leaf of the Codex Ambrosianus B. Codex Ambrosianus S. 45 super
When I was a graduate student in Harvard’s department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in the 1990s, I was most fortunate to have studied Syriac with Dr. James F. Coakley. The nature of Dr. Coakley’s employment at Harvard was such that half of his job was to teach young NELCies like me Syriac; and for the other half, he was a librarian at Houghton Library, Harvard’s primary repository for rare books and ancient manuscripts. We had a small Syriac reading group, and Dr. Coakley, great teacher that he was, was eager to have us work on an actual Syriac manuscript. I was writing a dissertation on the book of Daniel at the time, and so it happened that Dr. Coakley, who was on my committee, “discovered” a Syriac manuscript deep in the belly of Houghton Library. The manuscript, Harvard Ms Syr 42 (formerly SMH 30), catalogued but not yet edited,[1] included a brief text, an apocalypse, attributed to Daniel that had not yet been translated into a Western language. Our reading group met a few times, and we read as far as we got. In 1997 I graduated, came to Rice, and decided, during my early years as an assistant professor, to edit and translate the Syriac text and publish what came to be known as the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel.[2]
I remember vividly that unique mixture of emotions while working with an unedited and unpublished manuscript. Most of all, there was that great thrill to work with an actual manuscript and to touch “the real thing.” When I came to Rice, I brought with me a black-and-white paper copy of the text.[3] How surprised I was when I returned to Houghton to take a last good look at the manuscript before I published my edition, only to find that the first words of the text were written in red ink (speaking of “rubricated titles”; see Invisible Manuscripts, 192). Second, I had a real sense of trepidation that, in spite of Dr. Coakley’s introduction, I had not received adequate training to work with manuscripts and thus felt that I simply didn’t have the necessary tools. And third and finally, I was concerned that, being the first Western scholar to work on this text, there was a high probability that I would miss something crucial, or worse, that my assessment of the text could be significantly off. What I really needed were some of those tools that are now available, and which you, Liv, list in footnote 43 of your General Introduction (Invisible Manuscripts, 14). To begin at the end, I desperately needed your next, forthcoming book, Working with Manuscripts, a guide for beginners like myself.[4] Alas, I had none of these tools.
You, Liv, are one of the great experts on 2 Baruch. We first met when you were putting the finishing touches on your first, 2008 book on 2 Baruch, The Other Lands of Israel.[5] Over the last 20 or so years, you have written a rather impressive number of critical studies, book chapters, reviews of scholarship, journal articles, and essays, all on 2 Baruch. Taken together, these studies neatly document the changes in your thinking—not just about the text of 2 Baruch itself but, more importantly, about how we ought to approach it. The present volume, Invisible Manuscripts, represents the culmination of your metamorphosis and stands as your most precise and thoughtful articulation—for which I am immensely grateful.
I consider the scholarly turn to the reception histories of the ancient texts, and especially the new interest in the lives of the manuscripts, the single most significant development in recent decades in the study of the texts that are traditionally called the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. I have learned a great deal from you, Liv, and from many of our colleagues. Thank you. But I also appreciate where my own thinking and vocabulary have yet to change and evolve further (here I think in particular of New Philology).
This has become especially apparent to me during my work as one of two volume editors of the Textual History of the Bible. Volume 2: The Deuterocanonical Scriptures.[6] The entire THB 2 project, which is fairly massive, depended on international experts like yourself, Liv, a contributor to THB 2[7]—not experts on the individual deuterocanonical books, but experts on the manuscripts in their diverse language traditions. We needed people who knew the manuscripts inside out, because only they were able to reconstruct the complex textual histories of the books; only they knew when and under which circumstances a given text was translated from one language into another, at times more than once, how the versions are related to each other, how the texts were transmitted, preserved, changed, combined with other texts during their transmission, and how they were, and are being used in liturgy and study.
Manuscripts matter. Manuscripts form the backbone of a text’s transmission history as well as of its history of reading. We thus ought to begin our study of any ancient text with a careful examination of the available manuscript evidence. And we ought to take seriously the lives of the manuscripts themselves. Today, I submit, not too many of our colleagues will dispute any of that. What we need to discuss and where our judgment might differ, however, is the place of this greater attention to the manuscripts in our study of the ancient texts. What exactly is the relationship between the study of the manuscripts and the study of the texts? What can, and can’t, the manuscripts tell us about the texts they preserve?
I begin with your masterful description of the Codex Ambrosianus in chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Invisible Manuscripts. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your very detailed description of the Ambrosianus and its transmission, and I will certainly refer to it often in my own writing. Your chapters are an excellent study of an important Syriac pandect. But a study of a manuscript is, of course, just that, a study of a manuscript, which, to say the obvious, is not the same as a study of the texts it contains. It is a study of, to use one of your preferred expressions, a “snapshot” in 2 Baruch’s transmission history (this becomes especially evident in chap. 2 of your book).[8]
There are a few minor issues where I might have some questions. For example, you write, “in the Syriac Christian context, 2 Baruch survives as an Old Testament book. All the extant manuscripts represent it as such—without exceptions … this is the only identification of 2 Baruch that is available to us through the surviving manuscripts” (Invisible Manuscripts, 265). Well, perhaps. I am not sure that there is sufficient evidence to support your hypothesis that 2 Baruch was actually considered part of the Old Testament by Syriac-speaking Christians. Lucas Van Rompay, who wrote the entries on “The Syriac Canon” and “The Syriac Texts” for THB 2, notes, “only a few of the deuterocanonical texts from the beginning had a firm status within the Peshitta tradition. These include Ben Sira and the Additions to Daniel. For most other books, our sources reflect a situation of uncertainty and questioning of their exact canonical status, a situation which is not limited to the deuterocanonical books.”[9] As you point out, 2 Baruch is not included in the Paris (8a1), Florence (9a1), and Cambridge (12a1) pandects. Moreover, the Ambrosianus also includes book six of Josephus’s Jewish War, which was hardly considered part of the Old Testament. All of this makes me wonder whether 2 Baruch really was considered a biblical book.
But the canonical status of 2 Baruch is not my main point. Rather, my point is that your analysis of the Ambrosianus says a lot about the function of 2 Baruch in this manuscript, which you describe carefully and convincingly. It says little, if anything, about 2 Baruch itself. A study of a manuscript is a study of a manuscript.
It is not only useful but, indeed, methodologically imperative to distinguish between 2 Baruch, a Jewish composition of the late first century CE, and its Syriac translation as preserved in the Ambrosianus. Here, I think you may be overstating your case when you write, “we must revisit the claim in scholarship that 2 Baruch is Jewish” (Invisible Manuscripts, 270). The question of how we can determine whether a text is Jewish or Christian has recently received a lot of attention, notably by James Davila.[10] Compared to other ancient Jewish writings, the case of 2 Baruch is actually not that complicated or disputed, for that matter, and the evidence of a late Second Temple period provenance is compelling. For example, 2 Baruch includes some references to the destruction of the Second Temple (2 Bar. 7:1–8:5; 32:2–4) that are critically important for determining its date of composition. The genre of the “historical apocalypse,” with its periodization of history and the motif of the interpreting angel, is, of course, well attested in early Judaism.[11] There are a number of literary motifs that are at home in early Judaism: the description of the heavenly throne room, for example (e.g., 2 Bar. 21:6–7; 48:9–10); the detailed account of the resurrection (2 Bar. 50:1–51:16), on which you have written;[12] the three messianic passages (2 Bar. 29–30; 39–40; 70–73); and a host of other literary motifs. 2 Baruch makes use of several sub-genres. The closest analogies to these literary forms of expression, for example to Baruch’s prayers or to the epistle at the end, again clearly come from the Jewish texts of the late Second Temple period.[13] There are also the significant similarities, including verbatim parallels, with 4 Ezra, a text we can date with some confidence to the late first century CE.[14] Together, all of these data points suggest that 2 Baruch originated as a Jewish book in the late first century CE and was subsequently picked up, translated, and used by Syriac-speaking Christians.
You write,
The manuscripts that preserve 2 Baruch are medieval, Christian manuscripts. They bear witness to the synchronous realities of medieval, Christian communities and their traditions. The extent to which these manuscripts and their copies of 2 Baruch are apt sources to an early Jewish writing is not a matter that should be taken for granted or an issue that should continue to pass under the radar in the manner that it has been allowed to so far. The burden of the proof in this matter falls not on me, though, but on the scholars who uphold the majority hypothesis. (Invisible Manuscripts, 272–73)
When considering whether a text is of Jewish or Christian origin, and when it was written, we need to take a variety of factors into consideration. The manuscript evidence is but one of these factors (and not the most helpful one, if only because the manuscripts, by definition, stem from a time long after the composition of the text). In the case of 2 Baruch, the cumulative evidence of all the data points overwhelming supports the hypothesis of a late first century CE origin.[15]
The same, commonly recognized phenomenon, the Christian transmission of ancient Jewish texts, or what you call “someone else’s manuscripts” (Invisible Manuscripts, 277), is, of course, true of any book of Israel’s Scriptures as well. Are the books of Deuteronomy or Isaiah or Daniel or the Psalms no longer part of Israel’s library when Christians engage with them (and engage they did)? You write that, based on the manuscript evidence, “the majority hypothesis” about the Second Temple provenance of 2 Baruch “can be neither verified or falsified” (Invisible Manuscripts, 272). Fair enough. But the manuscript evidence is hardly all we have to go on to make that call. By the same logic, can we really be certain that 1 and 2 Maccabees, or the writings of Josephus are Jewish, when, in fact, these texts are preserved in Christian manuscripts?
The reception history, or Wirkungsgeschichte of an ancient text is, of course, much larger than the history of its manuscripts. It is unfortunate that we know so little about what Syriac-speaking Christians thought about Baruch. Here I am thinking of the work that is now being done on Enoch in the Ethiopic tradition, where we are beginning to learn much more.[16] By comparison, we know fairly little about Baruch and his books in Syriac Christianity. My suspicion, and you hint at this, is that we wouldn’t necessarily like what we’d find out: a Christian supersessionist reading of a Jewish text that would strike many modern readers as deeply problematic.
Let me return to my original question. There is no doubt that we need to pay greater attention to the manuscripts themselves as artifacts and not simply use them as windows into the late Second Temple period. This necessarily leads to the question: What exactly can the manuscripts tell us about the texts they have preserved? Reading through Invisible Manuscripts, I notice that you spend fairly little time with the text of 2 Baruch itself. In Invisible Manuscripts, a close reading of the manuscripts has meant that you are turning away from a close reading of 2 Baruch. This to me is one of the most significant, if not the most significant change in your work on 2 Baruch over the last 20 years. While I see the gain, I also see the loss.
I notice this because of my own work on 2 Baruch. As you well know, I am currently at work on a commentary, which means that I have to deal with the multiple lives of 2 Baruch myself. In my own reading I have found it to be most productive to distinguish between three contexts of 2 Baruch. The first context is the Hebrew Bible, the great precursor text. There is hardly a verse in 2 Baruch that does not allude to, and engage with Israel’s Scriptures in one form or another. This engagement includes, most obviously, 2 Baruch’s protagonist, the book’s biblical storyline, its main locations and characters, its language and literary expressions, which are all borrowed directly from Israel’s Scriptures. The second context is the rich literature of the Second Temple period. As I already mentioned, there is a wealth of subgenres and literary motifs in 2 Baruch that are not biblical but are at home in early Judaism. These are most profitably read in tandem with other early Jewish texts. And then there is the third context, Syriac Christianity. Ever so often, I come across a particular Syriac phrase, a peculiar expression for which I cannot find an example in the Peshitta. A quick search in the Thesaurus Syriacus reveals that the same expression was also used by the Syriac Fathers.[17] This suggests that the phrase is post-biblical. Unsurprisingly, we hear the voices of the Syriac translators in the wording of their text. To me, these three contexts—the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish literature, and Syriac Christianity—coexist in the text as it is preserved in the Codex Ambrosianus, they are complementary: each context is responsible for, and illumines different aspects of 2 Baruch. When writing about how scholars have traditionally read 2 Baruch, you often use language of “favoring” or “privileging” either the Jewish or the Christian 2 Baruch. Perhaps it does not have to be an either … or. What you have taught us is that the Syriac reception history deserves more attention. But that increased attention, it seems to me, does not have to, and should not come at the expense of a close reading of the text itself.
Thank you again, Liv, for a wonderful and urgently needed study on the textual history of the book we both love so very much.
[1] Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, Syriac Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library: A Catalogue, Harvard Semitic Studies 23 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979), 54.
[2] The Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel: Introduction, Text, and Commentary, STAC 11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001).
[3] Today, our work with manuscripts benefits immeasurably from digital data bases. And still, there is nothing like working with, and touching the actual manuscript in the reading room. The sentiment is captured well by Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Manuscript Research in the Digital Age,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Fifty Years of the Pseudepigrapha Section at the SBL, ed. Matthias Henze and Liv Ingeborg Lied, EJL 50 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019), 231–62, 58–59.
[4] Liv Ingeborg Lied and Brent Nongbri, Working with Manuscripts: A Guide, New Haven: Yale University Press (announced on Twitter August 23, 2021).
[5] Liv Ingeborg Lied, The Other Lands of Israel: Imaginations of the Land in 2 Baruch, JSJS 129 (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
[6] Frank Feder and Matthias Henze, eds., Textual History of the Bible. Volume 2: The Deuterocanonical Scriptures, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2019–20).
[7] Liv Ingeborg Lied, “2.2.2 Greek,“ and „2.2.3 Syriac,“ in Textual History of the Bible. 2B (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 45–46 and 46–53.
[8] Liv Ingeborg Lied and Hugo Lundhaug, eds., Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology, TUGAL 175 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017).
[9] Lucas Van Rompay, “Syriac Texts,” in Textual History of the Bible. 2A (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 376–97, 376.
[10] James R. Davila, Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other?, JSJS 105 (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
[11] John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. Third Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 5–11.
[12] Liv Ingeborg Lied, “Recognizing the Righteous Remnant? Resurrection, Recognition and Eschatological Reversals in 2 Baruch 47–52,” in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, ed. Turid K. Seim and Jorunn Økland, Ekstasis 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 311–36.
[13] Matthias Henze, “Prayer in 2 Baruch,” in Petitioners, Penitents, and Poets: On Prayer and Praying in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Timothy J. Sandoval and Ariel Feldman, BZAW 524 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 199–217.
[14] Lydia Gore-Jones, When Judaism Lost the Temple: Crisis and Response in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, Studia Antiqua Australiensia 10 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020).
[15] For a dissenting voice, see Martin Goodman, “The Date of 2 Baruch,” in Revealed Wisdom: Studies in Apocalyptic in Honour of Christopher Rowland, ed. John Ashton, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 88 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 116–21, who concludes that “it is wisest to include its date of composition among the things we do not know and to allow for the very real possibility that it was composed before 70 CE” (p. 120).
[16] I am thinking of the presentation by Sofanit Abebe, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, during the Enoch Seminar on Apocalypticism in May 2021, on the Ethiopic reception history of 1 Enoch.
[17] R. Payne Smith, S. T. P., Thesaurus Syriacus, 2 vols. (Oxonii: E Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1879–1901; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1999).