The way the Passover has been kept has varied through time and space. As befits a recurrence that has endured for thousands of years, its observation in the now remains under the protective shadow of the way it was observed – more precisely – the way it was textualized, in the past. Bible and tradition testify to the rite’s susceptibility to re-embedment through time. The selfsame contents of the rite have not been constant.
The Passover textualized in Exod 12:1-13, 21-27a, more precisely, a primitive nucleus thereof, reflects, on one hypothesis, the way a yearling from the flock was prepared and eaten with the blood thereof applied to lintel and doorposts in a springtime rite designed to ward off evil, before it was re-signified in terms of a paradigm of historical redemption, the exodus from Egypt; and before the rite was fused with maṣṣōt (Exod 12:16-21), a spring harvest festival tied to specific sanctuaries as presupposed in Deut 16:1-8 and – if the narratives are understood to historicize and “found” particular cultic practices, Num 9:1-15 and Josh 5:10-15. On this reconstruction, a properly narrativized and signified pesaḥ + maṣṣōt would not have taken place until the reign of Josiah, as 2 Kgs 23:21-24 suggests, or the reign of Hezekiah if 2 Chron 30:1-27 is more than a retro-projection of later realities (cf. Num 9:1-15).
On this hypothesis, Exod 12:1-28 is a textual weave incorporating material of early and late vintage, whereas Deut 16:1-8 reflects a single snapshot in the history of the rite, the programmatic shape pesaḥ + maṣṣōt was given, on paper if not in practice, by a reform movement during or not long before the reign of Josiah. Num 9:1-15 and 2 Chron 30:1-27 may reflect realities and issues of the late Iron II/early Persian and late Persian periods, respectively (see Chavel 2009). I await but have not yet seen Shimon Gesundheit’s Three Times a Year: Festival Legislation in the Torah. Forschungen zum Alten Testament, Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, forthcoming.
Following the destruction of the Temple, the Sages adapted the rite again. A meal centered on the consumption of an animal from head to toe became a simpler affair, with the unleavened bread the central element and symbol, and the focus on historical redemption past and future intact. The ecological and cosmological dimensions of Passover of earliest times wait, as it were, to be re-activated. I leave to one side the radical remaking of Passover within that peculiar Jewish sect known as Christianity: the Eucharist is the product of added value, but also of irreparable loss, though there is no reason why the Christian rite could not be “in-filled” with historic Passover content.
Exod 12:9 stipulates how to cook the Passover animal and what parts of the animal are to be cooked and consumed. It goes like this:
אַל־תֹּאכְל֤וּ מִמֶּ֨נּוּ֙ נָ֔א
וּבָשֵׁ֥ל מְבֻשָּׁ֖ל בַּמָּ֑יִם
כִּ֣י אִם־צְלִי־אֵ֔שׁ
רֹאשֹׁ֥ו עַל־כְּרָעָ֖יו וְעַל־קִרְבֹּֽו׃
It’s fun to compare the Hebrew with KJV:
9 Eat not of it raw,
nor sodden at all with water,
but roast with fire;
his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.
There are strange details in this translation, most if not all of which can be attributed to archaism.
NJPSV:
Do not eat any of it raw,
or cooked in any way with water,
but roasted – head, legs, and entrails – over the fire.
מבשל is translated as “cooked” rather than “sodden” or “boiled.” In light of patterns of use of Akkadian and Aramaic/Syriac cognates, evidence from the Septuagint, and a non-convoluted understanding of בשל in 2 Chron 35:13, I think that is correct. For a defense of “make ready, cook” as the generic meaning of בשל, go here. As soon as one thinks of בשל on its own as meaning “boil” – to be clear, that is its denotative reference in most biblical attestations - Deut 16:7 must be understood, not as a relaxation of an earlier restriction, like Deut 16:2 vis-à-vis Exod 12:5, but as a direct contradiction of Exod 12:9, with 2 Chron 35:13 imagined to set aside the normal meaning of בשל for the purposes of harmonization.
To be clear, Exod 12:3-13; Deut 16:1-8, and 2 Chron 35:1-19 differ in detail and cannot be harmonized except by transcending (i.e. suppressing) details of all three. Bernard Levinson has explored the issue, with Deut 16:1-8 as point of departure (1997; 2000). The passages concur that the Passover animal must be eaten cooked rather than raw, but differ on most everything else. Exod 12:9 and 2 Chron 35:13 concur that it must be cooked “in” a fire (suspended in air) rather than boiled in pots (filled with water) – Deut 16:7, on the contrary, does not so stipulate. Exod 12:8 stipulates that the flesh of the Passover animal is to be eaten (not during the day or the evening and not over several days but) in one night; that it be fire-roasted; and that unleavened bread along with bitter herbs be eaten with it. Exod 12:9 reiterates the stipulation that it be fire-roasted, with three alternatives listed and the prohibition of two serving to underline the permissibility of the last; the verse stipulates further that the animal’s head together with its lower legs and offal (not just the usual parts of the animal) be fire-roasted and consumed. Here are three loci the latter two of which seem to presuppose at least the nucleus of the first, with בשל translated in all instances with “cook.”
Exodus 12:9
Do not eat it raw,
or cooked (בשל) in water as far as cooking goes,
but fire-roasted,
including the head along with the lower legs and offal.
Deut 16:7
You shall cook (בשל) it and eat it in the place the LORD your God chooses to set his name on.
2 Chronicles 35:13
They [the Levites] cooked (בשל) the protective offering [juvenile caprovids: see 35:7] over fire according to custom; whereas they cooked (בשל) the hallowed offerings [bovines: see 35:7 again]) in pots and cauldrons and pans. And they ran them to all the people.
Harmonizing translations, for example, the Targumim, KJV, and NIV, gloss בשל with “roast” in Deut 16:7 and 2 Chron 35:13. But “roast” is not the denotative reference of בשל in Deut 16:7, much less its meaning – the intended sense is broader. My understanding of 2 Chron 35:13 is clear from my translation.
A word’s meaning and denotative reference are two different things. Meaning-to-meaning translation is richer, more susceptible to intertextual resonance. Denotative-reference-to-denotative-reference translation hides rather than reveals complexity. It is reductive.
Clarifying translations like KJV and NIV at Deut 16:7 sin against the complexity of the source text. NJPSV, ESV, and HCSB in that case – if in fact בשל means “prepare, cook” as I assume – respect it. But in that case, NJPSV, ESV, and HCSB are not similarly respectful at 2 Chron 35:13.
The translation of my dreams: a textual weave that plays up rather than plays down the complexity of the source text, the source text of interest consisting of the biblical text in its globality. On this understanding, a translation that obscures the (dis)harmonies of one tract of the biblical text with another is flawed in direct proportion to the extent to which it occults those very harmonies and disharmonies.
Bibliography
Simeon Chavel, “The Second Passover, Pilgrimage, and the Centralized Cult,” HTR 102 (2009) 1-24; Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Festival Legislation in the Torah (FAT, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming); Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 53-97; idem, The Hermeneutics of Tradition in Deuteronomy: A Reply to J. G. McConville,” JBL 119 (2000) 269-86, reprinted in “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 256-75 (with essential bibliography in the footnotes)
Interesting post, thanks.
RE: "A word’s meaning and denotative reference are two different things. Meaning-to-meaning translation is richer, more susceptible to intertextual resonance. Denotative-reference-to-denotative-reference translation hides rather than reveals complexity. It is reductive....The translation of my dreams: a textual weave that plays up rather than plays down the complexity of the source text."
RESPONSE: This statement seems to contradict the goal that you proclaimed when you argued for the desirability of rendering the noun איש ('ish) as "man." There you contended that it was best to err on the side of maintaining a one-to-one correspondence between Hebrew and English terms, even where the Hebrew text's meaning is rather different from how "man" is normally used in contemporary English. What about that?
Posted by: David E. S. Stein | December 08, 2010 at 01:09 PM
Hi David,
Thank you for commenting.
By analogy with the case of the verb בשל, it may in fact be helpful to err on the side of concordance and translate the noun איש ('ish) "man" not only when the denotative reference is, by intent, that of describing a male-gendered individual, as in "man of war" (a disputable case, I realize) or "man" as opposed to "woman," but also in the case of "Happy is the man."
If so, I see no contradiction.
The question as I see it is whether "man" in "happy is the man" comes across as sufficiently gendered and sufficiently generic at the same time - assuming that איש is both in the Hebrew. In differing proportions, the same may be the case for the expression "my son" in wisdom literature. We don't have any "my daughter" pericopes. Does that mean that daughters are not addressed, Punkt, in the literature? I think not. My own guess is that feminine readers were expected to hear themselves addressed "below the radar," and make whatever semantic adjustments were necessary on the fly.
A problem with the comparison is that often, איש is best considered a semantically empty placeholder rather than a verb or noun in the usual sense.
To the extent that it is a grammaticalized function word - I think you have argued along these lines, but I don't remember for sure - it doesn't have any meaning in particular, except to refer to a member of a class.
A very simple example of the kind of intertextual resonance concordant translation preserves, consider the following two expressions:
You are the man (ha-'ish).
Happy is the man (ha-'ish).
No intended allusion in either direction, but the resonance is real at the canonical level, if that makes any sense. But the resonance is erased in the absence of concordant translation.
I hope that clarifies. By all means, feel free to continue the conversation.
Posted by: JohnFH | December 08, 2010 at 02:50 PM
Re: "The question as I see it is whether 'man' in 'happy is the man' comes across as sufficiently gendered and sufficiently generic at the same time - assuming that איש is both in the Hebrew."
RESPONSE: There (e.g., Ps. 1:1), the use of איש does not specify that its referent be male, because the reference is not to a particular individual. (Whenever a “masculine” noun refers to a category of persons, the category is constrained only to being not SOLELY female. This linguistic fact is evidenced in multiple biblical cases: in stories where nouns are used in this way, female characters consider themselves to be included, and male characters likewise consider women to be included.)
Re: "in wisdom literature. We don't have any 'my daughter' pericopes."
RESPONSE: Yet Ruth 2:8, 22 do attest to the dispensing of advice and direction to a "daughter" by a sage elder figure, in a similar fashion to what is found in the wisdom literature. Does that perhaps seem like relevant evidence — that in practice, females were not excluded from consideration by wise elders?
Re: "My own guess is that feminine readers were expected to hear themselves addressed 'below the radar,' and make whatever semantic adjustments were necessary on the fly."
RESPONSE: That sounds right. As mentioned above with regard to איש, the way that wisdom literature employs the noun בן — even as a definite noun — does not specify that its referent be male, because the reference is not to a particular individual.
Re: "often, איש is best considered a semantically empty placeholder... a grammaticalized function word.... to refer to a member of a class."
RESPONSE: When the Bible uses איש to refer to a member of a class, this does not mean that it is a “grammaticalized” term. Rather, such usage arises naturally from that noun’s being a relational noun that indicates affiliation. When construed in that way throughout, it enriches the text’s meaning (see below).
Re: "consider the following two expressions:
You are the man (ha-'ish).
Happy is the man (ha-'ish).
...the resonance is real at the canonical level..."
RESPONSE: In the first case (2 Sam 12:7), the denotation of האיש is “the party” (to a recounted situation that is embedded in a pseudo-legal proceeding), and — as the continuation of the verse (and v. 8) make clear — its resonance is to three other attested senses of איש that pertain especially to King David: designated special agent in charge; leader; and householder extraordinaire. Those overtones pack a potent irony that turns Nathan's simple declaration into a pointed condemnation of the king.
True, here the reference is to a particular individual, which simply prevents Nathan from using a word that designates a female. That grammatical issue is beside the point; Nathan’s utterance is hardly attempting to establish David’s gender! Rather, once again, the significant semantic import of איש is relational.
In the second case (Ps. 1:1), the plain-sense denotation is likewise “party, participant,” but there the situation contributes no particular overtones. Unlike the case in Samuel, the reference is not to a particular individual, as noted above.
In neither case does the rendering “man” convey the semantic content of the Hebrew noun. It simply skips over the Hebrew word’s relational sense. If you truly want to show concordance between these instances, then use the rendering “party.”
So it seems to me.
Posted by: David E. S. Stein | December 10, 2010 at 11:29 AM
David,
Thanks for going back and forth on this. In your studies to date, I think you make as good a case as one might make that 'ish is free of gender overtones in many instances.
I remain convinced that in a phrase like "you are the man," in context, based on pragmatic considerations, 'ish is heard as gendered. That's because, if the addressee were feminine, we would have 'ishah.
On the other hand, this observation, if accurate, is compatible with the intratextual cross-referencing you ably note. It would reinforce them.
To take another example, I think "beni" at the onset of instructional pieces characterizes the default addressee as a male in need of instruction from an elder. A teacher-student setting is presupposed, with the potential of a familial setting being activated as well.
I see no evidence that the content of such pericopes are gender-neutral. Instead we find advice suited to males, not females, given. Since the units as a whole are gendered, it strikes me as an overgeneralization from other instances to suggest that "ben" in these instances is gender-neutral.
I am used to reading and speaking a language, Italian, in which the genderedness of a term like "uomo" can often heard even if, on many other occasions, or even at the same time, it is inclusive.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I read ancient Hebrew in similar fashion. If it could be shown that ancient Hebrew belongs to a distinct class of inflected languages, I would like to know what that class is, and set the study of these matters in a cross-linguistic context that includes them.
I want to conclude by thanking you, David, for investigating these matters with great acumen and tenacity.
Posted by: JohnFH | December 11, 2010 at 08:31 AM
Method and Lexicography
Only my friend and colleague John Hobbins would, as Christmas draws nigh, provide such an engaging blog on the Passover! Equally only John, serious and committed blogger, would invest so much care on a topic and "essay" (in the proper sense) that fully merits preparation and submission as an article or short scholarly note. Now, briefly, to the topic at hand.
Truth be told, the kind of issues that Ancient Hebrew Poetry so regularly engages, like matters of intertextuality and how it relates to historical biblical scholarship, are often poorly addressed in most of the standard lexica, which tend to be primarily synchronically arranged (although BDB is not). Similarly, in some cases contemporary Bible translations (including often the NJPSV), like their ancient counterparts (such as the Targumim, including the Syriac Peshitta) would approach their source text--the TaNaK--not with a diachronic view of the growth of text or language but with the view that it represents a coherent and self-consistent text. They would thus read the exegetical harmonization of the contradictory passover laws provided by 2 Chron 25 (as it harmonizes Exod 12 and Deut 16) as the {peshat} or literal meaning of the text and of the word {bashal}, not as an exegetical neologism inconsistent with the word's history. Ironically, then, the NJPSV (following the Targumim) then reads that impossible formulation of 2 Chron 35 ("boiled in fire") back into Exod 12: to come up, then, with the lame and neutral (or better, neutered) meaning: "cook."
The KJV does an excellent job of representing the original meaning of {bashal} in Exod 12:9, where the antithesis constructed by the autor is so specific, contrasting the two cooking mediums (fire/water) and the two corresponding methods of preparation (roasting/boiling).
Deuteronomy's inversion of those guidelines is part of its larger project of "normatizing" the Passover and transforming it into a conventional sacrifice to be performed at the new cultic center. On that basis, the method of boiling is used as the standard preparation technique.
Israelite authors, committed to linking new practices with ancient traditions, are fully capable of innovating in language and even in using language in unconventional ways, applying terms to unprecedented circumstances. That creativity and richness of language use is also something that standard dictionaries are often incapable of recognizing very easily, and where it is simply necessary to do the exegetical work, often on a case by case basis. I tried to show other examples of that in regard to Deuteronomy's use of terminology in Deut 12 (in Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation). Both Fishbane, in Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, and H. L. Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage
of Judaism, do an excellent job of reconstructing how the language of 2 Chron 35 is read back into Exod 12, in the various Second Temple witnesses to the biblical text (like the Targumim; and this would also have influenced the Septuagint translator).
Thank you for a stimulating post.
Posted by: Bernard M. Levinson | December 12, 2010 at 06:01 PM
Thank you, Bernard, for incisive comments.
Even if much of the Bible is written in a kind of hochhebraisch, a classical Hebrew of sorts, linguistic diachrony is visible to the trained eye. Would that a truly historical dictionary of the Hebrew language, from earliest times to the late Middle Ages, with proper citation of versional evidence, were available.
I ran across Chaim Cohen at SBL-Atlanta and asked him about his ongoing research on "Middle Hebrew" for HALOT. It's on its way, he reassured me. But will Cohen's approach be sufficiently alert to diachrony, not to mention salient differences within one and the same time horizon? That remains to be seen.
As for preparing this for a peer-reviewed venue, I would enjoying doing that if in fact I had a better idea of where Chavel and Gesundheit come down on the issues. I know who my ideal conversation partners are, in the case of a subject like this: the three of you but also Gertz and Otto, not to mention those who (1) specialize in the archaeology of sacrifice and those who (2) study ritual from anthropological and ethnographic perspectives.
It's about time the discussion took on a more interdisciplinary flavor.
Posted by: JohnFH | December 12, 2010 at 08:09 PM
I like to point out that the "yearling" is decidedly not a "lamb" but is a mature goat (or, they could alternatively use a mature sheep).
Also, "unleavened bread" was not "crackers" but rather Pita bread. In the NT, Paul refers to "purging out the old leaven to make a new lump" - which is not unleavened, just not unrisen. When cooked, it will have some "oven spring" and be quite yummy.
Posted by: WoundedEgo | January 09, 2011 at 05:50 AM
Thanks, WoundedEgo, for your comments.
I didn't know that "lamb" in English means a sheep less than a year old, but I take your word for it.
Pita bread is something quite different from the crackers I've had at Passover when invited by Jewish friends. In my opinion, the unleavened aspect - whether an original or secondary touch - fits better with the significance given to the meal in Exodus.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 09, 2011 at 06:12 AM