(Institute for the Study of the Ancient World) Seth Sanders, Jonathan Ben-Dov, (Eds.) - Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in Second Temple Literature - NEW YORK

8/16/2019 (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World) Seth Sanders, Jonathan Ben-Dov, (Eds.) - Ancient Jewish Sciences an…

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Ancient Jewish Sciences and

the History of Knowledge in

Second Temple Literature


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Ancient Jewish Sciences andthe History of Knowledge in

Second Temple Literature

Editors

Jonathan Ben-Dov

and

Seth Sanders

ew !or" #niversity $ress

and%nstitute for the Study of the Ancient &orld

'()*


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+ Jonathan Ben-Dov and Seth L, Sanders '()* All rights reserved

entium $lus and ./0A fonts provided 1y S%L %nternational and are used

under terms of the 2pen 3ont License,

At the time of pu1lication4 the full-te5t of this wor" was availa1le at6

http677dli1,nyu,edu7awdl7isaw7ancient-8ewish-sciences7 ,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ancient Jewish sciences and the history of "nowledge in Second Temple

literature 7 editors Jonathan Ben-Dov and Seth Sanders,

volumes cm %ncludes 1i1liographical references and inde5,

%SB 9:;-)-*:9;-' -- %SB 9:;-)-*:9;-:

%SB 9:;-)-*:9;@-


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Contents

Acknowledgments ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, :

), %ntroduction Jonathan Ben-Dov and eth L! anders ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 9

', .noch and the Beginnings of Jewish %nterest in atural Science

Phili" Ale#ander ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, '?

6 Theחשבון אחרן Language of Knowledge in Aramaic .noch and $riestly He1rew

eth L! anders ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, @9

?, $hilological and .pistemological 0emar"s on .nochs Science60esponse to $apers 1y Seth L, Sanders and James GanderKam

Loren tuckenbruck ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, )(<

@, %deals of Science6 The %nfrastructure of Scientic Activity inApocalyptic Literature and in the !ahad

Jonathan Ben-Dov ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, )(9

:, etwor"s of Scholars6 The Transmission of Astronomical andAstrological Learning 1etween Ba1ylonians4 ree"s and Jews

&laden Po"ovi' ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, )?<

;, EAncient Jewish SciencesF and the Historiography of Judaism Annette (oshiko )eed ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, )9?

A Bibliogra"hy for Ancient Jewish ciences ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, '??

*nde# ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ':)


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c"nowledgments

Jonathan Ben-Dov and Seth L, Sanders

This 1oo" was an une5pected positive side eIect of our fellowshipat the %nstitute for the Study of the Ancient &orld in ew !or"#niversity during '()(7)), &hat started as a small adventure turned

out to 1e a meaningful conference1oth for us and we hope also forthe attendees and the readers of the present 1oo", &e are especiallyglad to present the volume in the %SA& series through !# $ress4 1othas a printed 1oo" and as an electronic document4 with free access tothe pu1lic via Creative Commons,

%t is a pleasant duty to ac"nowledge the help we received frompeople at %SA&4 who did not outright re8ect our idea for a spontaneous

conference 1ut rather em1raced it with enthusiasm, %SA& director40oger Bagnall4 accepted the conference to %SA&s schedule andsupported the preparations in many ways, Ale5ander Jones lent ahelpful hand and priceless advice in the organiing the conference4 aswell as delivering a response to one of the sessions, His presence at thelecture hall gave us the much desired perspective of the generalhistory of science outside the Jewish sources, Kate Lawson from %SA&was enormously helpful in putting the conference together4 nevertiring of our strange reMuests and special needs, Se1astian Heath has1een an alert and graceful editor4 who has a great impact on the 1oo",Last 1ut not least4 we than" Shel1y &hite4 director of the Leon Levy3oundation4 for her support of and engagement with the conference,

&e than" John Collins4 Seth Schwart4 and Lawrence SchiIman

for chairing sessions and leading lively discussions at the conference,The issues each raised have had a signicant impact in the pages ofthis 1oo", %rene Soto4 a graduate student from %SA&4 Muic"ly did mostof the copy-editing4 for which we are greatly inde1ted to her, 0ossTeasler was instrumental in preparing the inde5,

$hilip Ale5anders '((' article is reprinted here courtesy of$eeters $ress =Leuven>, &e are grateful for 1oth the author and the

press for permission to include the paper in the present volume,


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), %ntroduction

Jonathan Ben-Dov and Seth L, Sanders

+! ,he *dea of Ancient Jewish cience

Sometime after the end of the Judahite monarchy4 Jewish writers

opened their eyes to the universe in an unprecedented way,)

A newinterest in the cosmos and its patterns appears in late-$ersian andHellenistic apocalyptic literature, 3or the rst time in Jewishliterature4 we nd astronomy and cosmic geographysecrets lying1eyond the traditionally understood and immediately visi1le worldinthe Astronomical Book of .noch and the Book of atchers, Te5ts li"e theAramaic Levi document and the umran physiognomies e5tend these

interests from the stars to the measurement of materials and thehuman 1ody, %n these sources we nd precise new ways to divide upand understand the world, The "nowledge they present is of a sortunprecedented in Jewish sources 1ecause it contains detailed4systematic rules and o1servations a1out the physical worldwhatscholars of reece and Ba1ylon have long studied as ancient science,

But how did a type of science emerge in early Judaism when the

Bi1le shows no interest in it4 apparently prohi1iting even inMuiry intothe stars =Deut, *6)9>O &hy does this new Jewish science appear in suchcomple5 forms4 intertwined with stories of 1i1lical patriarchs and) The present 1oo" and hence also this introduction address the systematicrepresentation of scientic themes in literature from the $ersian andHellenistic periods, By doing this we leave aside the discussion of thethemes of ature and Creation in the He1rew Bi1le, &hile mid-twentieth

century scholarship downplayed the intensity of this involvement4highlighting instead the idea of divine involvement in history4 it is nowclear that some 1i1lical authors entertained a comprehensive eltbild4including an interest in the regularities and irregularities of nature, See Dasbiblische eltbild und seine altorientalischen %onte#te =ed, B, Janows"i and B,.goP 3AT P J, Ben-Dov4 E%s there a&orldview in the He1rew Bi1leO4F hnaton )? ='((?>6 '9:-,Baruch Halpern argues for the e5istence of e5plicit cosmological paradigms

in the He1rew Bi1le resem1ling pre-Socratic cosmologies in idem4 ETheAssyrian Astronomy of enesis ) and the Birth of Nilesian $hilosophy4F in

.rom /ods to /od0 the Dynamics of *ron Age Cosmologies =3AT @


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), %ntroduction ))

discipline for the early modern period4 it was carried further 1y

scholars of medieval Jewish literature,

*

This 1ranch of historiographydraws attention to the 1lurred 1orderlines4 and often actualcontinuity4 1etween what we would call science and other disciplinesoften classied as esoteric4 mainly Ka11alah, %t is one of the aims of thepresent volume to carry this research agenda forward, otsurprisingly4 the conRicted 1oundaries of science and esotericismconstitute a central focus of interest in the ancient material too, This

connection with secret "nowledge is especially clear in our case41ecause the scientic trend in early Judaism arose in the framewor" ofapocalyptic groups and their reRection on world order, But in fact4 theinterplay 1etween science and esotericism has 1een as relevant tonon-Jewish scientists as to their Jewish contemporaries throughoutthe historical periods mentioned a1ove,?

A clarication is due a1out the title chosen for this 1oo"6 Ancient

Jewish ciences, The studies mentioned a1ove focus on Jewish scientistsrather than on Jewish science, Nodern science is typically understoodas a universal and o18ective venture4 with no meaningful distinction1etween Jewish and Christian4 .uropean or Asian science, %ndeed4 theterm Jewish Science appeared as an allegation against Jews during theThird 0eich4 to undermine their role in science as ethnically distinct4and therefore suspect,@

David B, 0uderman4 Jewish ,hought and cienti1c Discovery in Early &odernEuro"e =ew Haven and London6 !ale #niversity $ress4 )99?>,* ad 3reudenthal4 cience in &edieval Jewish Cultures =ew !or"6 Cam1ridge#niversity $ress4 '())>P !,T, Langermann4 ,he Jews and the ciences in the&iddle Ages =ew !or"6 Ashgate4 )999>P S, Sela4 Abraham *bn E4ra and the )iseof &edieval 2ebrew cience =Leiden6 Brill4 '((,? See for e5ample A, !ar1ro-Collins4 Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish andChristian A"ocaly"ticism =JSJSup ?(P Leiden6 Brill4 )99@>,@ See Dir" 0upnow4 Judenforschung im dritten )eich! issenschaft 4wischenPolitik5 Pro"aganda und *deologie =Baden-Baden6 omos4 '())>, Than"s are dueto Amos Norris-0eich and to Dir" 0upnow for this reference,

.arlier4 a spiritualist movement called Jewish Science arose as a creativeresponse to the pro1lems of seculariing American Jewish life in the early'(th century, 2n this movement see .llen #mans"y4 .rom Christian cience to

Jewish cience0 "iritual 2ealing and American Jews =25ford6 25ford #niversity$ress4 '((?>, eedless to say4 while this volumes title has some remote and

comple5 historical resonance with 1oth of these dramatically diIerent'(th-century terms4 there is no direct connection,


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)' Ancient Jewish Sciences

But things were diIerent in ancient times4 when the Jewish

nature of a science could 1e part of the point, %n the Hellenistic period4when the search for indigenous "rotos heuretes =Erst discoverersF> wasat its height4 some practitioners of ancient science declaredthemselves to 1e searching for a specically Jewish contri1ution to theeld of cosmology and science4 as attested for e5ample in$seudo-.upolemus famous claim that .noch EdiscoveredF astronomy=engaged 1elow in the articles 1y Sanders and 0eed>, Thus the title

EAncient Jewish SciencesF ts Muite loyally with the spirit of ouro18ects of research, Nore profoundly4 there is something inherently Jewish in the disciplines studied here4 which depart from the practiceof4 say4 Jewish medieval scholars li"e A1raham %1n-.ra, The modes ofproduction and articulation of scientic material 1y ancient Jewishapocalyptic groups were often specically geared to the needs of thecommunity and to its theological worldview, Thus4 as Ben-Dov points

out in his article4 the organiational needs of the !ahad reMuired thedevelopment of a special 1ranch of science4 hitherto unattested inother ancient literature, %n this way4 therefore4 the su18ect-matter ofthe present volume deserves to 1e called Jewish Science,

%n the present volume we see" to present a more intricate view ofthe tension 1etween the universality of scientic "nowledge and theuniMueness of local traditions, This tension has 1een restudied inrecent decades within the discipline of the history of science,: %t isincreasingly clear4 rst4 that scientic traditions develop innon-modern societies according to the uniMue circumstances of eachand every one of them, %ndeed4 this has also 1een demonstrated for thepolitically and economically central aspects of EhardF sciences inmodern societies such as nuclear physics and petroleum geology,;

: See especially the theme issue Eature and .mpire, Science and theColonial .nterprise4F edited 1y 0oy NacLeod4 6siris n,s, )? ='(((>,; $ro1a1ly the most direct impact of physics on '(th-century politics wasthe creation of the controlled atomic ssion reactions that destroyedHiroshima and agasa"i4 helping end &orld &ar %% and lay the grounds forthe ECold &arF that dened the ne5t four decades of geopolitics, Concernover the military value of this science resulted in the remar"a1le approachto "nowledge signed into law as the )9*@ Atomic .nergy Act4 which theeminent historian of science $eter alison has descri1ed as an

Eanti-epistemology,F As alison puts it4 Euclear weapons "nowledge is1orn secret itU 1ecomes classied the instant it is written down,F $,


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), %ntroduction )<

Second4 each of these local traditions maintains a mutual relationship

with the prevalent scientic culture4 at once a1sor1ing elements fromand leaving its mar" on it, %t is thus enlightening to e5amine aperipheral manifestation of scientic culture in antiMuity according tothese newly availa1le tools, This methodological aspect proves to 1eespecially relevant with respect to the ancient Jewish material4 due toits uniMue location in space and timeP it lies 1etween the great centersof Nesopotamia and Hellenistic .gypt4 at a time when the encounter

1etween cuneiform science and the &est is in full swing, The Jewishmaterial lies in time 1etween Hipparchus and $tolemy4 who 1oth usedcuneiform data in various ways4 while its contents Roat somewhere1etween cuneiform and ree" scientic traditions,9 The formation of a

alison4 E0emoving KnowledgeF Critical *n7uiry


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)* Ancient Jewish Sciences

national narrative of scientic discovery in this conte5t constitutes a

particularly valua1le case study which we aim to pursue here,%n what follows4 we will introduce a few of the most interestingpro1lems that the scientic elements in Ancient Judaism present4 andthe essays in this volume that contri1ute to solving them,

9! -hy =cience>3 ,he Demarcation Problem and the Danger of )einventing

the -heel

%n the Second Temple period4 remar"a1le new types of "nowledgeand genres of te5t appear in Jewish culture, These includeastronomical calculations of the movements of the heavenly 1odiesand length of the days4 se5agesimal =1ase-@(> metrology4 simple formsof odiacal astrology4 and physiognomic interpretation of the 1ody,They systematically descri1e aspects of the physical world in a precisenew wayusually a way rst developed in Nesopotamia, And all these

modes of "nowledge have at some point in modern .uropean history1een understood as natural science6 astronomy and mathematics areof course still understood this way4 1ut as late as the mid-)9th-centurya form of physiognomy "nown as EphrenologyF was ta"en seriously 1yscholars across .urope,)(

But is it scienceO %t seems intuitively correct to us to denemathematics and astronomy as e5act science4 1ut is it science to

o1serve someones hair to predict their character and destiny4 as theumran physiognomic te5t *);@ doesO)) As Sanders shows in hisessay4 the history and philosophy of science provide a surprising 1utclear answer6 there is no rigorous way to tell,

$opoviW4 )eading the 2uman Body0 Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead eacrolls and 2ellenistic-Early )oman Period Judaism =STDJ @:P Leiden6 Brill4 '((:>,)( 2n the lives and deaths of phrenology and related physical andMuantitative approaches to human character4 see the lively study of Stephen Jay ould4 ,he &ismeasure of &an =ew !or"6 orton4 )99@4 0ev, ande5panded ed>,)) An illustrative passage comes from *);@ ) ii ?-;4 which we translate6EAnd anyoneU whose thighs are long and slender4 whose toes are slenderand long4 and he is from the second column6 he possesses a spirit with si5parts light4 1ut three parts in the House of Dar"ness, This is the 1irth sign

=horoscope> under which he was 1orn6 the foot of Taurus, He will 1ehum1le7poor, This is his animal6 the 1ull,F


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%n an inRuential )9;< article4 the philosopher of science Larry

Laudan e5plained that the pro1lem of distinguishing scientic"nowledge from other types has loomed large in &estern philosophyfor a long time6

3rom $lato to $opper4 philosophers have sought toidentify those epistemic features which mar" oI sciencefrom other sorts of 1elief and activity,)'

%n the philosophy of science4 the tas" of dening the 1oundariesof science 1ecame "nown as the Edemarcation pro1lem4F and afterwell over a century of heated de1ate it is now generally agreed to 1einsolu1le6

it is pro1a1ly fair to say that there is no demarcationline 1etween science and non-science4 or 1etweenscience and pseudo-science4 which would win assent

from a ma8ority of philosophers =))'>,

%t appears that historically4 no necessary and suXcient denitionof science =or its ancestors such as Aristotles e"isteme> has ever 1eendevised, As Laudan e5plains4 denitions have at some points focusedon science as proceeding deductively from a "riori principles and atother points as proceeding inductively from o1served phenomena,

Science has also 1een dened as 1eing Efalsia1leF =a denition thatincludes the EfalsiedF Rat earth theory> or as proceeding from aEscientic methodF4 the rules of which were never successfullye5plained, And as 3rancesca 0och1erg has shown4 ancient science hasalso 1een dened in contradictory ways, %t has 1een descri1ed asinhering in e5planation without accurate o1servation =ree">4 oraccurate o1servation without e5planation =Nesopotamia and .gypt>,)<

But this very de1ate over the nature of ancient science suggests amore promising avenue of inMuiry, &hile there has 1een a tremendousamount of successful science done in the modern world4 most

)' EThe Demise of the Demarcation $ro1lemF in Physics5 Philoso"hy5 andPsychoanalysis0 Essays in 2onor of Adolf /r?nbaum =ed, 0,S, Cohan and L,LaudanP Boston Studies in the $hilosophy of Science :@P Dordrecht6 D, 0eidel4)9;4 ))),)< ,he 2eavenly riting0 Divination5 2orosco"y5 and Astronomy in &eso"otamianCulture =Cam1ridge4 #K Y ew !or"4 !6 Cam1ridge #niversity $ress4 '((*>,


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)@ Ancient Jewish Sciences

philosophers of science now agree that EscienceF itself is not

something we can clearly and rigorously dene, Nost inRuentially4Larry Laudan showed that no1ody has yet 1een a1le to nd a set ofconditions that is 1oth necessary and suXcient to characterieeverything we now consider Escience,F %nstead4 Laudan emphasiesEstrong conrmationFa standard of proof that may apply todisciplines li"e history or philology as well,

&hen scholars of early Judaism improvise denitions of science4

we freshly encounter an old pro1lem now usually considered 1yphilosophers and historians of science to 1e insolu1le 1ecause itso18ect is so heterogeneous, As Laudan writes4 E it may 8ust 1e thatthere are no epistemic features which all and only the disciplines weaccept as scientic share in common,F The historian of scienceSteven Shapin concludes4 E!ou could say that science is not one4indivisi1le4 and unied4 1ut that the sciences are many4 diverse4 and

disunied,F)*Awareness of this long de1ate in the philosophy of science can

save us from reinventing the wheel6 if neither Karl $opper nor %mreLa"atos could come up with a solid4 1roadly applica1le denition ofscience4 we should not 1e em1arrassed if our own attempts come togrief as well,)? And this awareness may help us shift our focus to theMuestion of what we see" to learn, %f we do invent a wheel4 it shouldhelp ta"e us someplace we want to go,

%f we nd the category of EscienceF to 1e a useful one for early Judaism4 a second Muestion arises4 this one concerning its historicalemergence, &ould the appearance of such a pattern represent arupture from long-term Judean7Jewish7He1rew)@ discourses and

)* Laudan4 EDemiseF ))'P Steven Shapin4 @ever Pure0 2istorical tudies ofcience as if it was Produced by Peo"le with Bodies5 ituated in ,ime5 "ace5 Culture5and ociety5 and truggling for Credibility and Authority =Baltimore4 Nd,6 JohnsHop"ins #niversity $ress4 '()(>4 ?,)? 3or La"atos theory of scientic progress and critiMues of Kuhn and3eyera1end4 see Larry Laudan4 E0econciling $rogress and Loss4F in BeyondPositivism and )elativism0 ,heory5 &ethod5 and Evidence =Boulder6 &estview4)99@>4 ))


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these te5ts 1elong on the far side of a pre-science7science divideO )9

And if so how was it 1ridgedO0 cience between Local ,radition and the Discovery of Eniversals

Sanders and Ben-Dov intended the conference as the 1eginning ofa pu1lic conversation, Held April *4 '()) at %SA& in ew !or"4'( theconference 1egan 1y addressing the most fundamental evidencethrough an in-depth discussion of the Astronomical Book of .noch4 the

earliest "nown Jewishand Aramaicscientic wor"4 and closelyrelated te5ts, The second half of the conference wor"ed outward to theearliest Jewish communities in which science could have 1eenconducted and concluded with a wide-ranging discussion of the sta"esof understanding these early Jewish activities as scientic practice,

The rest of this introduction will s"etch the contri1utions andsuggest their possi1le signicance, The Astronomical Book of .noch4 an

originally independent Aramaic treatise 1etter "nown from its presentposition in chapters :'-;' of ) .noch4 is the su18ect of discussion1etween the rst four contri1utors4 $hilip Ale5ander4 JamesGanderKam4 Seth Sanders and Loren Stuc"en1ruc", They apply avariety of methods to this core te5t of the scienticand apocalyptictradition4 thus ma"ing the present 1oo" an outstanding la1oratory ofattitudes for dealing with a single proof te5t,

An article 1y $hilip Ale5ander from '((' is reprinted here1ecause it in many ways set the stage for the present discussion 1yconte5tualiing the Astronomical Book in the study of ancient science,As is often the case with pioneering studies4 Ale5anders essay created

)9 Nichael Stone noted the continuities with geographical andcosmographical lists in his ELists of 0evealed Things in the Apocalyptic

LiteratureF in &agnalia Dei5 the &ighty Acts of /od0 Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in &emory of /! Ernest right =ed, 3ran" Noore Cross4 &ernerLem"e4 and $atric" D, NillerP arden City ,!,6 Dou1leday4 )9:@4 )st ed,>4*)*-*?'P for further discussion see Sanders essay in this volume,'( The original lineup was6 James GanderKam =#niversity of otre Dame>and Seth Sanders =Trinity College and %SA&>4 with Loren Stuc"en1ruc"=$rinceton Theological Seminary> as respondentP Jonathan Ben-Dov=#niversity of Haifa and %SA&> and Nladen $opoviW =#niversity ofroningen>4 with Ale5ander Jones =%SA&> as respondentP and Annette!oshi"o 0eed =#niversity of $ennsylvania>4 with Lawrence SchiIman =!#>

as nal respondent, John Collins =!ale> and Seth Schwart =Colum1ia>chaired the two sessions,


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a point of departure for later authors, .ven detailed critiMues =see e,g,

0eed4 this volume> tend to uphold the general framewor" itesta1lished, Ale5ander attempted to outline a distinct Jewish tradition4which 1egan already in 1i1lical literature and continued into theapocalyptic tradition4 whose main interest was in a systematic study ofnature, #sing methods from the History of %deas4 Ale5ander aligns thistradition with forerunners of ree" science in other parts of theNediterranean shore4 with the %onian philosophers of nature as a

prime e5ample, Ale5anders thesis is 1ased on the distinctioncriticied 1y some later authors1etween the scientic .nochtradition and the Nosaic tradition4 which was less interested in thenatural sciences, Ale5ander initiated the discussion of the Jewishnarrative on the history of "nowledge 1y claiming that the myth of the&atchers was designed to disguise the alien origin of sciences li"eastrology and astronomy 1y attri1uting them to a Jewish .noch,

Ta"en together with Ale5anders previous studies on astrology4physiognomy4 and magic in the umran writings4 these studiesesta1lished a 1asis for the study of the sciences in .arly Judaism4 andsupplied 1oth the te5tual and the theoretical infrastructure for thepresent 1oo",

James GanderKam4 a foundational gure in the study of .nochicliterature and of its calendars and astronomy in particular4 sets out tosummarie the scientic teaching of the Astronomical Book and analyeits "ey scientic concepts, The reader is led here along the windingpath of .nochic wisdom in its long history of transmission,GanderKam surveys the astronomical teaching of .noch in the variantte5tual traditionsAramaic and .thiopicand goes 1eyond narrowerphilological concerns to raise two central theoretical Muestions, He

wonders whether the concept of a regular4 legalied cosmos aspromoted in most of the Astronomical Book is compati1le with theapocalyptic threat to this order4 as demonstrated in the admonition of) .noch ;(, This discussion oIers a diIerent view of the theme4 socentral in the present volume4 of the encounter 1etween science andits theological infrastructure, After all4 for a modern reader it is Muiteunusual to see science in an apocalyptic framewor"4 and

contradictions are certainly due to arise, GanderKam claims that the


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apocalyptic worldview cannot accommodate this contradiction4 and

accordingly suggests solving it 1y assuming multiple authorship, %naddition4 he critiMues Ale5anders arguments a1out the domesticationof foreign wisdom in the Astronomical Book and his assumption of anopposition 1etween Nosaic and .nochic approaches to "nowledge,

The essay 1y Sanders ta"es a narrower approach4 using a singlephrase in the Astronomical Book as a window into precisely howEscienceFe5act "nowledge of the physical worldcould 1e imagined

as revealed, Sanders notes the passive form of the causative of thestandard Aramaic term for to see4 i4 which is used in theחזה,

Astronomical Book to denote the essential formula of revealed"nowledge, This linguistic form draws an intriguing continuity1etween the conceptual world of apocalyptic visionaries and that ofthe earlier4 $riestly4 writings from the $entateuch4 where the parallelver1al con8ugation denotes revelation of the most central cosmic

mystery of the $riestly source6 the Ta1ernacle, At the same timeSanders nds "ey distinctions 1etween these earlier traditions and theapocalyptic material, The reader thus gains a new lens to view themotivation and the literary genres of ancient Jewish scienticliterature,

Stuc"en1ruc"s response is included here 1ecause it provides alucid synthesis and critiMue of "ey viewpoints on the earliest Jewishscientic wor", $hilologically4 these include the larger role of ver1s ofseeing in Aramaic scientic te5ts and epistemology6 was revelationalways understood as essentially passive4 as Sanders argues4 or wasthere a role for o1servation4 as GanderKam suggestsO He also raises theMuestion of the practical role of the Astonomical Book in time-"eepingand ritual6 was it an entirely theoretical te5t or did it have practical

ramicationsO 3inally4 was this cosmic order understood as eternal4 oritself a temporary part of a larger historical structureOThe articles 1y $opoviW4 Ben-Dov and 0eed e5pand our view from

the Astronomical Book to other manifestations of natural science atumran and in early Judaism, They 1uild on the rst set of essays inalso investigating the sta"es of understanding Jewish activity asscientic practice4 1ut e5pand from a strictly philological view to as"

what we can "now a1out the earliest Jewish scientic communities,


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$opoviW attempts to apply to the Jewish material some of the

Muestions of ESocial etwor" AnalysisF4 which has recently gainedconsidera1le success in the study of cuneiform scholarship,')

Criticiing previous approaches to cultural inRuence that have 1eenlimited to the tracing of literary patterns4 Sanders wrote4 Ete5ts do notcreate te5tsP people create them under particular circumstances,F''

$opoviW ta"es this agenda further when he points out that EpUreviousresearch on tracing inRuences of Ba1ylonian learning in ancient

Jewish te5ts has reRected insuXciently on the specic nature of suchcultural encounters and the means of transmission,F Thus our tas" ashistorians is not complete without as"ing Ehow and through whomancient Jewish scholars got to "now a1out some of the things thatBa1ylonian scholars "new,F These two statements call for a largersocial and historical e5amination of what we can say a1out the actualpeople who transmitted Ba1ylonian4 .gyptian4 and Hellenistic

"nowledge into Jewish hands and created an environment for itsreception4 an e5amination for which $opoviWs critiMue helps set theagenda,'<

$opoviWs is a refreshing update of the study of EprovenanceF orEorigins4F which4 while indispensa1le in our eld4 tends to leadscholars to unproductive attempts at drawing Egenealogies of"nowledge,F'* #nfortunately there is precious little "nowledge a1outthe Jewish literati in contrast to the wealth of cuneiform and ree"material, $opoviW surveys the range of Jewish scientic material andsuggests points of contact with other traditions4 yielding a tentative

') C, &aereggers4 ESocial etwor" Analysis of Cuneiform Archives6 A ewApproachF =forthcoming>P ., 0o1son4 EThe $roduction and Dissemination ofScholarly KnowledgeF in ,he 6#ford 2andbook of Cuneiform Culture =ed, K,0adner and ., 0o1sonP 25ford and ew-!or"P 25ford #niversity $ress4 '())>4??:-?:@,'' Seth Sanders4 EThe 3irst Tour of Hell6 3rom eo-Assyrian $ropaganda to.arly Jewish 0evelationF JA@E) 9 ='((9>6 )@:,'< 3or a diIerent approach that 1egins from the range of attested evidencefor Ba1ylonian-Aramaic translation from the 9th century through theHellenistic period4 including cuneiform references to ta1lets of Ba1ylonianscholarly series 1eing copied on a magallatu Eparchment scroll4F see Sandersforthcoming 2eavenly Journeys and cholarly %nowledge0 ,he ,ransformation ofcribal Cultures in Judea and Babylonia =Brill>,'* Narc Bloch4 EThe %dol of 2riginsF in ,he 2istorianFs Craft =Nanchester6Nanchester #niversity $ress4 )99'>4 '*-';,


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map of the contacts that would have 1een needed to construct this

range, His conclusions are rather pessimistic, Little active involvementof Jewish scholars at the forefront of scientic discovery can 1eposited for the early apocalyptic tradition, %nstead $opoviW spea"s of aparticipation of these Jewish scholars in a shared reservoir of morepopular science4 including non-mathematical astronomy and other1ranches of astrology4 physiognomy4 etc,

The essay 1y Ben-Dov e5amines some of the prereMuisites for the

development of science as they are represented in the early Jewishtradition6 the ideals of science =a term 1orrowed from Amos3un"enstein> as well as the epistemological 1asis for the productionand dissemination of "nowledge, Tracing the myths a1out the 1irth of"nowledge and some statements on its dissemination as they appear inthe apocalyptic literature and in the literature of the !ahad4 Ben-Dovdraws a distinction 1etween these two groups, %t seems that the

framewor" of the !ahad =in whatever form it e5isted> encouragedfurther development of previously-transmitted "nowledge, The !ahadwas thus a creative scientic community4 mar"ed 1y some novelscientic productions pro1a1ly created to answer the needs of the!ahad in the eld of diagnostic astrology and physiognomy, The!ahad is thus a good e5ample of a local 1ranch of scientic learning4remote from the centers of learning of the day4 which succeeded increating its own ethos of science4 modest as it may have 1een,

An essay 1y Annette !oshi"o 0eed addresses two of thefundamental concepts underlying the present 1oo", 0eed s"etches thecontemporary scholarly discussion a1out science as a local4 national4product as opposed to the modernistic narrative of universal science,This tension is harnessed in an eIort to draw a new cultural history

for the emerging discipline of Jewish science in AntiMuity, Drawingattention to the lively de1ate on Ethe 1eginnings of Jewish scienceF inthe early Niddle Ages4'? 0eed suggests possi1le forms of continuity1etween scientic $seudepigrapha such as Asaf ha-)ofe4 efer (et4iraetc, and the earlier material collected in the present volume, Ta"inginto account the generally a-scientic character of ra11inic literature4

'? !,T, Langermann4 E2n the Beginnings of He1rew Scientic Literature andon Studying History through maM1ilot =parallels>F4 Ale"h ' ='(('>6 )@9-);9,


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), %ntroduction '<

a continuity 1etween antiMue and medieval non-ra11inic traditions

may prove to 1e attractive4 and will draw attention to other scholarlyeIorts in this direction4 underta"en for e5ample in the study ofNysticism and He"halot literature, Nore 1roadly4 0eed argues that apossi1le "ey to understanding ancient science as a coherent enterpriselies in a very 1roadly attested4 perhaps universal feature of it6 ancientscientists claim to universality, &hile the forms ancient sciences too"were emphatically local4 what may have allowed ancient scientic

"nowledge to travel so far was that each ancient scientic culturedemonstrated an aspiration toward the universal4 after an encounterwith a universal4 cosmopolitan empire,

&e suggest two "ey lessons from the early history of science and Judaism traced here, 3irst4 to understand the shifting historicalnatures of science and religion4 we must attend carefully to ancienttheories of "nowledge, $eople had diIerent ideas of how to o1serve

and understand the world4 and these ideas helped determine what wasconsidered authoritative "nowledge, The second is a parado51ut asimple and practical onea1out the relationship 1etween the local andthe universal,

3irst4 the historical fact is that scientic and mystical claims to"nowledge have not always 1een mutually e5clusive, %n fact4 one mayhave served the other4 as in the revealed science of the AstronomicalBook of .noch e5plored 1y Ale5ander4 GanderKam and Sanders, %n itshistorical conte5tthe southern Levant of the Hellenistic periodthescientic EcontentF of the Astronomical Book reRected thecontemporary common wisdom of popular astronomy andmathematics, !et .noch does not o1serve or calculate to gain this"nowledgeP rather4 he is depicted as learning this scientic "nowledge

a1out the universe in precisely the same way that Noses learns thedimensions of the Ta1ernaclepassively4 in a vision that he is caused tosee, The oppositions we might e5pect 1etween foreign wisdom versustraditional truth4 revelation versus rational "nowledge fail to appear1ecause those oppositions were not theirs,

Second4 ancient claims to universal "nowledge were made inhighly local forms4 under highly particular historical circumstances

yet it is precisely the EparochialF Mualities of these supposedly


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universal truths that let us understand them as part of a scientic

Muest, The simple4 and Muite practical4 parado5 is this6 each of thescientic cultures under consideration here6 Nesopotamian4 Judean4and Hellenic4 tried to understand and tal" a1out a shared physicaluniverse in a particularly Ba1ylonian4 He1rew4 Aramaic4 or ree" way,But this very claim to "nowledge of a shared universe arose atmoments when people were actually 1ecoming part of larger4 evenEglo1alF networ"s4 networ"s that inspired and facilitated the tas"s of

translation and 1orrowing, The Jewish adaptation of Ba1ylonianastronomy and mathematics e5plored 1y $opoviW happened inAramaic4 the lingua franca of the $ersian .mpire, Similarly4 as 0eedpoints out4 the ree" and Jewish practice of heurematography4 thecross-cultural search for inventors and discoverers4 thrived afterAle5anders conMuest, The ancient sciences we o1serve here share anessentially local aspiration to the glo1al,

This 1oo" mar"s only the rst pu1lic scholarly discussion of anew frontier in the history of science and of Judaism in the ancientear .ast, But it may already pay three dividends6 rst4 to 1ringtogether fundamental data a1out ancient Jewish scienceP second4 todraw attention to pro1lems in its understanding and to suggestsolutionsP and nally to 1roaden a conversation which some of ourcontri1utors rst 1egan, %t is thus no accident that this 1oo" is part of%SA&s new open pu1lishing initiative, &hether you nd it on theinternet or hold a printed copy in your hands anywhere in the world4it is our hope that this 1oo" will help inspire new participants in thisdiscussion,


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', .noch and the Beginnings of Jewish %nterest in

atural Science

\

$hilip S, Ale5ander

,he Jews and @atural cience

%n his )99? monograph Jewish ,hought and cienti1c Discovery inEarly &odern Euro"e David 0uderman discusses the Muestion of Jewishattitudes towards and involvement in science,) There is4 as has long1een noted4 an intriguing pro1lem here, Jews in modern times havemade a massive contri1ution to the advancement of the naturalsciences4 a contri1ution out of all proportion to their num1ers, How isthis stri"ing fact to 1e e5plainedO Are Jews genetically predisposed to

1e good at science4 as some have seriously 1ut implausi1ly argued, 2rdoes the e5planation lie in cultural factors4 such as the nature oftraditional Jewish education or traditional Jewish love of learningO 2rare social forces at wor"the desire to escape from e5clusion and gainacceptance and inRuence in the host society which has come to accordgreat prestige to scientic "nowledgeO 0uderman pro1lematies theMuestion 1y showing that Jewish involvement in science did not 1eginwith emancipation in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries 1utcan 1e traced 1ac" to the early modern period, %n the si5teenth andseventeenth centuries Jews were already studying science4 especiallymedicine4 and their num1ers were suXciently large as to have had animpact on Jewish religious thought,' As a preface to his study of theearly modern period4 0uderman 1rieRy surveys Jewish attitudes

towards nature in the Niddle Ages 1ut ma"es no serious attempt to\ % have chosen not to revise this article4 though tempted to do so4 since itcontains the te5t to which others have reacted, % should4 however4 ma"eclear that % have now modied some of my views e5pressed here, % hope toreturn to the Muestion of early Jewish science in the not too distant future,) David B, 0uderman4 Jewish ,hought and cienti1c Discovery in Early &odernEuro"e =ew Haven and London6 !ale #niversity $ress4 )99?>,' A case in point is the si5teenth century %talian scholar 2vadiah Sforno

whose philosophical and medical training are very evident in his Bi1lecommentaries,


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'@ Ancient Jewish Sciences

investigate Jewish engagement with science any earlier in Jewish

history,%n the present paper % shall attempt4 somewhat speculatively4 tocarry the story further 1ac", % realise that in doing so % runconsidera1le ris"s, The enterprise may seem grossly anachronistic4 and% may pro8ect modern de1ates and modern ideas onto earlier and verydiIerent societies, Science today and the society in which it functionsloo" nothing li"e science or society in the Niddle Ages or in antiMuity,

% am prepared to run that ris", As an historian % am still wedded to theconstruction of grand narratives, % also hold that analogy is one of thehistorians fundamental tools6 the past4 if it is understanda1le at all4 isaccessi1le only through analogy4 through a ris"y 1ut inevita1le processof translation into narratives that ma"e sense in terms of our owne5perience of the world, And4 % would suggest4 it is no less meaningfulto tal" a1out Jewish science4 or the lac" of it4 in antiMuity than it is to

tal" a1out ree" or Ba1ylonian science4 1oth of which have 1een thesu18ect of e5tensive investigation,<

Before we go any further we need a wor"ing denition ofEscienceF, 3or our present purposes it is vitally important to avoid onethat is too theoretical or e5clusive, Since the collapse of ewtonianphysics4 the supreme e5emplar for two centuries of a scientic view ofthe universe4 the nature and denition of science have 1ecomephilosophically pro1lematic, % am not interested here in thisphilosophical de1ate,* % am writing as an historian4 and as an historianit seems to me o1vious that science is a social construct which changesover time, History is littered with sciencesalchemy is a case in pointwhich have 1ecome discredited4 and which today are e5cluded fromthe scientic curriculum, %n the past4 however4 these su18ects were

most assuredly regarded as sciences, Though not EtrueF in the sensethat contemporary science is EtrueF4 they are science-li"e6 theydisplay the assumptions and the articulation of scientic disciplinesand in some cases can 1e shown 1y historians to have contri1uted

< See4 for e5ample4 eoIrey .,0, Lloyd4 Early /reek cience0 ,hales to Aristotle=London6 Chatto Y &indus4 )9:(>,* %t is clearly summaried in Nenachem 3isch4 )ational )abbis0 cience and

,almudic Culture =Bloomington and %ndianapolis6 %ndiana #niversity $ress4)99:>4 )-


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', The Jews and atural Science ':

directly to the rise of modern science, 3or our present purposes we can

identify EscienceF wherever we nd a strong interest in understandinghow the physical world wor"s4 provided three simple conditions arefullled6 =)> There is an e5plicit or implicit assumption that nature isregular and is governed 1y immuta1le laws which are accessi1le to thehuman mind, ='> An attempt is made to produce a rational model ofthe physical world which reduces the 1ewildering comple5ities ofnatural phenomena to a small num1er of underlying primary

elements4 or to the operation of a small num1er of fundamental laws,= .5plicitly or implicitly4 a signicant element of direct o1servationof the physical world is involved,

%n attempting to trace the earlier history of science two pointsshould 1e 1orne in mind, 3irst4 e5periment plays a ma8or role inmodern science, Hypotheses are formulated and e5periments devisedto test them, %n early science4 however4 e5perimentation of this type

seems to have 1een rare, %t would 1e a mista"e4 however4 to supposethat if such e5perimentation is a1sent4 then science is a1sent, Such anargument has 1een used in the past to deny that the ree"s possessedany science in any serious sense of that term, Though plannede5perimentation in the modern sense was comparatively rare4 sciencein antiMuity was4 to varying degrees4 empirically 1ased =one thin"s ofhow the Ba1ylonians painsta"ing o1servations over many centuries ofthe motions of the heavenly 1odies formed the 1edroc" of earlyastronomy>, And4 indeed4 % dou1t that we can meaningfully tal" ofscience unless there is an element of direct o1servation of nature, Anyproposed scientic model should 1e4 however inadeMuately oro1liMuely4 either inferred from o1servation of natural phenomena4 orveried 1y such o1servation, Second4 it may 1e diXcult to distinguish

sharply in pre-modern times 1etween science on the one hand andtechnology and magic on the other, Craftsmen and magicians are4 li"escientists =at least applied scientists>4 concerned with e5ploiting theforces of nature, Technology in the past4 as today4 has 1een a greatpromoter of scientic discovery4 1ut there is surely a distinction to 1edrawn 1etween the craftsman and the scientist6 1oth may 1einterested in "nowing how things wor"4 1ut it is the scientist who tries

to e5plain why they wor" as they do4 who formulates theories of


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nature, The scientist and the magician can 1e distinguished in a similar

way, Nagic may seem at times to 1e predicated on rationalassumptions a1out the mechanistic wor"ings of nature4 which themagician can inRuence 1y employing the right ver1al formula ormateria magica4 1ut magical te5ts do not ma"e these assumptionse5plicit or create a model of nature to ma"e their magical pra5isintelligi1le, The prescriptions of a magician to cure an ailment4 evenwhen they contain proposals which are sensi1le and which may prove

eXcacious4 are an intellectual world away from the rational medicineof a alen, The scientist4 the craftsman and the magician aredistinguisha1le4 and were distinguished even in antiMuity4 though onemay merge impercepti1ly into the other,?

cience and the ,almudic &ind

Jewish involvement in science is not hard to document in the

Niddle Ages and even in aonic times4 when Jews engaged seriouslywith %slamic philosophy,@ But can we nd evidence for scienticinterest among Jews in the preceding Talmudic ageO Jaco1 eusner hasargued that not only is science a1sent from classic 0a11inic Judaism1ut more fundamentally the logic of 0a11inic discourse4 as e5empliedin the Nishnah4 the foundation document of 0a11inism4 isincompati1le with scientic modes of thin"ing and discovery,: The

? %n other words % am using EscienceF in 1roadly the sense in which it isused 1y standard historians of science such as eorge Sarton =*ntroduction tothe 2istory of cience4 ? vols, Baltimore6 &illiams and &il"ins4 )9':-*;U>4Lynn Thorndi"e = A 2istory of &agic and E#"erimental cience4 ; vols4 ew!or"6 Nacmillan4 )9'4 and Joseph eedham =cience and Civiili4ation inChina4 @ vols4 Cam1ridge6 Cam1ridge #niversity $ress4 )9?*-9@U>, %f theirenterprise is valid4 then4 si "arva licet com"onere magnis4 so is mine,@ 2ne thin"s of Levi 1en erson with his Jaco1s StaI4 his modied astrola1e

and his criticisms of the $tolemaic model of planetary motion4 or ofA1raham i1n .ra with his interests in mathematics and astrology, 3or ane5cellent overview of Jewish science in the Niddle Ages see !, TviLangermann4 EScience4 JewishF4 in Dictionary of the &iddle Ages4 vol, )) =ed, J,0StrayerP ew !or"6 Scri1ners4 )9;9>4 ;9-9*, 3urther4 Charles Singer4 EScienceand JudaismF4 in ,he Jews0 ,heir 2istory )eligion and Culture4 vol, %%% =ed, L,3in"elsteinP ew !or"6 Schoc"en4 )9@(>4 ')@-'@?4 with the postscript 1yBernard oldstein4 EThe Jewish Contri1ution to Astronomy in the NiddleAgesF4 ':(-':?, 3urther 1i1liography may 1e gleaned from 0uderman4 Jewish,hought and cienti1c Discovery4


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', The Jews and atural Science '9

implication seems to 1e that 0a11inical Jews4 1y their very mental

formation4 were inhi1ited from doing science, Nenachem 3isch hasresponded to eusners claim 1y arguing that4 on the contrary4 therationality that lies 1ehind the modern scientic enterprise is highlycongruent with the rationality of Talmudic discourse,; The argument isinteresting4 1ut far too essentialist for my purposes, 9 %f we descendfrom this highly a1stract4 theoretical plane4 and loo" pragmatically athistorical realities4 we nd that there is4 in fact4 considera1le evidence

for interest in the wor"ings of nature in 0a11inic literature and0a11inic society4 and4 indeed4 at a theological level statements occur inthe classic 0a11inic sources which can 1e ta"en as encouraging andlegitimating such an interest, Certain factors may4 indeed4 haveinhi1ited serious 0a11inic involvement in science, Cosmology =&aGasehBereFshit > was famously declared to 1e an esoteric su18ect4 which couldnot 1e e5pounded 1efore two people =that is to say it could only 1e

studied and taught one-to-one>,)( %f this in8unction was followed to the

and then in a modied form as E&hy o Science in the Nind of JudaismO4Fin his ,he &aking of the &ind of Judaism0 ,he .ormative Age =Scholars $ress6Atlanta4 )9;:>4 ), But if therationality of the Nishnah is congruent with the rationality of philosophy1ut not congruent with the rationality of science4 it seems to follow that therationality of philosophy is not congruent with the rationality of science,This is surely a parado5ical conclusion4 Muestiona1le 1oth in terms ofhistory =which has never sharply diIerentiated 1etween philosophy andscience> and in terms of logic, See further his Jerusalem and Athens0 ,heCongruity of ,almudic and Classical Philoso"hy =Leiden6 Brill4 )99:>, 3isch alsonotes this pro1lem with eusners position =)ational )abbis4 )9:>,; 3isch4 )ational )abbis,9 % nd myself very much in agreement with 0udermans comment6EAlthough there are some truth and considera1le insight in their eusnersand 3ischsU positions4 neither oIers4 to my mind4 an adeMuate historicale5planation of the dynamic and comple5 interactions 1etween science and Judaism, Such theoretical-typological discussions tend to reduce reality to asingle categoriation or a1stract denition4 Rattening the diIerences ofspecic times and places into homogeneous4 immuta1le and predicta1le

entities called science and Judaism,F = Jewish ,hought 4 *>,)( m! Hagigah '6),


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', The Jews and atural Science running through the threedomains of the cosmosspace4 time and the human 1ody, efer(et4irah may ta"e enesis ) as its starting point 1ut what stri"es thereader most forci1ly a1out it is its independence of the Bi1le, %t alsoillustrates well how thin was the partition 1etween science and magicin antiMuity, %t is o1vious from a close reading that efer (et4irah is

)< See Joseph Dan4 EThe Three $hases in the History of efer (et4ira4F .JB ')=)99*>6 :-'9, The contrast 1etween efer (et4irah and another early Jewishcosmological wor"4 the eder )abba di-Bereshit 4 helps to point up 8ust howEscienticF Sefer !etirah is, eder )abba di-Bereshit oIers a model of thecosmos4 arranged in concentric circles4 1ut it is essentially a sym1olic modeland apparently ar1itrarysymmetry for theological rather thancosmological reasonsP it shows no relation to the world as we e5perience it4or to the science of the day, %n no way could eder )abba di-Bereshit 1etreated as scientic,)* Among the earliest to give it a mystical interpretation was the E#niMueCheru1F Circle of the 0hineland6 see Joseph Dan4 ,he =ni7ue Cherub> Circle=Nohr Sie1ec"6 TQ1ingen4 )999>4


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Amon means covered4 as in the verse4 Haemunim = they that were cladi,e,covered> in scarlet =Lam *6?>, Amon means hidden4 as in the verse4 And heconcealed =omen> 2adassah =.st '6:>, Amon means great4 as in the verse4 Are

you better than @o-amon =ah O which is rendered4 Are you 1etter thanAle5andria the reat4 which is situated among the riversO Another

interpretation6 Famon means a wor"man = uman>, The Torah declares6 % wasthe wor"ing tool of the Holy 2ne4 1lessed 1e he, %n human practice4 when amortal "ing 1uilds a palace4 he 1uilds it not with his own s"ill 1ut with thes"ill of an architect, The architect4 however4 does not 1uild it out of hishead4 1ut employs plans and diagrams to "now how to arrange thecham1ers and the wic"et doors, Thus od consulted the Torah and createdthe world4 while the Torah declares4 *n the beginning /od created =en )6)>4Beginning here referring to the Torah4 as in the verse4 ,he Lord made me as thebeginning of his way =$rov ;6''>,F The darshan has correctly identied the1asic assertion of $rover1s ;4 namely that 2okhmah is the underlying4

rational order of the universe, He simply assumes that Torah and 2okhmahmust 1e identical, See further 1elow,


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4 meteorology4 calendrical science and physiognomy, Thepresence of physiognomy comes as something of a surprise4 1ut isshould 1e remem1ered that physiognomy was a science in antiMuity4every 1it as much as dream interpretation, %t had a well-esta1lishedtechnical literature going 1ac" to Ba1ylonia4 and in various guises =e,g,

phrenology> it remained a science down to the nineteenth century,''

Li"e dream interpretation4 the more sophisticated forms ofphysiognomy appear to have 1een 1ased on o1servation of the

') See4 for e5ample4 enesis 0a11ah *6* and @6;,'' See further my essay4 E$hysiognomy4 %nitiation and 0an" in the umranCommunity4F in /eschichte,radition)eQe#ion0 .estschrift f?r &artin 2engel

4um R:! /eburtstag =ed, $, Sch^fer4 H, Canci" and H, Lichten1ergerP TQ1ingen6Nohr Sie1ec"4 )99@>4 %


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', The Jews and atural Science 4 1ut in terms oflife-style4 such as the use of cosmetics and 8ewellery, The vision of theworld pro8ected 1y the .nochic literature is parado5ically bothmodernist and reactionary, The circles which produced it saw a stronganalogy 1etween the state of society in their own times and thecondition of the world 1efore the 3lood, There was the same radicalcorruption, The sins of the &atchers were 1eing repeated in their day4and 8ust as od had responded in the past to such radical evil with

overwhelming punishment from which only a righteous remnantescaped4 so he was a1out to do the same again, The world stood oncemore under the threat of imminent catastrophe, Just as .noch4 thepreacher of righteousness4 had warned the wic"ed in his day4 so the.nochic circles were warning the wic"ed in their day and telling themto Ree from the wrath to come,

%t is noteworthy that the "nowledge 1rought 1y the &atchers is

strongly technological in character6 magical medicine4 incantations4


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*( Ancient Jewish Sciences

the cutting of roots4 and plants the ma"ing of swords and "nives4

and shields and 1reastplates 1racelets4 decorations4 shadowing ofthe eye with antimony4 ornamentation4 the 1eautifying of the eyelids4all "inds of precious stones4 and all colouring tinctures and alchemy ';,3or all its modernism ) .noch has a whiI of technopho1ia a1out it6 it issuspicious of technological change, % suspect that this stratum of theliterature relates to a period of growing prosperity and materialism4allied to rapid technological development, The situation was not

congenial to the conservative mentality of the group, % do not "nowwhether there is anything in the archaeological or the historicalrecord which would ena1le us to pin-point this time more e5actly, %dou1t that there is, %t is all a matter of su18ective perception4 whichmay not correlate all that o1viously with historical reality as we cannow perceive it, But that the author or authors of these traditionswere opposed to social and technological changes ta"ing place in their

society is hardly in dou1t,% have already noted that two ma8or images of .noch dominate

the surviving Second Temple period literature.noch the Sage whoreveals the secrets of nature4 and .noch the $reacher of 0ighteousnesswho re1u"es the sins of his generation and warns of divine 8udgement,Corresponding to these two images are the two ma8or themes of ).nochscience and ethics4 descriptions of the cosmos and divine 8udgement, The two images and the two themes are tightlyintertwined in ) .noch, $art of the cosmography is devoted todescri1ing the places of punishment of the &atchers and those whofollow their evil ways, A close analysis of the literary traditions leavesme in little dou1t that the .noch the Sage and the Culture-1ringer isearlier than .noch the $reacher of 0ighteousness, .noch was rst

e5ploited in order to validate and domesticate a 1ody of foreignscientic "nowledge, 2nly laterperhaps some one hundred and fty

'; ) .noch :6) _ ;6), % Muote here the translation 1y .phraim %saac in ,he 6ld,estament Pseude"igra"ha4 vol, % =ed, J,H, CharlesworthP ew !or"4 )9;4 )@,%saacs rendering EalchemyF is speculative and 1ased on his Ns A =Ke1ran97%%>, The .thiopic literally means Etransmutation of the worldF, %t should 1enoted that the third7fourth century C. alchemical writer /osimus attri1utesthe introduction of alchemy to the &atchers4 and that .noch came to 1e

closely lin"ed with alchemy through his identication with HermesTrismegistus, See $atai4 Jewish Alchemists4 )@ and


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', The Jews and atural Science *)

years laterwas this same .noch the Sage transformed4 for reasons

which are not entirely clear4 into .noch the $reacher of 0ighteousness4and the .nochic traditions spun to present a som1re message ofimpending divine 8udgement, The same analysis suggests that the&atchers have also undergone a transformation, %t is pro1a1le thatoriginally they were goodheavenly messengers who descended toearth to 1ring man"ind divine "nowledge and to promote theadvancement of human culture, &hen those cultural advances4 again

for reasons that are no longer apparent4 came to 1e regarded asnegative the &atchers were transformed into fallen angels4 who had1rought for1idden "nowledge to man"ind and corrupted them4 andthey were lin"ed with the Sons of od in enesis @ who entered intoillicit union with the daughters of men,'9

cience in the Achaemenid m"ire

Can we s"etch in any more detail the prole of the group orgroups that produced the .nochic literature4 and relate them moreprecisely to their timesO Nost would agree that ) .noch has stronglin"s with ancient Jewish wisdom tradition, &ithin that tradition twocontrasting views of physical world can 1e found in the $ersianperiod,4 );9-');,


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&ho determined the measures thereof4 if you "nowO 2r who stretched

the line upon itO &hereupon were the foundations thereof fastenedO2r who laid the cornerstone thereofO =Jo1 ,


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', The Jews and atural Science *<

then % &isdomU was 1y him4 as a master craftsman = i>P and % wasאמון,

daily his delight4 re8oicing always 1efore himP re8oicing in his ha1ita1leearthP and my delight was with the sons of men, ow4 therefore4 mysons4 hear"en unto me6 for 1lessed are those who "eep my ways, Hearinstruction4 and 1e wise =$rov ;6'9-4 1ut He1rew was 1y nomeans dead4 and it remained unMuestiona1ly the language ofliterature, The reason for the Aramaic is Muite simple6 Aramaic was thelingua franca of the $ersian .mpire for administrative and diplomatic


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purposesP and it pro1a1ly functioned as the language of international

culture as well, %t was in Aramaic that the .nochic circles received theBa1ylonian scientic traditionsP it was in Aramaic that they preservedthem, The ideas were new in %srael and He1rew as yet lac"ed atechnical4 scientic voca1ulary in which to e5press them, Ananalogous situation arose in the early Niddle Ages4 when Jews 1eganto write in Ara1ic4 not so much 1ecause it was the vernacular4 1ut1ecause it was the language of high culture and science4 and He1rew

had yet to develop a scientic voca1ulary, But the Ara1ic scienticliterature which the Jews read4 was not4 at least initially4 transmitting

Arabic ideas4 1ut rather /reek ideas in Ara1ic dress,The .nochic circles were o1viously well educated6 they had

mastered literary Aramaic and they had access to foreign literature,Nost li"ely4 therefore4 they 1elonged to the scri1al and priestly classesin Jerusalem, They seem to have retained some sort of e5istence over a

considera1le period of time4 and to have continued to wor" on anddevelop the .nochic traditions, That development4 as we have noted4earlier was increasingly in a moralising direction, The science was putdirectly to the service of religion4 to support a message of impendingdivine 8udgement, The .nochic literature was4 as we "now4 ta"en up 1ythe umran community4 for reasons which are not immediatelyapparent, The umran community had its own sectarian view of theworld4 focused sharply on a model of time which portrayed nature asmoving purposefully towards a climactic nal conRict 1etween thecosmic principles of light and dar"ness =a notion very pro1a1lyinde1ted to $ersian thought>, The message of impending catastrophic 8udgement in the .nochic literature was dou1tless congenial to themin a general way4 1ut there is little sign of the detailed .nochic

cosmographies playing a central role in sectarian thin"ing,The standard e5planation of umranian interest in .noch is thatthe umranians4 in opposition to the Jerusalem priesthood4 hadadopted the .nochic solar calendar4 and needed 1oth the .nochicscience and the authority of the .nochic literature to sustain itsposition, However4 this view is not without pro1lems, %t is li"ely thatthe .nochic


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unprecedented in Jewish literature, %t seems to mar" a turning-point

in Jewish intellectual historythe emergence4 for the rst time4 ofwhat might properly 1e called a scientic attitude,2ne might compare the analogous intellectual revolution which

had ta"en place a1out a hundred years earlier in the ree" world4under the inRuence4 possi1ly4 of the similar intellectual stimuli, % referto the rise of the %onian school of ree" philosophy and science, The%onians too produced new4 rational models of the cosmosmodels

little more sophisticated than those of the Jewish .nochic circles4 1utwhich in the 2eilsgeschichte of western civiliation are traditionallyseen as the 1eginnings of ree"4 and indeed of .uropean4 science, %n1oth casesthe Jewish and the ree"the new models of the universemar"ed a Mualitative 1rea" from pre-e5isting mythical and epicpictures of the world, %n the case of the ree"s those earlier pictureswere to 1e found in Homer and in HesiodP in the case of the Jews they

were enshrined primarily in the opening chapters of enesis, %n 1othcases some reference was made in the new models to the old mythicalideas, This is certainly the case in ) .noch which4 at least in its presentform4 1ears a loosely e5egetical relationship to enesis )4 1ut thereseem to have 1een allusions to the traditional cosmogonies in the%onian cosmologies as well,

The Muestion of eastern inRuences on the %onians is controversial41ut in the wa"e of the Eorientaliing revolutionF


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is not entirely clear, The ree"s themselves loo"ed to .gypt4 1ut

modern scholarship points more emphatically to Ba1ylonia and $ersia,The %onians are unli"ely to have "nown much a1out $ersian ideas1efore ?*( when the $ersians reached the Aegean coast, 2nly in thetime of Heraclitus do we nd more or less convincing evidence ofdistinctively %ranian inRuences on ree" thought, and &illiam K,C, uthrie4 A 2istory of /reek Philoso"hy4 vols %-%%=Cam1ridge6 Cam1ridge #niversity $ress4 )9@'-@?>,


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linguistic and commercial factors4 were pro1a1ly more decisive, %n the

si5th century the Ba1ylonians dominated the ear .ast politically6 thatdou1tless fostered trade and gave the whole region a lingua franca4Ba1ylonian, &hen the $ersians succeeded the Ba1ylonians as thepolitical masters4 Aramaic replaced Ba1ylonian as the lingua franca,This almost certainly did not mean the end of Ba1ylonian culturalinRuence4 since Ba1ylonian ideas were pro1a1ly carried over intoAramaic, Local intellectual elites were a1le to 1uy into this

international culture 1y learning Ba1ylonian and Aramaic, ree"swould have had a Rying start in the case of Aramaic4 given that it waswritten in 1asically the same alpha1et as they had adapted for theirown language,

&hat % am suggesting4 then4 is that we can identify at least twogroups within this international culture4 one in Niletus in westernAnatolia and one in Jerusalem in Judah4 which independently of each

other 1ut inRuenced 1y the free circulation of ideas through theLevant and the ear .ast4 developed a view of nature which withintheir own societies was radically new and which can for the rst time1e meaningfully la1elled as scientic, This interest in nature4inaugurated among Jews in the $ersian period4 continued in ts andstarts down to the Niddle Ages, %n the Niddle Ages and early moderntimes4 as 0uderman has shown4 it gathered pace, %n the nineteenthcentury4 as a result of political emancipation4 many Jews againrediscovered the natural world, The result4 in the twentieth centuryhas 1een some of the greatest achievements of scientic thought,3rom .noch to .instein is a long and tortuous road, At times the tracesare scuIed and the trac" almost disappears, But it loo"s li"e a roadwhich the historian of Judaism could and should map along the whole

of its length,


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', The Jews and atural Science *9

3igure )6 The .nochic Nodel of the Suns Notion


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) and to a greater e5tent though in a diIerent form in alarge num1er of .thiopic copies, The Aramaic fragments preserve te5tin the original language of the compositionP the .thiopic version is atranslation of a ree" rendering of the Aramaic, Girtually nothing of

that intermediate ree" version is e5tant so it will play only a modestpart in this essay,'

.nochs scientic concernsor4 as they are presented in the te5ts4the revelation to him of scientic datacome to e5pression in otherplaces than the Astronomical Book, 3or e5ample4 in the Book of atchers=) .noch )- he mentions teachings a1out some astronomicalsu18ects =among others> 1y angels who sinned in the way they madethe information availa1le to people =) .noch ;>, %n the same 1oo"let

) Joseph T, Nili" made availa1le much of the evidence in preliminary formin his ,he Books of Enoch0 Aramaic .ragments of 4 ':4 9?-):), Henry" Drawnel has now produced a thoroughedition of the four Aramaic mss,6 ,he Aramaic Astronomical Book N;6 *;?-?(?,


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.noch himself tours the cosmos and views its structures4 1ut the

overlapping sections =especially chs,


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=regarding the amount of light>4 and , from moonrise to sunset, There

is another pattern when the waning phase of the moon is underconsideration,:

The fact that 1oth versions operate with fourteenths means thatMuestions arise a1out the length of a lunation6 does the systempresuppose that a month lasts '; daysO There are a couple of placeswhere treatments of the middle and the end of the month are almostpreserved4 1ut4 typically4 8ust where one would li"e a few more words4

the fragments 1rea" oI, 3or instance4 in *'(9 @ :-9 the writerdescri1es the ';th of a month =the num1er is preserved entirely> andmentions that a half of a seventh part of the lunar surface isilluminated, During that night the remaining half of a seventh iso1scured so that the moon is devoid of light4 hidden with the sun, Thisis the last preserved line on the fragment =apart from a couple ofletters in line )(> so that the treatment of the ne5t day is lost, *'(9 ;

< mentions night fteen and apparently indicates that on thepreceding night the moon was visi1le the full timeP the ne5t survivingletters =line *> may refer to the sun and its course, See also *')( iii *which spea"s of the fourteenth day4 while line ? lists the fteenth dayand says its light is complete,;

B, Solar data6 The annual course of the sun4 month 1y month4 isthe su18ect of the opening chapter in the .thiopic version =ch, :'>,There the sun4 li"e the moon and stars4 moves through the si5 gates onthe eastern and western horions during a year of twelve months,.ach month consists of


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and that it

goes 1ac" over the same course through which it had come =*'(9 : iii?>, %n addition4 the te5t must have compared the num1er of days in acertain period measured 1y the sun with one measured 1y the moon1ecause it says the moon has a lac" or decit in comparison with thesun =*'(9 '@ ,)( %t also deals with the relative movements of the sunand moon4 as it mentions that the moon completely lac"s light on itssurface when it sets with the sun =*'(9 @ 9>, one of the Aramaic

fragments evidences a te5t such as ) .noch :' which is almost totallydevoted to the annual path of the sun through the gates on thehorion,))

C, eographical data6 Both versions contain a section regardingthe twelve gates for the twelve winds4 three in each of the fourcardinal directions =) .noch :@P *'(9 '< )-'P *')( ii )-)(4 )*P thenum1er twelve for the gates is preserved on *')( ii )*4 as is thenum1er four for the Muarters or directions>4 and a unit a1out the fourMuarters of the earth and its seven great mountains =) .noch ::P *'(9

9 There is ample Ancient ear .astern evidence for a schematic year of


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P there are also four seasons =andfour additional days in the solar year in the .thiopic version>

c! :6 Though the wee" is not an important unit in either version4the solar year lasts e5actly ?' of themP there are seven greatmountains4 rivers4 and islands in the earth =::6*-;P see *'(9 '< )(P*')( ii '(>P the light of the sun is seven times that of the moon =:'6


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chariots in the s"y =:?6;>twelve gates open for the winds =:@6)>seven great mountains =::6*>seven great rivers =::6?>seven great islands =::6;>everything that precedes this point in the te5t =;(6)> =cf, ;)6'

where he loo"s at the heavenly ta1lets>

c! 3or the sa"e of completeness4 it should 1e noted that .noch inturn shows the information to his son Nethuselah

% have shown you everything =all the material in :'-:@O :@6)*>P itis also in the Aramaic =*'(9 '< )-'P *')( ii )*>

% have shown you everything =:96)>P this too is reRected in theAramaic =see *'(9 '@ @-:>

% am telling you these things =;'6)> =cf, ;'6'P ;)6?>

The Aramaic copies preserve a few such references and certainlyhad room for others though the relevant parts on the manuscriptshave not survived,

At :@6)*6 Their prosperity and their interpretation % have shown,=*'(9 '< '>

At :*6) =O>6 U another calculation % was shown ): for it that it went=*'(9 '?

At :96)6 ow % am telling you4 my son blank =*'(9 '@ @>OUa calculation he showed me.noch claims to have seen a remar"a1le set of the worlds

features4 including ones at the ends of the earth, But is anything heclaims to have seen implausi1leO ote that he nowhere asserts he sawan angel leading heavenly luminariesP the leaders of the stars in ch, ;'

are never called angels and may simply 1e stars,E! Sources6 A study of the astronomical 1oo"let leads to theconclusion that .nochs scientic teachings are 1ased4 at least in largepart4 on two ma8or sources6 sections of the He1rew Bi1le and an early

): 3or the passive form here4 see the detailed discussion in the paper of SethSanders in this volume and Drawnel4 ,he Aramaic Astronomical Book4


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form of astronomy that comes to e5pression in cuneiform wor"s such

as Nul,Apin and .numa Anu .nlil )*,

);

+! The He1rew Bi1le6 %f one thin"s of ancient science4 even of early Jewish science4 the He1rew Bi1le does not spring to mind as aprominent source for such material, There is in it no composition orpart of a composition that could 1e called scientic even with anelastic denition of the term =for denitions of the term4 see thediscussion 1elow>, This is not to say that no one during the 1i1lical

period did scientic wor"P it is merely to say that nothing recorded inthe He1rew Bi1le is a scientic composition,)9 ohelet could4 in asense4 1e an e5ception, The sage set up an e5periment and tried tocarry it out in a systematic4 logical manner to arrive at a conclusion, AsNichael 3o5 descri1es what he did4 ohelet used his reason to e5aminee5perience in order to produce "nowledge, He wished to attain itthrough discovery4 not simply to repac"age prior "nowledge, He thus

went a1out investigating his worldP his empirical argumentationproceeded from sensory e5perience with an emphasis on validation,He o1served in order to gain "nowledge and reported on hisdiscoveries =using e5pressions such as E% saw4F E% realiedF>, 3or himthere was no independent e5ternal standard, %n this way oheletsought to produce "nowledge that did not e5ist 1efore and in a senserelativied that "nowledge,'( But it would 1e diXcult to la1el evenohelet a scientic treatise,

Though it contains no scientic treatises4 the He1rew Bi1le doesinclude a num1er of statements that could serve as foundations for thedevelopment of a scientic outloo" regarding aspects of the universe,

a! enesis6 %n en )6)-'6*a od created an orderly universe in si5days, The entire account reRects a simple classication of entities, 3or

e5ample4 it divides 1etween the plants and the fruit trees andseparates the various "inds of 1eings into ones living in the waters4 inthe air4 and on the land, Also4 in its orderly approach4 the creative

); See Annette !, 0eed4 EF&as There Science in Ancient JudaismO Historicaland Cross-cultural 0eRections on 0eligion and Science4F ) 6 )


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b! 2ther passages regarding a sta1le created order6 The writer of

the .nochic wor" could have 1ased his assumption a1out theunchanging character of the natural order on another series ofscriptural passages4 although he is not as e5plicit a1out this as he isregarding his use of enesis ), 2ne is Jer


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denitions of the term, So4 for e5ample4 J, Ben-Dov writes that it is

Ethe systematic o1servation of natural phenomena in an attempt todescri1e their regularity and ma"e sense of the irregularities, Thisattempt involves a specialiation of "nowledge4 as well as the use ofearlier scientic corpora 1y way of translation or accommodation,F':

%n '((' $, Ale5ander4 in the conte5t of dealing with .nochic 1oo"lets4wrote that

we can identify science wherever we nd a strong

interest in understanding how the physical world wor"s4provided three simple conditions are fullled6 =)> Thereis an e5plicit or implicit assumption that nature isregular and is governed 1y immuta1le laws which areaccessi1le to the human mind, ='> An attempt is made toproduce a rational model of the physical world whichreduces the 1ewildering comple5ities of naturalphenomena to a small num1er of underlying primaryelements4 or to the operation of a small num1er offundamental laws, = .5plicitly or implicitly4 asignicant element of direct o1servation of the physicalworld is involved,';

Adopting aspects of denitions such as these4 it can 1e seen that

the material in ) .noch :'-;' may 1e called science,+! Systematic o1servation of natural phenomena that are assumed

to operate according to consistent laws accessi1le to humanunderstanding6 As noted a1ove4 a presupposition of .nochic thought isthat od has assigned the various parts of the created world speciclaws that they o1ey without e5ception =unli"e people>, The patternsfor the solar and lunar years do not change4 as sun4 moon4 and stars

always travel upon their assigned paths at the times prescri1ed forthem, Those patterns .noch learned from o1servation of phenomenaand perhaps from instruction in their patternsall directed 1y the

':

See his paper in the volume,'; E.noch and the Beginnings of Jewish %nterest in atural Science4F ''*,


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writing,


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*, E% &as Shown nother CalculationF =

,

אחרן

חשבון

אחז

i

>6 The Language of Knowledge in ramaic .noch

and $riestly He1rew

)

Seth L, Sanders

The science of apocalypticism can 1e dened as the e5actnumerical calculation of the end of time, %t is intended toprovide a1solute assurance to faith and hope, The scienceof apocalypticism4 which numerically calculates the whenof the .nd Time4 rests on the 1elief that Eeverything mustfulll its course out of inner necessity,F %t is the tas" ofthe seer to reveal this necessity, Jaco1 Tau1es'

The earliest "nown Jewish scientic wor" is4 pro1a1ly notcoincidentally4 also the rst "nown scientic wor" in Aramaic, This isthe Astronomical Book of .noch4 found at umran4 the oldestmanuscripts of which date to the 4


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%ts contents consist of a series of rules for the movement of the

heavenly 1odies and the increase and decrease of hours of light overthe course of the year4 presented as visions seen 1y the antediluvianpatriarch .noch during a tour of the universe conducted 1y the angel#riel,

But why is the oldest "nown Aramaic science presented to a Jewish patriarch during a heavenly 8ourneyO Ba1ylonian mathematicsand astronomy are generally considered 1y historians of science to 1e

the most highly developed empirical "nowledge in the ancient world,This paper attempts to shed some light on the peculiar way that thismost e5act of sciences was presented in the Levant6 as a set of mysticalvisions in an incipient Jewish apocalyptic literature,*

The paper will approach this 1road pro1lem narrowly6 1y placingthe Astronomical Book in the cultural conte5t of Hellenistic Judea andas"ing what one of the te5ts "ey linguistic patternsone heretofore

little-recogniedtells us a1out this conte5t, % ta"e as an a5iom thatthe role of social theory in philology is to frame interesting Muestionsthat the data are suited to answer, %n this case4 to understand whattype of "nowledge the Astronomical Book contains4 it may not 1e asuseful to as" Eis it science for usOF as it would 1e to as"4 Ewas i

Documents

(Institute for the Study of the Ancient World) Seth Sanders, Jonathan Ben-Dov, (Eds.) - Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in Second Temple Literature - NEW YORK