False Prophests (4Q339), Netimim (4Q340) and hellenism at Quamran

Shaye J.D. Cohen

Brown University, Providence, RI

Among the texts found in Qumran cave 4 are two lists, one a list of false prophets (4Q339) and the other a list of netinim (4Q340). Each is fragmentary and difficult to read, but full of interest. Here is the first, as reconstructed and translated by Magen Broshi and Ada Yardeni in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert:¹ 

4Q339: List of False Prophets         The false prophets who arose in [Israel]         Balaam [son of] Beor         [the] Old Man from Bethel         [Zede]kiah son of Cha[na]anah         [Aha]b son of K[ol]iah         [Zede]kiah son of Ma[a]seiah         [Shemaiah the Ne]hlemite         [Hananiah son of Az]ur         [a prophet from Gib]eon

Here is the second, again as reconstructed and translated by Broshi and Yardeni in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert:

4Q340: List of Netinim         These are the netin[im]         who were designated by [their] n[ames]         Yitra and ‘qw [         hmsmrw [         hrtw         qwwk To[biah?

    These two lists are not part of the same scroll, as a glance at the published photographs will reveal. The hand of 4Q339 (false prophets) is ‘formal Herodian’, while the hand of 4Q340 (netinim) is ‘formal Hasmonaean’, to be dated to ‘the first half of the first century BCE’. Nor are the texts part of the same composition: the list of false prophets is in Aramaic, while the list of netinim is in Hebrew. The list of false prophets is contained on a single free-standing piece of parchment; it may have had one additional line at the end, now entirely lost, but it is likely that the text as presented above very nearly represents the entire original list. In contrast, the original list of netinim may have been very long; it may have run on for columns--we cannot say. The two lists, then, in spite of their similarity in form, are not a unit, and may well differ from each other in setting and purpose.

    Many of the works preserved in the Qumran library are sectarian compositions, reflecting an us/them mentality, hostility towards the Jerusalem temple and its personnel, and a rigorism in ritual and legal matters. These tendencies are so marked and so well known that scholars look for them everywhere in the Qumran corpus, even in jejune texts like ours. In the preliminary publication of the list of false prophets, the editors offered no supplement to the last line, whose final three letters alone are extant.²  Immediately after publication, Alexander Rofe and Elisha Qimron independently suggested that the line be supplemented to read ‘[Yohanan ben Sim]eon’, the Hebrew name for John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean prince who ruled 135-104 BCE. Josephus, one of his admirers, tells us that John possessed the gift of prophecy and thus combined in himself three of the highest privileges attainable by a mortal: supreme command, high priesthood, and

prophecy.³  According to the restoration of Rofe and Qimron, however, this list will show us that in the eyes of his critics John was a false prophet, the last and presumably the worst in a series of deceivers.⁴  Qimron himself apparently changed his mind about this, however, since the editors of the DJD volume credit him with the restoration ‘[a prophet from Gib]eon’. With this restoration all polemic vanishes and we are left with a list of false prophets mentioned in the Bible.

    If the editors have erased polemic from the first text, they have introduced it into the second, not in their supplementation but in their interpretation. Netinim, literally ‘those who have been given (sc. to the temple)’, usually translated ‘temple-slaves’, ‘temple-servitors’, or ‘temple-servants’, appear several times in the historical narratives and genealogical lists of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.⁵  They clearly were an integral part of the Judaean community of that period, no less than the temple gatekeepers and singers. They appear as signatories to the covenant of Nehemiah 10, the ‘constitution’ or ‘magna carta’ of Nehemiah’s Jerusalem. However, six hundred years later or so, as we shall see in a moment, the Mishnah groups the netinim with the offspring of illicit unions (mamzerim) and others of blemished ancestry who cannot legally marry, or be married to, Israelites of good standing. Between Ezra and Nehemiah (middle of the fifth century BCE) and the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), the social and legal status of the people known as netinim declined markedly.

    To interpret our list of netinim, Broshi and Yardeni make two fundamental assumptions: first, that the precipitous decline in the status of netinim had taken effect before our list was composed; secondly, that real netinim, that is, the lineal descendants of the netinim known to Ezra and Nehemiah, continued to live in Judaea in the last centuries of the second temple period and in the time of the Mishnah. Relying on these assumptions, Broshi and Yardeni conclude that ‘It is likely, then, that 4Q340 is a list of blemished people unfit for marriage, a negative genealogical list’. Many members of the Qumran community led normal family lives, and this list warns them against marriage with certain

people (members?) of improper lineage. This list, then, had a polemical purpose, to defend the genealogical purity of the group.

    Both of the assumptions on which this interpretation rests are likely to be wrong, or, at least, are not necessarily correct. First, Broshi and Yardeni assume that the prohibition of marriage with netinim was known to the authors of this list. The earliest evidence for such a prohibition is m. Qid. 4.1:

Ten family stocks went up from Babylonia (to the land of Israel): (1) Priests; (2) Levites; (3) Israelites; (4) priests of impaired status; (5) converts; (6) emancipated slaves; (7) the offspring of illicit unions (mamzerim); (8) temple slaves (netinim); (9) those of uncertain paternity; and (10) foundlings. Priests, Levites, and Israelites may marry one the other. Levites, Israelites, priests of impaired status, converts, and emancipated slaves, may marry one the other. Converts, emancipated slaves, the offspring of illicit unions, temple slaves, those of uncertain paternity, and foundlings, may marry one the other.

    According to this genealogical hierarchy, netinim, like the offspring of illicit unions (mamzerim), may marry Gentiles who have converted to Judaism or Gentile slaves who have been emancipated and thereby have converted to Judaism, but they may not marry Israelites of good standing.

    How old is this anonymous Mishnah and the ruling it contains? J.N. Epstein argues that m. Qid. 4.1 is part of a tractate on ‘Pedigrees and Prohibited Relations’ which is an ‘ancient mishnah’ of second temple times.⁶  Broshi and Yardeni follow Epstein, but the argument is weak. Epstein argues that the Aramaic forms used by the Mishnah in its designation of the ten family stocks (paragraph B) are genuine relics of second temple times. This argument does not convince, since the Aramaic forms are just as likely to be a literary device to strengthen the archaizing and antiquarian character of the Mishnah which claims to represent the conditions of the early second temple period (when the Jews ‘went up from Babylonia’).⁷  Elsewhere I have argued that this

mishnah and its literary setting are a product of the Yavnean period, that is, the early second century CE.⁸  This mishnah is not evidence for a prohibition of marriage with netinim from second temple times.

    Broshi and Yardeni also assume that netinim continued to live in Judaea in the last centuries of the second temple period and in the time of the Mishnah, but this assumption also founders on the lack of evidence. Aside from our list, netinim are not mentioned elsewhere in the Qumran scrolls, nor, as far as I have been able to determine, in any other source of the later second temple period.⁹  A jar inscription of c. 100 BCE from Tell el-Ful, just north of Jerusalem, bears the name Hananiah bar Hagab. The names of both the father and the son are found in the lists of netinim in Ezra 2.45-47 and Neh. 7.48-49, thus suggesting to Emile Puech, the editor of the inscription, that the owner of this jar was a natin.¹⁰  However, the word natin does not appear on the jar handle. The fact that natin-names persisted in the family of Hananiah bar Hagab does not necessarily imply that he regarded himself as a natin, or that he was regarded by others as a natin, or that the status of natin still existed in his time. But this is the crucial question: did netinim constitute a recognized or recognizable class in Judaean society in the late second temple period? On this question, the jar handle provides no evidence whatsoever. In sum: there is no reason to assume that netinim survived as a socially demarcated group beyond the Persian period.

    Much of the rabbinic evidence about netinim is ambiguous; as m. Qid. 4.1 shows, netinim can exist in the rabbinic imagination simply as an antiquarian legal category, and an antiquarian legal category does not necessarily derive from real life. A few rabbinic passages may well refer to living netinim, but it is entirely possible that these passages refer not to the lineal descendants of the netinim of Ezra and Nehemiah, but

rather to some other group whom the rabbis regarded as unmarriageable and whom they designated netinim. At least this is the plausible suggestion of Baruch Levine.¹¹  It is possible, of course, that 4Q340 also uses the term netinim as a polemical label for people who were not the lineal descendants of the netinim of Ezra and Nehemiah, but whom the list-maker deemed unmarriageable for other reasons.¹²  I see no way of refuting or supporting such a conjecture, which catapults us entirely into the world of the unknown. (This conjecture, like the interpretation of Broshi and Yardeni, is predicated on the problematic assumption that netinim were already regarded as unmarriageable.) Surely there is a simpler solution.

    If the purpose of the list of netinim was not to warn potential suitors about the unmarriageability of some contemporary netinim, what was its purpose? A possible clue for the meaning of the list comes from the second line, ‘who were designated by [their] n[ames]’. This line should be juxtaposed to Ezra 8.20:

And of the temple servants [netinim] whom David and the officers had given for the service of the Levites--220 temple servants [netinim], all of them listed by name.

Ezra was about to lead a contingent of Israelites from Babylonia back to the land of Israel when he noticed that he had no Levites with him. He managed to fix the oversight, and added to his train not only Levites but also two hundred and twenty netinim, temple servants. All of these netinim were ‘listed by name’, which, as the commentators explain, probably means that they were able to establish a proper lineage and thus to take their place in the restoration community. Our list’s ‘who were designated by their names’ (asher kunu bishemoteihem) is a paraphrase of Ezra’s ‘all of them listed by name’ (kulam niqevu besheimot).

    What then does the list mean, and what does the allusion to Ezra 8.20 imply? I can see two possibilities. Perhaps the Qumran list was meant to supply the 220 names that had been on Ezra’s list but that were not

included in our biblical texts. Just as Qumran texts have preserved Daniel traditions that are not part of our canonical book of Daniel,¹³  and just as the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews has preserved stories about Mordecai and Esther that are not part of our canonical book of Esther, it is possible that this fragmentary list is part of a cycle of traditions that were meant in some way to be part of the Qumran book of Ezra, even if they are not part of our canonical book of Ezra. If this is correct, our list is an important witness to the history of the book of Ezra, its text, reception, and interpretation. I do not know why the Qumran list substituted the verb kunu in place of the biblical niqevu; this is a difficulty for which I have no explanation.

    Alternatively, perhaps the Qumran list was meant to collect the names of the netinim that are mentioned in the Bible or some other closed group of texts. The fact that we are unable to identify securely any of the names on the Qumran list with any of the netinim named in our texts of Ezra and Nehemiah suggests that the author of the Qumran list had a text of Ezra and Nehemiah different from the one that we now have, or that the author had access to texts that were ‘biblical’ or ‘canonical’ for him but are not ‘biblical’ or ‘canonical’ for us. The allusion to Ezra 8.20 is a clever re-use of a biblical phrase, and the change of the verb from niqevu to kunu may have been deliberately intended to distinguish between a biblical original and a list that was extra-biblical.

    The distinction between these two suggestions depends on the notion of ‘canon’. According to my first suggestion, there was no differentiation in canonical status between the book of Ezra and this list. The author of the list saw himself as part of the process that was creating the ‘biblical’ book of Ezra. According to my second suggestion, the differentiation in canonical status between the book of Ezra and the list is key to understanding the list; the author of the list is a student of the book of Ezra (and perhaps of related materials). The author stands outside the biblical text and looks within from without. Similarly, the author of the list of false prophets is standing outside the biblical text and manipulating data that he derives from it. Whether the authors of the Qumran scrolls are familiar with the categories ‘biblical’ and ‘canonical’--indeed what these categories mean and what role they play in ancient Judaism--are open questions that, to my mind at least, have

not been fully solved and that will not be solved here.¹⁴  Of the two alternatives that I have proposed, I prefer the second, because it makes sense of the second line of the list (‘who were designated by [their] n[ames]’) and because, as far as I know, there is no evidence elsewhere for para-biblical traditions about Ezra rivaling those about Daniel. In accordance with my second suggestion, I will henceforth treat these two lists as belonging to the same genre: a list that collects all the available biblical data on a given topic.

    These lists are works of scholarship. In the first, some anonymous scholar collected biblical references to individual false prophets; in the second, if my interpretation is correct, some anonymous scholar collected biblical (and non-biblical?) references to named netinim. Scholarship of this sort is Hellenistic, and these two fragmentary lists, one in Hebrew and the other in Aramaic, constitute evidence for the Hellenization of Judaism.

    Scholarship begins with lists: the organized collection, classification, and presentation of data. A list is an attempt to make order out of chaos, to take discrete bits of information and to make them useful, to make connections explicit that otherwise are implicit or invisible. An organized thematic list is the result of a scholarly way of thinking. One does not have to be Greek or a student of Aristotle, of course, to create thematic lists or to think in a scholarly way, but it helps.¹⁵  Influenced by Hellenistic culture, the Jews of antiquity looked at the Torah and/or the entire Bible as a book of history akin to Herodotus or Thucydides, as a book of chronology akin to a world chronicle, and as an authoritative text whose elucidation required learned or inspired commentary.¹⁶ 

Influenced by Hellenistic culture, the Jews of antiquity also considered the Bible to be a source of data to be collected, catalogued, and presented in thematic lists. History, chronology, commentary, and Listenwissenschaft: four hallmarks of Hellenistic culture and of Judaism in the Greek age.

    Scholars of the Hellenistic age drew up lists of everything. In 1904 Hermann Diels published a text that he titled Laterculi Alexandrini.¹⁷  The text is preserved in a papyrus of the first century bce, so it is safe to assume that the scholarship it contains derives from the third and second centuries bce. The work is a sort of ‘who’s who’--a series of short lists giving the most famous or best representatives of twelve categories: lawgivers, painters, sculptors of statues of the gods, sculptors of statues of humans, architects, inventors (lit. mechanics), seven wonders of the world, large islands, highest mountains, greatest rivers, most beautiful springs, and seas. Some of the lists are bare names, others contain a brief statement about the person or object listed. The lists have no connection one with another and amply illustrate the penchant of Hellenistic scholars for classification and list-making.¹⁸ 

    Of particular interest for our purposes are those lists that are bound by ‘canonical’ limits; the data which they collect and classify derive from a fixed, if large, set of books and traditions, namely the works of Homer and the Greek mythographers. Thus one Greek papyrus contains the following lists: the Greek leaders of the expedition against Troy; the suitors of Penelope; the daughters of Danaus; and the Argonauts.¹⁹  Another papyrus contains a list of the people killed by Herakles.²⁰  The

most extensive collection of such lists is found in the Fabulae of Hyginus, a Latin writer probably of the second century CE. Based on Greek and occasionally Roman mythology, Hyginus gives dozens of lists, including lists of those who have killed their fathers, those who have killed their mothers, those who have killed their brothers, fathers who have killed their sons, fathers who have killed their daughters, and so on. My three favorites are his lists of those who have eaten their sons at a meal, those who were eaten by dogs, and those who perished having been crushed by a boar. This is antiquarian scholarship at a very high (low?) level.²¹ 

    List making of this sort is frequently found in rabbinic lore. One page of Avot de rabbi nathan, for example, lists all those individuals denoted by scripture as ‘slaves’ (avadim), as ‘youths’ (bahurim), as ‘beloved’ (yedidim), not to mention the seven scriptural synonyms for a lion, a poor person, and a serpent.²²  One passage of the Babylonian Talmud claims that 48 male prophets and seven female prophets prophesied for Israel; the seven women are listed (Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah and Esther), although not all of them are described as ‘prophets’ in the Tanak. Alas, the 48 male prophets are not listed.²³ 

    Scholarship of this sort also reached Christian circles. Recently, Robert M. Grant and Glen W. Menzies published a bilingual edition of the Hypomnestikon or ‘Bible Notes’ of one Joseph.²⁴  The work, which was probably compiled in Egypt, represents Greek Christian scholarship of the late fourth or early fifth century CE. The work consists entirely of lists, 167 in number, some of them mere names, others containing names and short explanatory statements. The editors note the striking similarity of the work to the Laterculi Alexandrini edited by Diels and the Fabulae of Hyginus. Most of the lists derive their data from the Old and/or New Testaments exclusively. There are lists of Hebrews with

Gentile wives, polygamists, women who corrupted their husbands, women who helped their husbands, men admirable for wisdom, and women admirable for wisdom. Among the lists are two on themes that we have already encountered. Like the Babylonian Talmud, it contains a list of seven female prophets (Sarah, Rebecca, Miriam, Zipporah, Deborah, Huldah, and Hannah); the list is not the same as the Talmud’s, but here too not all of the women who are listed are described as ‘prophets’ in the Old Testament. Like our Qumran text, it contains a list of false prophets. The Qumran list of eight false prophets does not coincide with the Christian list of nine false prophets, although there is some overlap to be sure (Zedekiah son of Chanaanah, 400 prophets slain by Elijah, Pashhur son of Immer, Hananiah, Shemaiah the Nehlemite, Ahab son of Koliah, Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, Jaazaniah son of Azzur, Pelatiah son of Benaiah). I am not suggesting that the Christian lists somehow derive from the Talmud or from Qumran; the parallel simply illustrates the same Hellenistic scholarly impulse in all three settings.²⁵ 

    One final note. The Qumran list of false prophets was written on a free-standing piece of parchment. It was not part of a scroll. Broshi and Yardeni even refer to it as resembling a ‘card’. In Greek such a list on such a card would be known as a pinax.²⁶  We may conjecture that works like that of Hyginus were compiled out of stacks of pinakes much like this one; sometimes pinakes on related themes were juxtaposed to each other, thus creating strings of thematically related lists, but usually the lists were assembled helter-skelter, one list having little to do with the one that came before it or after it. As far as I have been able to determine, all of the Hellenistic lists that are attested papyrologically were written on scrolls; the individual pinakes had already been assembled and forgotten by the time our papyrus scrolls were written. The Qumran list is the only known exemplar that retains its original form as an independent pinax. Not only is the form of the composition Hellenistic, but so is its presentation on parchment.

    In sum: the creation of thematic lists based on data from a closed ‘canon’ of authoritative texts is an expression of Hellenistic textual scholarship. Ever since the nineteenth century, scholars have postulated the influence of Hellenistic scholarship on the textual scholarship of the

Jews, especially the rabbis.²⁷  The Qumran list of false prophets and perhaps also the list of netinim provide our earliest evidence for the penetration of this type of scholarship into Jewish circles, both those that wrote in Hebrew and those that wrote in Aramaic.²⁸ 

¹.  M. Broshi and A. Yardeni in M. Broshi et al. (eds.), Qumran Cave 4 XIV Parabiblical Texts, Part 2 (DJD, 19; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 77-79 (4Q339), pp. 81-84 (4Q340), and plate XI (cited hereafter as Broshi and Yardeni). The texts are also conveniently available in F. Garcнa Martнnez and E.J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998), II, p. 709.

².  M. Broshi and A. Yardeni, ‘On Netinim and False Prophets’, Tarbiz 62 (1992-1993), pp. 45-54 (Hebrew). Subsequent references to Broshi and Yardeni are to the final publication (see note 1 above).

³.  Josephus, War 1.68-69; Ant. 13.300.

⁴.  E. Qimron, ‘On the List of False Prophets from Qumran’, Tarbiz 63 (1994), pp. 273-75, cited by Broshi and Yardeni, p. 79.

⁵.  For a convenient collection and discussion of the evidence, see J. Healey, ‘Nethinim’, ABD 3 (1992), pp. 1085-86.

⁶.  J.N. Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature (ed. E.Z. Melamed; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1957 [Hebrew]), pp. 54 and 414-15.

⁷.  Broshi and Yardeni, p. 83 n. 3, misunderstand Baruch Levine’s argument; he too sees the Mishnah as antiquarian and archaistic, not archaic. See B. Levine, ‘Later   sources on the Netinim’, in H. Hoffner (ed.), Orient and Occident: Cyrus Gordon Festschrift (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973), pp. 101-107 (103).

⁸.  S.J.D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 278-79.

⁹.  Josephus, Ant. 11.128 and 134 translates netinim as hierodouloi, but this is simply his paraphrase of Ezra 7. Broshi and Yardeni, p. 84 n. 8, following J.M. Baumgarten, Studies in Qumran Law (SJLA, 24; Leiden: Brill, 1977), pp. 75-87, suggest that 4QFlor alludes to netinim, but there is no need for this conjecture--see Levine, ‘Later Sources’, p. 105 n. 27.

¹⁰.  E. Puech, ‘The Tell el-Fыl Jar Inscription and the netinim’, BASOR 261 (1986), pp. 69-72, cited by Broshi and Yardeni, p. 83.

¹¹.  Levine, ‘Later Sources’, pp. 103-107, discusses the rabbinic evidence. The pun proposed by R. Judah in b. Qid. 70b, cited by Broshi and Yardeni, p. 83, on netinim, can hardly serve as evidence that the village of Durnunita was populated by netinim.

¹².  A.I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era (SJSJ, 55; Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 45 and 102 (Baumgarten seems to assume that the netinim on the list were not real netinim).

¹³.  J.J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 72-79 and 217-19.

¹⁴.  On ‘canon’ at Qumran see, e.g., S. Talmon, The World of Qumran from Within: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University; Leiden: Brill, 1989), pp. 21-29; L.H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), pp. 161-80; M.E. Stone and E. Chazon (eds.), Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ, 28; Leiden: Brill, 1998); A. van der Kooij and K. van der Toorn (eds.), Canonization and Decanonization (Studies in the History of Religions, 82; Leiden: Brill, 1998).

¹⁵.  The Hebrew Bible contains lists; see B. Scolnic, Theme and Context of Biblical Lists (SFSHJ; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995).

¹⁶.  History: S.J.D. Cohen, ‘History and Historiography in the Against Apion of Josephus’, in A. Rappaport-Albert (ed.), History and Theory Beiheft 27: Essays in Jewish Historiography (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University, 1988), pp. 1-11. Chronology: B.Z. Wacholder, ‘Biblical Chronology in the Hellenistic World  

Chronicles’, HTR 61 (1968), pp. 451-81; E.J. Bickerman, ‘The Jewish Historian Demetrios’, in his Studies in Jewish and Christian History (3 vols.; AGJU, 9.1-3; Leiden: Brill, 1980), II, pp. 347-58. Commentary: M. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1979).

¹⁷.  H. Diels, ‘Laterculi Alexandrini’, Abhandlungen der kцniglich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1904), pp. 1-16; O. Regenbogen, ‘Pinax’, in A.F. Pauly and G. Wissowa (eds.), Real-Enzyklopдdie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (vol. 20; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1951), pp. 1409-82, esp. pp. 1468-69; R. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology, 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), p. 270 no. 380.

¹⁸.  Similar to the Laterculi Alexandrini is P.Oxy. X 1241.

¹⁹.  P.Oxy. LIII 3702.

²⁰.  P.Oxy. LXI 4098; see, also, 4097 and 4099.

²¹.  H.J. Rose (ed.), Hygini Fabulae (1934; repr. Leiden: Sijthoff, 1967); Regenbogen, ‘Pinax’, pp. 1470-72; C.J. Fordyce, ‘Hyginus’, in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 3rd edn, 1996), p. 735, writes that ‘its absurdities are partly due to the compiler’s ignorance of Greek’.

²².  ARN B 43, pp. 61a-b (ed. S. Schechter; Vienna: Lippe, 1887; frequently reprinted).

²³.  b. Meg. 14a; Noadiah is omitted probably because she was a false prophet (Neh. 6.14). For rabbinic parallels, see E. Segal, The Babylonian Esther Midrash (3 vols.; BJS, 291-293; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), II, pp. 145-46 n. 10 and p. 162.

²⁴.  R.M. Grant and G.W. Menzies, Joseph’s Bible Notes (Hypomnestikon) (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996).

²⁵.  Female prophets: Hypomnestikon no. 16 (pp. 70-71). False prophets: Hypomnestikon no. 18 (pp. 72-73).

²⁶.  Regenbogen, ‘Pinax’.

²⁷.  See the classic studies of D. Daube, ‘Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric’, HUCA 22 (1949), pp. 239-64, and S. Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1942) and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950).

²⁸.  In discussion with me, Professor John Meier of the University of Notre Dame suggests that Ben Sira’s praise of the ancestors of old (Sir. 44-50) can also be seen as a thematic list. True, but the rhetorical function of those chapters, which mingle praise, prayer, and ‘biography’ with list-making, is very different from the function of the lists I have described here. Nevertheless, perhaps Ben Sira’s historical survey of Israel’s exempla virtutis was also influenced by Hellenistic models; see M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (2 vols.; London: SCM Press, 1974), I, p. 136.