Plotting History and Textual Use on a New Map of Second Temple Literature: A Response to Molly M. Zahn

Whereas Second Temple texts have often been classified on the basis of a single feature, Zahn proposes a more flexible and descriptive classification on the basis of a group of variables: 1) literary form, 2) self-presentation/voicing, 3) relationship to other texts, and 4) social setting. In her piece, Zahn points out that the problem of classification according to a single variable becomes especially acute when that variable is irrelevant or potentially irrelevant to the context in which the text was produced and used. Most notably, the variables “Bible” and “not-Bible” are anachronistic for the Second Temple Period and their widespread use in the field have limited our understanding of its textual and religious cultures. What Zahn is looking for is not an emic scheme of classification per se, but rather, at the very least, “relevance” to the context of production and use.

In response to Zahn’s suggestive classification system, I would like to ask several questions of it. First, to what extent is the history of a text relevant to Zahn’s proposed classification scheme? If history is relevant, should a text’s history of composition be taken into account or only its internal self-referential claims? And finally, to what extent can Zahn’s proposed classification of texts be put to use in improving the organization of print anthologies of Second Temple literature?

The benefit of a multi-variable classification, as Zahn aptly puts it, is that it prevents us from “put[ting] every text into one box (and keep[ing] it there).” As Zahn points out, one of the interesting things that happens when you categorize the Genesis Apocryphon and Temple Scroll by multiple variables is the multiple different groupings that emerge when you do so. The sort-by function of an excel spreadsheet provides a useful analogy. If you sort by Zahn’s Variable 3, you will get both texts along with a number of other texts classified as re-written, which, I believe, is how they are more or less usually categorized. But what makes the multi-variable classification so helpful is you can also sort by other variables and get other groupings that have the potential to be equally or more relevant to the actual use of these texts. It is a means of categorization that casts a broader net, the very breadth and malleability of which has the potential to inform how we might imagine the use of these texts. Sorting by different variables will bring to expression differing clusters of texts. At the same time, the proposed system also indicates difference; the correspondence in one variable, Variable 3 in the case of the two examples given, highlights the lack of correspondence in the other variables.

Zahn’s proposal, as I understand it, is aimed at the classification of Second Temple texts. I wonder to what extent the date of a text might be relevant to the scheme. Part of what is so interesting is that the breakdown of some of the traditional canonical boundaries allows for new groupings of texts. As Zahn points out, this new map allows us to see a shorter path between Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll. She points to some of the interesting groupings possible when you categorize Genesis Apocryphon or the Temple Scroll, sorting by other variables. And putting Numbers, the Deuteronomistic History, Jubilees, Genesis, Genesis Apocryphon, 1 Enoch all in one group is interesting and suggestive for how the texts might be read. The group, however, obviously contains members composed prior to the Second Temple period. Genesis is arguably largely pre-exilic; and the Deuteronomistic History again arguably contains strands that are both pre-exilic and exilic. And the Second Temple period is itself lengthy, with considerable distance between, say, Chronicles and Jubilees. So while Bible vs. Non-Bible is clearly anachronistic and irrelevant for a classification of the 2^nd Temple library, is the date of composition equally irrelevant? If date is relevant, should it be sorted by the actual date of composition, or by the implied or claimed date, if there is one?

This question is a way of asking what we mean by relevance as it relates to both the production and use of texts. The social setting variable appears to be oriented towards production, specifically the social context in which the text was produced. If we can distinguish production and use in this way, then the actual date of production would seem to be every bit as relevant as the social setting. But if what we are really after is use, we might come to different conclusions. It may be, although I’m not sure of this, that a competent reader in the late 2^nd century BCE would be unable to distinguish between the antiquity of Deuteronomy and the relative newness of the Temple Scroll. If so, the date of both would be relevant to their production but not necessarily to their use.

Another question follows that hinges on distinctions between production and use. Variable 3 is “the text’s observable relationship to other known texts.” But we might ask: observable by whom? If contemporary scholarship can observe the relationship, that means that it is relevant at least to the production of texts. But can we say anything about use? Would a competent reader of the Temple Scroll recognize its status as rewritten? If not, Variable 3 would be similarly oriented toward the text’s production and not necessarily to its use.

One final question: can Zahn’s proposed classification system be put to use in addressing the problem of arranging a print-anthology of Second Temple period texts? The tendency to arrange these anthologies according to single-variables and often anachronistic categories is a known problem in the field. One of the virtues of Zahn’s system is that it does not propose a hierarchy of variables. I can easily visualize this scheme working as a theoretical system of classification or even as an electronic resource like an excel spreadsheet or hypertexted database that can be sorted and re-sorted as often as you like and with respect to any variable.^[1] But what about the problem of arranging an actual collection of texts in usable editions and anthologies? Take an anthology like Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (Feldman, Kugel, and Schiffman 2013). The title of this collection presumes precisely the Bible/Non-Bible distinction that Zahn and others have so successfully called into question. Besides changing the embarrassing title, might Zahn’s classification scheme be usable for rearranging that anthology’s table of contents? This collection puts the Temple Scroll, for example, in a section titled: “Sectarian Texts: Community, Law, and the End of Days.” This categorization would reflect a Variable 4 grouping from Zahn’s proposed scheme. It places the Genesis Apocryphon, however, in a group titled “Sustained Biblical Commentaries: Retellings and Pesharim.” This second grouping is particularly telling. Why place the Genesis Apocryphon in the same group as the Pesharim? The implied answer to this question is that the most distinctive and essential quality of both texts is their function as commentary on the Bible. Zahn’s proposed classification would certainly part ways with Outside the Bible on this categorization, and I would be very interested to see how her insights might be used for the organization of a large-scale anthology of Second Temple texts.

By thinking outside of the box of single-variable classification of texts, Zahn has provided a strikingly flexible new map of ancient Jewish literature. Consideration of each text’s history, both actual and claimed, could be another useful variable to consider in drawing that map and considering how such a map might be used in plotting the course of a print anthology.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Molly M. Zahn for her excellent paper and James Nati and Seth Sanders for inviting my response.