (“world” or “lifespan”), found 5x in the MT, is absent from the preserved Hebrew portions of Ben Sira, while the term ‏עו...