54 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 MARIUSZ ROSIK THE POLISH JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL RESEARCH Papieski Wydział Teologiczny, Wrocław Vol. 12, No. 1 (23) ISSN 1641-7224 June 2013 The Enigma Press, ul. Podedworze 5, 32-031 Mogilany, Poland; E-mail: enigma@post.pl Teologiczny wkład opowiadania o Syrofenicjance (Mk 7,24-30) w kontekst literacki Ewangelii Marka Ewangelista Marek ukazuje naprzemiennie cuda dokonywane przez Jezusa i Jego nauczanie (por. Mk 1,27). Podobnie rzecz ma się w przypadku opowiadania o uwolnieniu córki Syrofenicjanki (Mk 7,24-30): Jezus dokonuje cudu (uwolnienia na odległość), jednak centralnym tematem jednostki jest dialog pomiędzy Nim a bohaterką opowiadania. Opowiadanie to doskonale wkomponowuje się w bezpośredni kontekst: w nauczaniu poprzedzającym perykopę Jezus znosi różnicę pomiędzy czystym a nieczystym pokarmem (Mk 71-23), teraz zaś znosi różnicę pomiędzy czystym a nieczystym człowiekiem (poganinem). Opowiadanie następujące po Mk 7,24-30 dotyczy cudu uzdrowienia głuchoniemego (Mk 7,31-37). Zostaje więc zachowana tendencja ukazywania Jezusa jako cudotwórcy: po uwolnieni przychodzi kolej na uzdrowienie. Gdy chodzi o miejsce perykopy o Syrofenicjance w kontekście całego dzieła Marka, należy zauważyć, że obecne są w nim zasadnicze tematy teologii ewangelisty: misja Jezusa, Jego tożsamość panowanie Boga nad całym stworzeniem. Lokalizacja opowiadania służy więc rozwojowi myśli i założeń teologicznych Marka. (SUMMARY) Theological Contribution of the Story of Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:24-30) into the Literary Context of Mark’s Gospel Mark shows in his Gospel in alternating way miracles of Jesus and His teachings (cf. Mark 1:27). The same is true also in the story of Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7,24-30): Jesus performs a miracle (the deliverance on the distance), but the central theme of this story is the dialogue between Him and the woman. This pericope perfectly its into its immediate context: in teaching that we have before our pericope Jesus cancels the difference between pure and impure food (Mark 71-23), and now He cancels the difference between clean and unclean man (Gentile). The story that follows Mk 7,24-30 concerns miracle of healing a deaf-mute (Mark 7,31-37). So Mark portrays Jesus as a miracle worker: after the deliverance comes the healing. When it comes to the place of the pericope in the context of the whole work of Mark, it should be noted that in the story of Syrophoenician woman are present the essential topics of theology of the irst Gospel: the mission of Jesus, His identity, God’s dominion over all creation. The placement of this story in the structure of the whole Gospel serves to the development of theological assumptions Mark. Wojciech Kosior PhD Jagiellonian University THE ANGEL IN THE HEBREW BIBLE FROM THE STATISTIC AND HERMENEUTIC PERSPECTIVES. SOME REMARKS ON THE INTERPOLATION THEORY1 Summary Although the treatises concerning the biblical angelology are numerous and varied, they tend to repeat methodologically groundless projection of additional meaning on the igure of messenger. This approach seems to derive from the low sensitivity towards the Hebrew and Aramaic text of the HB on the one hand and the afinity to much later exegetic systems on the other. As a result, the angels of the HB are often presented as a complex yet internally coherent and organized group of spiritual beings playing strictly speciied roles. Notwithstanding this notion, the source analysis shows that the biblical angelology is much less developed than suggested by the general descriptions. This paper has therefore three main purposes. First and foremost it is (1) to penetrate the most original meaning of the Hebrew word mal’akh within the HB. The data collected by means of statistic linguistics shall be presented (2) to refute the most common inaccuracies present in the literature dealing with the subject of biblical angelology and (3) to advocate the interpolation theory as neatly explaining the origins and nature of the biblical “angels”. Introduction “The word angel means messenger” – is the most common begin1 The initial version of his paper appeared as: W. Kosior, Anioł w Biblii hebrajskiej. Pojęcie $alm w ujęciu statystycznym i hermeneutycznym, “Studia Judaica” 23-24/2009, pp. 57-81. The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 ning of the encyclopedic and dictionary entries, followed by a laconic treatment of linguistic aspects and ancient Near-Eastern parallels. Usually, what comes next is surprisingly elaborate treatment of the spiritual nature of angels, their hierarchy and functions played on the divine court. The angels are described as created by God, pure, perfect, strong, unapproachable and incredibly beautiful. Among their skills are lying, invisibility and burning touch. They are mediators between the worlds, guardians of the people and counselors of God.2 Such a syncretic approach incorporates data coming from geographically, historically and culturally distant sources thus decreasing its methodological value and resulting in unjustiiable interpretations of the biblical angelology.3 After getting acquainted with these treatises one is left with an impression that the biblical text conveys a complex and fairly developed angelology. The HB however is a compilation of narrations originating from the span of over one millennium and as such cannot be expected to convey coherent and systematic teachings on any given subject. It is one of the tasks of systematic theology, be it Christian or Jewish, to recover or – more appropriately – to impose certain categories on the extremely diversiied textual material. In other words, the “angel” is a category constructed by means of additional data coming from the sources other than the HB.4 This is particularly apparent in various thematic concordances which under the entry “angel” include totally different terms: “seraphs”, “cherubs”, “ghosts”, “sons of God”, etc.5 The basic argu- ment against categorizing the above mentioned igures as the angels says that there is not a single instance in the HB which would explicitly connect the former with the latter. It is only later exegesis which strives to organize the variety of lesser deities and demons present in the HB in particular groups of spiritual beings dependent upon one God. To wrap it up, although the biblical angelology has been the topic of numerous publications, these are abundant of inaccuracies and present the image incongruent with what the HB actually demonstrates. The initial purpose of the present paper is therefore to reach the basic semantic complex of mal’akh with the help of the linguistic statistics method.6 The analysis shall cover the noun itself in its various forms and juxtapositions as well as the verbs related to mal’akh. Thus it will be possible to challenge the popular representation of angel with the linguistic data extracted from the HB or, in other words: to confront “the angel of theologians” with “the angel of linguists”. 56 2 See for example: angel, in: Harper’s Bible Dictionary, eds. P. Achtemeier, San Francisco 1996 (HBD), pp. 129-134; B.J. Bamberger, Angels and Angelology, in: Encyclopaedia Judaica, eds. F. Skolnik, M. Berenbaum, vol. 2, Thomson-Gale 2007 (EJ), pp. 150-152; L. Blau, K. Kohler, Angelology, in: Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1, New York 1901-1906, pp. 583-597; S.M. Olyan, A Thousand Thousands Served Him, Tübingen 1993, p. 15. H. Pope, angel, in: Catholic Encyclopedia [on-line: www.newadvent.org] (NA). Notwithstanding the inaccuracies of these elaborations, one has to keep in mind that the biblical angelology was not their only concern. Accordingly, some simpliications had been inevitable. 3 One of the most notable examples of such an eclectic treatment is now classical work: G. Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels, Free Press 1967. The book aspires to be the comprehensive study of angelology what unavoidably results in diminished sensitivity towards the contexts of particular literary angelophanies. Still, it is one of the few enterprises which at least partly succeeds in grasping the phenomenology of the angels. 4 These materials include irst and foremost the works of early Church Fathers like Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite or Saint Gregory the Great, who have introduced the notion of hierarchical organization of the celestial beings. 5 Such tendency can be observed also in philological works, e.g.: D.J.A. Clines (ed.), 57 Literal and metaphoric meaning Since the biblical times and with the development of the literary basis the idea of angel gradually acquires new meanings. It is thus possible to show the continuity between the Hebrew term mal’akh and the word “angel”. The latter comes from angelus which itself is Latinized form of the Greek angelos7 used by default to render the Hebrew mal’akh in the LXX. In other words there is a semantic line connecting all these terms. In the Vg however this line becomes bifurcated: when mal’akh or angelos is supposed to denote a human messenger, words like nuntius or legatus are applied. If the word refers to some supernatural being – the word angelus appears. Such differentiation has been taken over by The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, London 1993-2009 (DCH), where, under the said entry, one can ind such synonyms as “servant” (db[), “prophet” (aybn), “oficer” (rf), “spirit” (xwr), “saint” (vwdq) or “host” (abc). $alm, in: DCH, vol. V, s. 284-288. 6 See the now classical work: R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes, Zurich 1958. For a ine example of application of the method itself see: E. van Wolde, R. Rezetko, Semantics and the Semantics of arb: A Rejoinder to the Arguments Advanced by B. Becking and M. Korpel, “The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures” 11/2011 [on-line: http://www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_156.pdf]. 7 The etymology of angelos is at best unclear. It is usually derived from the Persian angaros – “horseman” or from Sanskrit angiros – “mediator”. J.W. van Henten, angel II, in: The Dictionary of Deities and Demons, eds. K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, P. W. van der Horst, Leiden–Boston–Köln 1999 (DDD), pp. 50-53. The motives for choosing this particular term to denote the Hebrew mal’akh are of course subject to speculations. The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 later vernacular translations of the Bible, early Christian and Jewish exegetes8 and eventually modern scholars. Hence strictly speaking, the semantic ranges of “angel” and mal’akh do not overlap although the former originates from the latter. This subtle difference has far reaching consequences in the sphere of theology and is rarely acknowledged in a satisfactory manner within the literature of the subject. The methodological conclusion is that while investigating the biblical angelology one has to turn back to the inherent and rudimentary meaning of the word itself. The words in question, mal’akh as well as mal’akhah and mal’akhut are the derivates of an ancient root kal meaning speciically “to send with a mission or message”.9 The root itself is well attested in various Semitic languages like Ugaritic, Ethiopic and Arabic while in Hebrew it is absent – probably due to evolutionary substitution by less speciic and more popular xlv. The morphological structure of the word mal’akh suggest that it is the maqtal form of the verb denoting the tool or the mean of performing it.10 In other words, the inherent meaning of mal’akh equals English “messenger” – no more, no less. Now, in the HB there are 215 occurrences of the word mal’akh in various forms, juxtapositions and contexts. 91 of those instances denote a mundane messenger what is clearly indicated by the narrative framework: such igure has his human employer, down to earth task of conveying a message and does not demonstrate any superhuman abilities. There are little doubts that in these cases the word mal’akh appears in its basic, literal meaning of messenger. What about the remaining 124 instances? Are they to be interpreted as angels? Deinitely not, if to deine angels as a category of spiritual entities. The answer however can be positive, if for the sake of the present study, to agree on an alternative understanding of “angel” as a metaphor of a messenger. Accordingly, those 124 instances of mal’akh should be analyzed against 91 cases of the literal meaning. Metaphorization plays a crucial role in the religious language. It allows to grasp extraordinary phenomena (the essence or the target domain of metaphor) by means of categories supplied by everyday mundane experience (the tool or the source domain of metaphor).11 In this particular case of the term mal’akh its target domain is the legation – challenging and dangerous function demanding well developed diplomatic skills. A commissionaire however, no matter how eloquent and wordy, partly disappears behind the message he conveys and in the shade of his sender. In other words, by acting on behalf of his overseer he becomes his semantic “extension”, being at least partly deprived of his distinctiveness. As such, the messenger-metaphor its well within the broader context of portraying the biblical deities as humans. There are three core-metaphors which constitute and organize the network of divine descriptions: (1) god is like a patriarch, (2) god is like a creator and (3) god is like a king. The last one seems to be the most inluential in the biblical context and paints the image of the deity as a typical Near Eastern tyrant.12 By his nature then he owns his court (sod), his hosts (tzeva’ot) and his messengers (mal’akhim). All these institutions however need to be treated as metaphors, in line with the methodological challenge of the theological “as above – so below” with the linguistic “as below – so above”. 58 8 Mal’akh in post-biblical literature by default refers to “angel” while the “messenger” is customarily rendered as shaliyah. 9 J.L. Cunchillos after: D.N. Freedman, B.E. Willoughby, $alm, in: Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, ed. G.J. Botterweck, G.W. Anderson, H. Ringgren, Stuttgart 1973 (TWAT), pp. 897-904. 10 S.A. Meier, angel I, in: DDD, pp. 45-50. This fact has important semantic consequences: the messenger as a mere tool looses his distinctiveness simultaneously disappearing “behind” the mission he conducts and the personality of his master. This aspect acquires additional signiicance from the theological perspective and turns the mal’akhim into a useful and convenient category for other supernatural beings. See: the concluding part of the present paper. 59 The angel of the Lord Now, if to agree that the worldly institution of messenger serves as the source domain of this metaphor, then the question arises, what is its target domain. The answer seems to remain concealed in the so called “angel of the Lord”: a igure perceived by generations of exegetes and interpreters as theologically troublesome due to its obscure and perplexing identity. Almost every appearance of mal’akh Yahveh in the HB complies to the following pattern: (1) the narration introduces the angel of the Lord who (2) behaves as if he was a deity e.g. promising bewil11 P. van Hecke, Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible. An Introduction, in: Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible, ed. P. van Hecke, Leuven 2005 (MHB), pp. 1-18. For the methodological background see: G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live by, Chicago 1980. 12 A.R. Diamond, Playing God. „Polytheizing” JAHWE-alone in Jeremiah’s Metaphorical Spaces, in: MHB, pp. 119-132. K. Nielsen, Metaphors and Biblical Theology, in: MHB, pp. 263-274. Although the cited treatises deal mainly with the igure of Yahveh, the conclusions can be very well transposed to other biblical deities worshipped by the Hebrews: Elohim, El Shadday, etc. The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 dering fertility (e.g. Genesis 21:18), wiping out the whole army with a single blow (e.g. 2 Kings 19:32-36) or merely delivering a speech where he presents himself as Yahveh or Elohim (e.g. Exodus 3:2-4). (3) The interlocutors of this character on the other hand address and revere him in a way reserved exclusively to deity. As such, the incident leaves the reader with the question whether it was an angel or god himself who had just appeared.13 There is a wide array of explanations striving to elucidate this confusion. The most widespread theological ones try to deal with the problem by introducing additional concepts: the angel might be an earthly manifestation of God, some kind of God’s avatar or pre-incarnated Christ. This group of elucidations, although justiied on the ground of theology, has nevertheless to be refuted due to the methodological reasons as it tends to inlict superluous meaning upon the term itself.14 The different answer comes from the cultural studies which argue that the ancient commissionaires during their proclamations used the irst person point of view and spoke as if they had been the consigner himself. The communication alone however was preceded by the formal statement deining the sole author of the message so as to preclude the confusion of the identities. Besides from the court-etiquette viewpoint, the irst person perspective might be explained also as a literary artifact derived from the written records of such instances. Those have supposedly tended to use the direct speech which was simpler and evolutionary older than the reported one.15 Finally, there is the interpolation theory16 – a linguistic resolution of a seemingly complex theological and cultural problem. Accordingly, the word mal’akh would be a mere addendum preceding the divine name and simultaneously modifying the narrations in order to meet the standards of the “new” Israelite theology of single and transcendent God. The “default” form would be that of the ancient Near Eastern literary standards presenting a deity as manifesting to humans directly without any intermediary.17 On the grammatical level aforesaid augmentation resulted in forming the genitive construction and as such it was characterized by an exceptional ease of use deriving from two factors. (1) Both mal’akh and a deity, be it Yahveh or Elohim, are of masculine grammatical gender and (2) the introduction of the modiier noun neither affects the modiied noun on the consonantal level nor does need any change in the form of the verbs connected to it. In other words, mal’akh becomes “automatically” incorporated into the smikhut construction and all the related verbs change their subject or object accordingly. On the other hand, the removal of the word mal’akh from the narration usually makes it way more coherent, meaningful and in line with its ancient Near Easter literary context.18 In a nutshell, the interpolation theory, while basically explaining the function of mal’akh Yahveh, can be very well expanded so as to elucidate the nature of the rest of biblical “angels”. From this perspective then, the “angels” understood as metaphors would be the “semantic offspring” of mal’akh Yahveh who at certain moment in history started their literary existence. The interpolation theory along with its conclusions can be supported by additional data collected with the help of the statistic linguistics method. 60 13 Such situation is clearly visible especially in the older layers of the HB, for example in Genesis 21:17; 22:11-18 or 31:11-13. Possibly the most overlooked instance of this confused identity of mal’akh Yahveh along with Yahveh and Elohim is present in Exodus 3. This chapter is an excellent example of editorial work interlacing polytheistic threads into the new image of one God bearing many names. 14 It is also worth mentioning that the phrase mal’akh Yahveh could be interpreted as a higher-order metaphor denoting a prophet like for example in Malachi 2:7 or Haggai 1:13. S.A. Meier, angel of Yahweh, in: DDD, pp. 53-59. 15 D.N. Freedman, B.E. Willoughby, $alm, in: TWAT, pp. 897-904. 16 The interpolation theory is in fact a hypothesis. Notwithstanding the semantic nuances on the one hand and conforming to the extant notion in the literature of the subject on the other – the term “theory” shall be applied throughout this paper. 61 From statistics to hermeneutics The word mal’akh (pl. mal’akhim) denotes messenger, be it earthly or heavenly. For the sake of clarity and brevity, we shall therefore understand the “messenger” as mal’akh in literal meaning and the “angel” 17 On the other hand however, the ancient Near Eastern literature knows of the function of supernatural mediator. Examples come from Ugaritic (ml’km, ml’k ym), Akkadian (malaku, mar sipri), Sumerian (kin-gi-a, sukkal) or Phoenician (ml’k). It is no surprise then, that this concept is incorporated in the HB. S.A. Meier, angel of Yahweh, in: DDD, pp. 53-59. Idem, angel I, w: DDD, s. 45-50. L.K. Handy, Among the host of Heaven: the Syro-Palestinian pantheon as bureaucracy, Winona Lake 1994, pp. 152153. Compare with: C.H. Gordon, G.A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Winona Lake 2002, p. 51. J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement, Princeton 1969. 18 S.A. Meier, angel of Yahweh, in: DDD, pp. 53-59. Idem, angel I, w: DDD, pp. 45-50. The date, even approximate, of such addition is unknown. The change might had taken place amid the hypothetical oral transmission of the tradition as well as after writing down of the texts. Most safely is therefore to leave this question opened and to understand the interpolation theory in a broad meaning without designating the context of the change. meaning frequency (singular) frequency (plural) Σ messenger angel S 16 111 127 75 13 88 91 124 215 Table 1. The frequency of the word mal’akh in singular and plural. The correlation of meaning and grammatical number is apparent. More than 90% of the occurrences of the “angels” is singular while almost the same percentage of the “messengers” is plural. That is to say, the earthly “messengers” appear in groups21 while the “angels” tend to manifest solely. There is one more fundamental difference between “messengers” and “angels” on the very basic linguistic level. The “messengers” appear unbounded and never constitute a smikhut form while the “angels” occur in a variety of genitive constructions including both the singular and the plural forms. In addition to this regularity, it is worthwhile to have a look at the distribution of the respective phrases within the HB (table 2). 19 The calculations have been executed by means of the search module of BibleWorks 7.0. The textual basis had been provided by the 4th edition of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Accordingly, the results presented in this study may deviate from the data supplied by other treatises. 20 The author has nevertheless to admit that the process of differentiation between “messengers” and “angels” had been – willy-nilly and at least to some extent – arbitral. 21 This inding seems to be congruent with a custom of sending commissaries at least in pairs for pragmatic reasons. Genesis Exodus Numbers Judges 1 Samuel 2 Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings 1 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Isaiah Daniel Hosea Haggai Zachariah Malachi Σ 6 1 10 19 1 1 3 5 2 3 1 3 3 4 1 4 1 1 3 2 1 2 2 1 1 10 2 3 2 1 1 6 1 58 63 mal’akhim 2 1 mal’akh Book mal’akhey (ha) Elohim – in metaphorical. As stated before, the word mal’akh in both senses occurs 215 times in the HB.19 The principles of the semantic discernment between “messengers” and “angels” are also clear.20 Now, if to supplement this general division with additional linguistic criteria and calculate the numbers again, some interesting regularities start to appear. The irst criterion to be analyzed, is the grammatical number of mal’akh as presented in the table 1. mal’akh (ha) Elohim The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 mal’akh Yahveh 62 3 14 2 43 1 1 5 1 10 Σ 15 6 11 22 1 7 3 3 9 3 2 8 3 1 3 2 1 1 20 3 124 Table 2. The repartition of the particular juxtapositions of the word mal’akh (“angel”) in the HB. Two forms, mal’akh and mal’akh Yahveh are not only the most numerous but also the most evenly distributed within the HB. Together they constitute over 80% of all the “angel”-juxtapositions. The rest of the constructions is scarce in numbers and appears irregularly. In addition, the word mal’akh never appears in plural when juxtaposed with The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 64 the tetragrammaton, what seems to be in accord with the interpolation theory: due to the grammatical decorum, the “angelic” addendum simply had to be in singular form. However, this does not apply to the word elohim, characterized by its polysemy. Although plural from the morphological perspective, it might very well denote the name of the one of the biblical deities or designate a group of divine beings.22 The main conclusion drawn from this part of research says that the biblical angelology is more about one particular mal’akh or mal’akh Yahveh rather than the group of celestial creatures. the number of occurrences verbs 1 2 3 4 5 7 10 28 krb hnb rbd dgn klh bwv awb rma hkb acy abn vrd xql dry arq 1 1 1 1 1 twm The angelic functions [gn In order to verify the ascertained abundance of the roles played by angels it is necessary to examine the philological basis of such assumption, i.e. the verbs connected with the mal’akhim – both “messengers” and “angels”. For the sake of brevity the following labeling shall be introduced: let the “active verbs” denote the actions performed by mal’akhim while the “passive verbs” – the actions which have the mal’akhim as the object. There are 61 “active” verbs in total for both groups and their frequency is highly asymmetric.23 However, some interesting regularities emerge when the pool of verbs is bisected into groups of “messengers” and “angels” (tables 3 and 4 respectively). mxn This seems to be the case in Genesis 32:12 where Jacob sees mal’akhey elohim ‘olim ve-yordim. If to interpret the sullam not as a mere ladder but a form of ziggurat or a staircase connecting the heavenly abode with the (under)world, then the hypothesis that the narration had previously described the polytheistic pantheon seems more justiiable. Accordingly, only at a certain stage of transmission the numerous elohim wandering up and down had been preceded by mal’akhey and thus “degraded” from their hypothetical initial divine status to that of a mere servants. Of somewhat similar nature seems to be the expression ke-mal’akh (ha)elohim applied towards the king David in 1 Samuel 29:9, 2 Samuel 14:17; 19:28. It cannot be excluded that the phrase initially accommodated the direct reference to the deity but at a certain moment had been updated to suit the theology of a more transcendent god. See: C. Houtman, What Did Jacob See in His Dream at Bethel? Some Remarks on Genesis XXVIII 10-22, “Vetus Testamentum” 27/1977, pp. 337-351. 23 The verbs-pool covers all the forms which clearly refer to mal’akhim including participles and ininitives. E.g. the phrase tyxvmh $alml (1 Chronicles 21:15) supplies the verb txv. Analogically, the phrase rmal yrmah $lm !xys la ~ykalm larfy xlvyw (Numbers 21:21) supplies the verb rma. The same principles shall apply to the group of the “passive” verbs. The verbs shall be presented in their concise root-form for the sake of the transparency of the presented results – alas, at the expense of comprehensiveness as the table does not take into account the binyanim of particular occurrences. ntn lgr cwr rmv 11 Σ 4 2 Table 3. The division of the “active” verbs into frequency groups for the “messengers”. the number of occurrences 22 65 verbs 1 2 3 4 xwn lka krb [gn hkn dgn cwa [sn hl[ hn[ xlv lpn lag bcn bwv arq rws hxd rgs dw[ llh rmv rw[ hyh hf[ qzx rb[ hnx [gp clx har 5 7 9 15 46 klh txv acy awb rbd rma 6 dm[ The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 66 hnp dry pdr bcy the number of occurrences 1 2 4 53 verbs jy[ abx rma xlv hn[ hwc arq 3 2 1 1 bkv psy mkv bvy Σ [mv [vy bzyv cyl Σ acm 31 5 3 4 2 1 2 1 1 Table 5. The division of the “passive” verbs into the frequency groups for the “messengers”. 1 Table 4. The division of the “active” verbs into the frequency groups for the “angels”. Even a cursory comparison of the above tables afirms that there are minute differences between the literary acts of “messengers” and “angels” whereas the latter seem to manifest slightly more diversiied behavior. On a general level however, bounty of verbs appear once (e.g. rw[, ntn, lpn), just a few show up more than several times (e.g. klh, bwv, awb) and there is but one which is signiicantly distant quantitywise (rma). By way of explanation, mal’akhim translocate and communicate thus realizing the inherent semantic potential of the word itself. Nonetheless, rarely do they engage in other activities.24 The high frequency of the verb rma is essential as this verb, along with hn[ and rbd and expressions like hwhy ~[n or hwhy rma hb serve as a marker of the reported speech. As such, this fact seems to stress the secondary position of mal’akhim to the content and initial originator of their speech.25 The “passive” verbs are far less copious than the “active” ones and reach just 18 items. In this respect however the difference between the “messengers” and “angels” is much more pronounced and signiicant (tables 5 and 6 respectively). 24 Still it is important to admit that such a general perspective leaves no choice but to slightly simplify the issue in question. 25 S.A. Meier, Speaking of Speaking: Marking Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible, Leiden 1992, p.1. 67 the number of occurrences 1 4 6 12 13 verbs dxk hn[ har rma xlv 1 1 1 1 b[l hf[ rcp hwc arq Σ myf 7 Table 6. The division of the “passive” verbs into the frequency groups for the “angels”. Analogously to the previously demonstrated tables the present ones also show a vivid disproportion between xlv and rma and the rest of the verbs. A swift contrasting of both tables allows to conclude that the “angels” are being affected less often but in a more diversiied ways than the “messengers” are. More importantly however, the difference is apparent when it comes to the most frequent verbs – although both “messengers” and “angels” are spoken to and dispatched, the divergence between the numbers is striking. The careful study of its occurrences shows, that the verb xlv as applied to the “angels”, for the most part occurs in a speciic literary and thematic context. These are the patriarchal blessings which usually take the form “Yahveh shall send his mal’akh before you” and appear directly in e.g. Genesis 24:1-10; Exodus 23:2028 or as a reminiscence of such benediction in e.g.: Genesis 24:33-53. These are also the statements pronounced by the deity as in e.g. Exodus The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 32:34-35; 33:1-3; Malachi 3:1. Rarely are the “angels” (in plural) sent by Yahveh. Such instances happen in Genesis 19:13 and Psalms 78:49, but even then the statement has the form of an account of some previous occurrence.26 The only instances of the “angel” (in singular) being described directly in the narration as sent by Yahveh or Elohim are 1 Chronicles 21:8-30 and 2 Chronicles 32:14-22.27 The “angels” are less often delegated as independent beings, i.e. they rarely manifest themselves as autonomous entities. Also, never does Yahveh send mal’akh Yahveh. All these facts are especially important from the perspective of the interpolation theory. in philological disguise. Moreover, the interpolation theory inds some considerable support in the statistical data. The “angel” appears primarily in singular and in genitive construction with Yahveh whereas the other occurrences are far less numerous. On the other hand, however neat and sleek the interpolation theory is, we still lack an appropriate textual basis to verify it. Even though there are ancient Near Eastern parallels which support the notion of the unambiguous divine manifestations, the hypothetical variations of biblical stories are absent. Moreover, if to consider the interpolation theory and its “transcending” function, we are still left with a question: why the mal’akh had not been applied in all the theologically inconvenient passages and left a large number of theophanies unaltered? The tetragrammaton appears more than 6000 times in the HB while the phrase mal’akh Yahveh – only 71 times.28 Of course from among those 6000 occurrences only some belong to passages portraying Yahveh as manifesting himself directly. Besides, one could ask what had been so extraordinary about Yahveh and Elohim among other deities like El-Elyon, El-Shadday or El-Ro’eh worshipped by the biblical Hebrews, that only they have been granted with their personal mal’akh.29 Finally, on the grounds of the linguistically inclined methodology it was possible to refute the widespread assumption concerning the specific sub-classes of the angelic hierarchy. Nowhere in the HB are the angels presented as a coherent group including seraphim, keruvim or bney elohim. It is conceivable however that the mal’akhim have turned out to be an appropriate category for other supernatural entities as perceived from the perspective of the extra- and post-biblical sources. From this viewpoint, the cumbersome presence of lesser deities and demons in the HB could be soothed by incorporating them into the breed of mal’akhim, i.e. by putting them in submissive state and depriving of articulation and individuality. 68 Conclusions The igure of angel as presented by various treatises is incongruent with the image painted by the HB. The data collected with the help of statistic linguistics show that the biblical angels are far less expressive and important than what the exegetes and interpreters would want them to be. First and foremost, the “angel” has to be considered from the linguistic perspective as a metaphor applied to the world of religious phenomena. As such, the “angel” is sent and spoken to, translocates and communicates, thus staying within the framework semantically outlined by the word mal’akh. The other postulated functions, especially that of a guardian-angel (represented by the verbs hnx and rmv) or that of a destroyer (e.g. txv, [gn, twm) ind relatively sparse textual support. Although these roles cannot be totally excluded from the catalogue of the angelic functions, still, their position to the basic heraldry complex is deinitely inferior. Far more problematic is the ontological question of the “angels” from the inner-biblical perspective. The interpolation theory while elucidating the origins of the angel of the Lord, simultaneously provides a solid explanatory potential for all the other instances of mal’akh in metaphorical meaning. Strictly speaking, the biblical narrations involving the “angels” should be perceived as possibly reiterated stories of the main deities like Yahveh or Elohim, and the “angels” themselves – as gods 69 26 Besides, the sole identity of the “angels” of the said pericope is questionable as throughout Genesis 19 those igures are addressed as anashim. It is therefore possible that the only instances of the word mal’akhim in verses 1 and 15 of the chapter are later modiications which have altered the message of the story. 27 Both passages retell the parallel stories of 2 Samuel 24:9-25 and 2 Kings 19:32-37 respectively and play signiicant role from the perspective of theodicy. 28 In fact, these numbers should be complemented by the word elohim which appears over 2500 times in various forms and contexts. 29 It is also worth mentioning that the interpolation theory has potentially much broader range of application and could be applied other juxtapositions such as bney elohim or pahad Yahveh. 70 The Polish Journal of Biblical Research 12, 2013 THE POLISH JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL RESEARCH Vol. 12, No. 1 (23) ISSN 1641-7224 June 2013 The Enigma Press, ul. Podedworze 5, 32-031 Mogilany, Poland; E-mail: enigma@post.pl WOJCIECH KOSIOR PhD Uniwersytet Jagielloński ANIOŁ W BIBLII HEBRAJSKIEJ Z PERSPEKTYWY STATYSTYCZNEJ I HERMENEUTYCZNEJ. KILKA UWAG O TEORII INTERPOLACJI Jakkolwiek opracowania dotyczące biblijnej angelologii są liczne i zróżnicowane, nierzadko cechują się metodologicznie bezpodstawnymi projekcjami dodatkowego znaczenia na postać posłańca. Takie podejście wydaje się mieć swoje źródło w niskiej wrażliwości na tekst oryginalny Biblii hebrajskiej oraz w przywiązaniu do znacznie późniejszych tradycji egzegetycznych. W rezultacie biblijne anioły są często prezentowane jako złożona lecz wewnętrznie spójna i zorganizowana grupa bytów duchowych odgrywających ściśle określone role. W opozycji do tego nurtu, staranna analiza źródeł pokazuje, że biblijna angelologia jest znacznie słabiej rozwinięta niż chciałyby opracowania tematu. Niniejsze studium ma więc trzy podstawowe cele. Przede wszystkim jest to (1) zbadania najbardziej podstawowego znaczenia słowa mal’ach w obrębie Biblii hebrajskiej. Dane zebrane za pomocą metody statystki lingwistycznej zostaną z kolei zaprezentowane, (2) by dokonać refutacji najbardziej powszechnych nieścisłości obecnych w literaturze przedmiotu oraz (3) by przedstawić dodatkowe argumenty na rzecz teorii interpolacji, która w prosty sposób wyjaśnia pochodzenie i „naturę” biblijnych aniołów. ŁUKASZ TOBOŁA Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań “IN THE CITADEL OF SUSA IN THE PROVINCE OF ELAM”: THE CHRONOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ANNOTATION IN DANIEL 8:2 Introduction The Book of Daniel, though compiled at a very late date (with Dan 1–6 dating from the Hellenic period and chapters 7–12 from the eve of the Macabbean revolt), nevertheless bears noticeable linguistic, philological, and historical imprints connected with earlier times1. The present study concerning the short topographical note in Dan 8:2, shed some light on this relatively neglected ield of studies2. The article discusses the philological and chronological problems connected with Dan 8:2 in the context of extra-biblical sources. On the basis of terminology and geographical details which can be deduced from this text, it will be 1 For the recent summary on this topic see, M. P., Shalom , The Mesopotamian Back- ground of Daniel 1-6, in: Divrei Shalom. Collected Studies of Shalom M. Paul on the Bible and the Ancient Near East 1967-2005, Leiden: Brill 2005, 285-297. 2 Some problems connected with historical details in this verse has just been signalized at the early stage of biblical studies (C. F. Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark 1884, 285-290) but evidence sometimes needs many years to be recognized by all. In later scholarship, only A. Lacocque has noted that Elam was a Median (sic!), not a Babylonian province (Le Livre de Daniel, Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé 1976, 118-119). However, most of modern authors does not discuss this problem at all (M. Delcor, Le livre de Daniel, Paris: Gabalda 1971, 269. L. F. Hartman, A. DiLella, The Book of Daniel, New York: Doubleday 1978, 223-224; J. E. Goldingay, Daniel, Dallas: Word Books 1989, 208). In his excellent commentary, J. J. Collins (Daniel, Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1993, 329) notes that Susa was renamed in the Hellenic period and that the location of the Daniel’s vision in Susa (in the reign of Babylonian king) can be interpreted as an integral to the archaizing rhetoric of the Book, without any clear historical connotations.