daniel boyarin, after the sabbath (2001)

8/13/2019 Daniel Boyarin, After the Sabbath (2001)

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' A F T E R T H E S A B B A T H ' ( M A T T . 2 8:1 )O N C E M O R E I N T O T H E C R U X *

M A T T H E W 2 8 :1 r ead s : 'Otfie he oafifiartov rfj eTncputoKOvor) elsoafifiaTcuv. This verse has caused problems for interpreters . Logi-cally, it ought to mean 'at the end of the Sabbath, as the first dayof the week was beginning', i .e. , as a reference to nightfall . Theproblem is, of course, that the verb errKpcuaKovarj means 'dawning ' ,and seemingly refers to the morning. As P. Gardner-Smithphrased the problem in an ar ticle published in this jou rna l , 'T h eproblem is plain; oifie oaflfZaTcov should mean towards sunset onS a t u r d a y e v e n i n g , a n d rfj eTncpaxjKovaj] els fj- iav oaf$fia.Twv s h o u l dmean towards sunr ise on Sunday morning '1 . The verse has beena crux and much discussed in the li terature, mostly, i t wouldseem, in the Journal of Theo logical Studies. I wish in this com m u-nication to bring sufficient evidence to support one of the extantphilological solutions so as to tip the scales in that direction.

In 1913, in the pages of this jou rna l, C. H . Tu rn e r insistedcorrectly, contra Kirsopp Lake, that the verse and its cognates,

to which I will refer below, must mean 'nightfall ' or 'evening', buthe had no philological solution to the lexicographical problem.2

F. C. Burkitt, in the same year and also in the Journal ofTheological Studies, unfortun ately further confused the issue,although his article can be said to have pointed the way towarda solution as well. B urk itt 's arg um en t, essentially, was that theterm kmqxiiOKeiv is a caique on th e S yriac and Aram aic TW J,which though having a root meaning of 'br ight ' , neverthelessrefers to the evening. He claims that the term refers to the

evening star, which is indeed referred to as mil, ' the brightone'. Burkitt is correct, I think, in suggesting a Semitic substra-tum for this phrase, but there will be a serious problem tobridge the gap from the east Aramaic Syriac usage to the usageof Palestinian Greek writers such as Matthew.

I wish to thank Chava Boyann for advice on points of Greek syntax andanonymous readers for the JT S for saving me from some em bar rassi ng gaffes

1 P Gard n e r-Sm i th , Em


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N O T E S A ND S T U D I E S 679In 1926, in the article referred to above, P. Gardner-Smith took

a step backward.3 His premise was that there were two extantsolutions to the problem, one that distorts the meaning of the

second phrase to have it refer to Saturday evening, and onewhich makes 'Oifik 8k oaflflaTwv mean 'a time wh ich we shou ldcall the early hours of Sunday morning', an equally improbablesolution. He accordingly suggested that radical surgery on thetext was indicated. He argues that Matthew copied and combinedparts of two different verses from Mark:

16 I Kai Siayevo/xevov TOV oafifiaTov Mapia T) MaySaX-qvr) Kal Mapla f) TOV/axuijSou Kal EaXw^i-q rjfiopaoav apw/xaTa Iva kXdovoai aXeiifiwoiv avTov 2. Kal

Xiav npwl TTj fiia TUIV oaflfiaLTiav epxovTai kn l TO fjLvrjfxelov avaTeiXavros TOV TjXiov

According to Gardner-Smith, the scribe who rewrote Mark inorder to create Matthew performed the following set of actions.F i r s t h e s u b s t i t u t e d otpk 8k oafiPaTcov f or M a r k ' s Siayevopevov TOVoa.fifia.Tov, 'a change which made no difference to the sense'.However, perhaps after having written Mark's verse, he decidedto leave out the women's action in bringing the spices. Accord-ingly he erased the first verse and went on to verse 2, 'paraphras-in g Xiav Trptol rfi filq TOJV aafifiaTcuv q u i t e c o r r ec t l y a s TTJ krncpaiaKovarjels \dav oafSf3aTcui>' H e t h e n s im p ly, 'f o rg o t to e r a s e oifjk 8k oafifia.Ta>vwhich he had already written, and the result is the impossible otfik8k oafipaTiuv rfj kTn(pojaKovarj els ft'iav aaj3 j3aTtov'. G a r d n e r - S m i t hgoes on to confound the issue further by claiming that Luke23 ' 5 4 . which clearly refers to the beginning of the Sabbath as well,is an interpolation, and that eTreu>8Kev was used because 'the inter-pola tor lived at a tim e wh en M t. xxxvni 1 had influenced the u se

of the word, and in Christian circles it was commonly used asm eaning "d raw on ". . . .T h u s an accident perhaps led to a newmeaning being given to a Greek word. ' This is the philologicalequivalent of a m otorway pile-up .

The simplest solution would be one that would enable bothLuke and Matthew to be aware of a Greek usage for this verb thatrefers to the evening, the time of the beginning of the next day.The latest and arguably most definitive scholarly commentaryon Matthew, however, still claims that Sunday morning is being

unsettled or even lean against the translation-Greek solution, it seems that it is notsuperfluous to bring more evidence and philological precision from the Hebrewside to bear on the question.

5 Gardner-Smith, lEni0QKEIN\

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680 N O T E S A ND S T U D I E Sspoken of in Matt . 28: i .6 Moreover, the suggest ion of Burkit twhich, for all its flaws, points the way to a solution, has recentlybeen ostensibly totally discredited in a wo rk by N od et an d

Taylor that is l ikely to mislead many,7

particularly as the solutionis dependent on subtleties of rabbinic philologyIn my opinion , Burkit t is essentially correct . W e have Semit ic

translation Greek here (or a Semitic caique in Palestinian koine,which amounts , for our purposes, to the same thing). I t seemsworthwhile, therefore, to establish this point at some length viaexamination of some early Palestinian rabbinic texts, for theyshow that there is a Semitic usage that provides a much betterVorlage for the unusual Judaeo-Greek usage than the Syriaccognate offered by Burkitt.

In dismissing Burkitt 's solution that the miracle was in theevening, immediately fol lowing the Sabbath, Nodet and Taylorwr i t efol lowing Gardner-Smi ththat 'The verb enefpcjoKevdesignates very naturally in Matt. 28:21 the first l ight of dawnOntP before sun r ise . . . . T he mean ing in Luk e, according to whichthe Sabbath begins in the evening, is certainly secondary) ' . Theybased their rejection of Burkitt 's solution that the verb here isa caique on the Aramaic and Syriac Ti l l 'b r ightening ' meaningevening, by claiming that the Syriac word 'normally refers to thedawn, but, in the context of the Passover, mean[s] the evening(b Pes. 2a -4a ) ' . Th ey claim, m oreove r, th at ' this dis tortion [ ]does not proceed from any ambiguity in the terms, but froma change of calendar, originally the reference was to the morning,or at least the day'.

T he re is hard ly a word of th is unsu ppo r ted presum pt ion thatwill stand the light of day, or even the light of the evening star,

as a philological survey will make clear. There are two othercloser usages in Semit ic (Hebrew and Aramaic) which makeperfectly clear what I believe the background to the unusual

to have been . W hile the Syriac usage of Til l m ay

6 W . D Davies and Dale C All ison, Jr, A Critical and Exegettcal Commentaryon the Gospel According to Saint Ma tthew, Internationa l Cri tical Com me ntaries(E din bu rgh : T & T C lark, Vol 3, 1997), p 663

7 W ho , mo reover, follow G R. D rive r in yet ano ther article in JTS on thissubject , to wit , G R Driver, 'Tw o Problem s in the New Te stam en t ' , JTS 16(1965), pp 327-31 , in assum ing that M atth ew indicates a calenda r in whichSabbath runs from dawn to dawn.

8 E t i e nne N ode t and Jus t in T ay lo r, The Origins of Christianity AnExploration (Collegeville, M inn . T h e Litur gical P ress, Michael Glazier, 1998),p 50, n 148

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NOTES AND STUDIES 681

or may not be ambiguous, as we shall see, the Hebrew and JewishAramaic usage of NITim/TIN most certainly is not.

First of all, there may be no question whatever that XHIIX

'light', in talmudic Aramaic means evening and nothing butevening 9 The following example among literally dozens thatcould be cited will be sufficient.

31 rr1? nax .[nman r>s ny natx rm rr -i] anyn iv nman)jm "rain m m ' 'ana naVn sons an nax nnn :pn:r an 1?-ins / T O *6i rr 1? nax NVI J?TIBPN ra xan .n 'mo xn- DV myaa nac; anya nac; Vw 'Vsa a n a ,ps 'Tm :N"ron anr?sa Yin sV pam xrin a-na ,n am x .m ir r ana naVn nra ynanx XVT snn imin*1 ana naVn ^N ni a vac? ,NmiN

.nay -naa naym ,nay - naa nayn ,naa sbi naa N

The afternoon prayer may be said until the evening; [Rabbi Yehudasaid until the middle of the af ternoon]: Rav Hisda said to Rav Yizhaq:In another place Rav Kahana said that the law is like Rabb i Ye huda, sincethe best traditions follow him; here w hat is the case?H e was silent and did not say anything to him.Rav Hisda said let me figure this for myself. Since Rav used to pray theevening prayer for the Sabbath on Friday afternoon when it was still day,we can derive that the law is like Rabbi Yehuda [i.e., that one may not

say the afternoon pray er until the evening, since Rav said his eveningprayer in the late afternoo n and if it were still possible to say the afternoonprayer then, there would be a self-contradiction]T h e oppo site reasoning should be adopted Since Rav H u n a and all of theother Rabbis would not pray [the evening prayer] until evening [S f imN],we can learn that the law is not like Rabbi Yehuda1

(Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 27a)

This example is sufficient to demonstrate that in that dialect ofAramaic at least, XJimX 'the light', is the ordinary and everydayword for evening, and never means anything else. This is so muchthe case that when the Talmud wishes to argue the point that inrabbinic Hebrew (which is more relevant to our case here) 'light'also means evening, the word KDmN is the word used to makethis point. Let us see this case as well:

,nu?y nyanxV m ypTia n a i s m irr 'an , 'a 'rrnix j'p*na nrirr 'an naxpna ,m'an nywai ,rrnn

.nra yaw win xnms TIN Na?N rrnn nwy nyanx ai ~ws

9 Contrary to the claim of Nodet and Taylor ad loc that 'NnTlN normally refersto the dawn, but, in the context of Passover meanfs] evening', NmiN in talmudicAramaic always and in all contexts means evening, as Moore already correctlypointed out in 1905

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682 NOTES AND STUDIES

They have answered Rabbi Yehuda saysOne searches [for leaven] at the light [ 1N] of the fourteenth, and onthe fourteenth in the morning, and at the time of burning. SinceRabbi Yehuda says that we search at the light of the fourteenth andon the fourteenth in the morning, therefore 'light' [TIN] means evening

(Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 2b)

As I have said, this text demonstrates two things First of all,it demonstrates that it is so clear in Babylonian Aramaic thatthe word NmiX, 'light' means 'evening', that it is used to simplygloss Hebrew T1X as meaning 'evening' in an argumentativesetting. Secondly, it does provide fine philological proof for thisinterpretation, for if Rabbi Yehuda said that the leaven is

examined at three occasions: On the ? of the fourteenth, on themorning of the fourteenth, and at the hour of burning [later in themorning of the fourteenth], then ? must be the evening.

Finally, this meaning is attested in at least two other tannaiticpassages that have nothing whatever to do with Passover. Thesubject is, unfortunately, a less than congenial one:

77n ivo pipr\ p poiD wow rra IHNI DMQW1? TIN n7Snova mNi wvmh TIN NIP 'NO "W OE; ira? 77n rra TTON a^a^na

rP3 DH7 1T0N p lj?7 17 W N7 nN1B7 17 H12? DN HINT WVyi}W TW ruwa nx:r pw -mNi winy nv nbDaa omax DN N1? was;HNS"1 N7 inNi o^aw? TIN nVoaa iTONn pip na H^nb m m

pip na ican? m m N na? nstaOne who aborts a foetus at the light [7 ^1N] of the eighty-first. BethShammai release her from a sacrifice and Beth Hillel require it BethHillel said to Beth Shammai' What is the difference between 'at the light',[i.e., in the evening of the eighty-first], and the day of the eighty-first'If they are identical for purposes of impurity, shall they not be identical

for purposes of sacrifice5

Beth Shammai responded to them. No. If youwere to say that if she aborts during the day of the eighty-first [shewould indeed bring a sacrifice], for then the foetus came out at an hourwhen she may bring a sacrifice, will you [then] say that this is true[even] if she aborts in the evening [7 H1N] of the eighty-first, whenthe foetus did not come out at an hour when it is fit for her to bringa sacrifice? (Mishna Kentot i-6)

The argument is based on the notion that for the first eighty daysafter conception, the embryo is not an embryo but only 'water',and, therefore, a miscarriage does not confer a requirement on themother to sacrifice. However, a miscarriage following the eighti-eth day does require such a sacrifice. The mother has miscarriedin the evening following the eightieth day Beth Shammai say thatshe does not need to bring a sacrifice, as sacrifices are only broughtby day, and since the miscarriage took place in the evening before

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N O T E S AND S T U D I E S 683the possible obligation to br ing the sacrifice became active, shewas not yet ob ligated and therefore is free of the sacrifice. Theirlast sentence consists of a fairly typical form in midrash in whicha rhetorical question disputing the reasoning of an opponent isoffered, Beth Shammai arguing here that there is no analog y froma miscarriage in the mo rning when the sacrifice is already possibleand obligatory to a miscarriage in the evening when the sacrificecould not yet be brought . This is a particula rly significant exam -ple, for it indicates that early in the rabbinic per iodperhaps ata time not far off from the t ime w hen the Gospel of Mat thew wasproduced7 TIN, 'at the light of , unambiguously meant theevening and only the evening. Had it had even the slightest

possibility that it meant morning, the entire text would be totallyincomprehensible , and it is impossible in this context to imaginethat it originally meant 'the morn ing ' and an ad hoc change inpractice led to the new meaning, as Node t and Taylor argue forSyriac Ti l l and by im plication for Hebrew 7 "TIN.

Now with respect to the Passover itself: Th e BabylonianTa l m u d (Pesahim 3a) in its a t temp t to prove that i"lS?mX7 TIN"1tPS7, 'at the light of the fourteen th ' , m eans that on the eveningof the fourteenth one searches for the leaven, cites this Mishnafrom Kentot as absolute proof for their case, and to my taste atleast, their philology is absolutely sound. There is no other wayto interpret 'at the light of in this context.

Here is the text of the Ta lm ud wi th its further proofs, w hichI take to be conclusive:

nva iruo wivys TIN xvs ">Na


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N O T E S A N D S T U D I E S 6 8 5prayer he prays seven and confesses; in the afternoon prayer he praysseven and confesses, and in the evening prayer eighteenIt follows that 'th e light o f is the even ing. Q E D .And indeed we have learned this explicitly [in a parallel passage]: TheTanna of the House of Shmuel says: On the night of the fourteenth,one examines the leaven by the light of the candle.Therefore [when the Mishna says] 'the light of the fourteenth' it meansthe evening also, and in fact, there is no disagreement on this matterEach R abbi used the dialect of his own place In the place of Rav H un a,

I 1

the night is called Ti l l and in the place of Rav Yehuda, it is called J1717The Talmud finishes its demonstration that there are severalplaces in the Mishna in which 'at the light of a certain day means

at the evening of that day, when the day begins according toJewish law from time immemorial (cf. Lev. 23.32 with referenceto Yom Kippur), by demonstrating that it is explicitly thecase in a parallel text to the Mishna that the time for examiningthe leaven is defined as the night-time, and, since there is noreason to assume a difference of custom, this must be what theMishna means as well. They then conclude the entire case bysaying that, in fact, there is only one opinion on this subject. Oneof the authorities who glossed the Mishna's 'at the light of to

mean 'night ' , used the term current in his dialect of Aramaic for'night ' , the normal ^/"v, while the other used a dialectal termT1SJ, 'brightening/shining', which in his dialect means night aswell (and this term is otherwise well attested in this sense as well;indeed it is precisely the Syriac attested by Burkitt).1 0

There is thus ample proof that in archaic rabbinic Hebrew 'atthe light of would only and always mean the beginning ofthe day at sunset, considered perhaps a brightening of the sky,a shining, and thus the term 'the lightening of for sunset. Via acombination of usage of the comparative resources of their ownSemitic language and their very close philological reading of theMishna, the talmudic scholars have reconstructed what is compel-ling evidence that the phrase 'at the dawning of meant preciselythe beginning of the day in the evening in Palestinian spokenHebrew (and perhaps in Palestinian Aramaic as well). TheSyriac phrase attested by Burkitt fits this idiomatic usage aswel l . Mat thew's k-nkywoKev means just what he says it means.

Since this usage was apparently an archaism by the time of the

W e can now suggest that the amb iguity in Syriac migh t also be a differenceof dialects with som e Syriac dialects, like some Jewish A ram aic ones , using the termT113 to mean nigh t, either as a eup hem ism or as a reference to the evening star

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686 N O T E S A ND S T U D I E Stalmudic writers themselves, my assumption is that it belongs toa relatively ancient stratum of the Hebrew we call rabbinic,which is not an artificial language but the Hebrew spoken at the

time of the Evangelists.11

It seems to me highly plausible, there-fore, that in the very semitically tinged Greek spoken and writtenby Syro-Palestinian Jews, the Greek word had taken on the mean-ings of its Hebrew equivalent, particularly in the context of thefixed technical usage having to do with the onset and outgoing ofthe Sabbath. There is no reason in the world, therefore, paceNodet and Taylor, to assume from this usage that the Sabbathever began in the morning.

The fact that Luke refers to the beginning of the Sabbath inv. 54 indicates that he is referring to what we would describe asthe evening of the Friday, and this supports the point that I ammaking. On the other hand, Luke then seems to get into a muddleby referring to the preparation of the spices in v. 56 apparentlyafter v. 54a mistake that was apparently spotted by thescribe of M S D , who am ended the verse to read: rjv 8e rj 7)fiepa rrpo

T h e assu m ption that translation G reek is to be found inMatthew is supported as well by the terms 'Oifie 8k aa^arw v,which is Hebrew fOl^ "'NSIft, ' the outgoing of the Sabbath', aspointed out by M oore, and fxiav oafifiaTcuv, half a simple loanfrom H eb re w , half a caique on r Q t P l TflK for the first day ofthe week 14

" A read er for the jfTS asks if my suggestion is 'tha t earlier Jew ish P alestinianAramaic had the same usage as the talmudic, and did that influence both talmudicHebrew and the New Testament Greek? ' This seems to presuppose that Hebrewwas not spoken in the time of the evangelists, a highly questionable assumption inthe light of current research and settled seemingly definitively by the Bar Kochbaletters in which it is clear that a dialect of Hebrew, very similar to that of theMishna, was spoken and written in Palestine at that time, Mireille Hadas-Lebel,L'hebreu, 3000 Arts d'Histoire (P ans A M iche l, i


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N O T E S A N D S T U D I E S 687The meaning here is exactly identica l to Gospel of Peter 9 :35,

which can only be t ranslated: 'No w in the n ight [PUKTI] in whichthe Lord ' s day da w ne d . , there rang out a loud voice inheaven' , preserving a tradition similar to that of Mat th ew inwhich a m iracle took place imm ediately with the end of theSabbath at n i g h t . '3 Th i s mus t , of course, be at n ight , becausethey go to wake the centur ion and the elders . The successionof events there is clearly the morn ing of the Sabbath (v. 34),Saturday n ight , 'in which the Lo rd ' s day d awn ed ' (v. 35), andthen at 12-50, 'Early in the morn ing of the Lo rd ' s Da y ' . In thesame text, in chapter 2, fur thermore, we find knel KCLI oafifiaroveTTupwoKizL, which can only m ean 'since the Sabbath is falling',

for it explains why the Jews would have buried Jesus before nig ht-fall, since it is w r i tten in the To rah that the sun may not set ona slain man. Moreover, we find in Luke 23-54: /cai rj^iepa TJVirapaoKevrjs KCLI aafifiaTov hrrkcpiooKev ( = an d it was t he day of p r e -paration [i .e. , Friday] and the Sabbath was dawning), where surelyno-one doubts (except apparently Kirsopp Lake and G R. Dr iverwho seem to have thou ght that the Jews observed the Sabbathfrom the morn ing and p repared for it all night) that it is theevening that is referred to. T his usage is thu s well attested in

Jewish Greek and entirely unknown from non-Jewish Greek texts .I think that if the rabbis had known these Juda eo-G reek texts theywould have cited them in suppor t of their own interpreta t ion ofthe Mishna .1 7 Indeed, they would have been presumably lesspuzzled at the mishn aic usage itself, unders tanding that the verbrefers to the 'b reaking th rou gh ' or ' dawning ' of a new day,whether that happens at evening, as in the traditiona l Jew ishcalendar, or at m o r n in g .1 8

sense in Greek In any case, the meaning is clear and the supposition ofloan-translation seemingly unassailable, as noted by W D Davies and Dale CAllison Jr , Matthew, In ternat ional Cri tical Com mentary (Edinburg h T & T Clark,Mj88), vol 3, p 663

15 Tu r n e r , 'The Gospel of Peter ' , p i8y16 See also M atthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts

(Oxford' Oxford University Press, Clare ndon , i y6 "3) , p 13717 As Burkitt show s, Ep iphan ius (Panar lxxi 2) still knew that Jew s use the

verb to mean the t ime at the end of the Sabbath , the beginning of Sunday18 The etymology of the Hebre w-A ramaic usage is still a crux Jastrow in his

dictionary suggests that the root meaning of TIN is to 'break thro ugh ' or someth ingof the like, othe rs have sug gested the appearance of Venus as the refe rent, stillothers (the great medieval philologist, Rabbi A braham Ibn Ezra) suggest a fairlytypical sort of Semit ic euphem ist ic usage W hatever the ultimate solution to theetymology, the semantics are simply not in question See a lso Gustaf Da lman ,Arbeit und Sitte in P alastina (repr Hildeshe im Ge org Olm s, 1964), p 641

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688 N O T E S A ND S T U D I E SIn short, on philological grounds, the first verse of Mat thew 28

is in perfect H ebrew , just hap pen ing to have been translatedvirtually word for word into Gree k, a nd, on that assump t ion , iseasily translated: 'at the end of the S abba th , at the beginning ofthe first day of the week' . I would be inclined to unders tand Mark16:2 as a misunders tand ing of a Sem it ic idiom that M atthe wunderstood well (or at least translate d li terally).1 9

DANIEL BOYARIN

19 See also J M . W in ge r, 'W h e n Did the W omen Vis it th e To m b ? ' NewTestament Studies 40 (1004), pp 2S4-S

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, Matthew, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford OxfordUniversi ty Press, Clarendon , 19673)

Burkit t , F. C , 'Om

daniel boyarin, after the sabbath (2001)

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