Midrash and the letter of Barnabas.

Abstract

A pseudonymous text of the Jewish Jesus movement of the late first century CE, the letter of Barnabas is a polemical treatise attacking Judaism. Yet the author was also clearly fascinated with Judaism and repeatedly refers to the Hebrew Scriptures in the letter, sometimes in ways that scholars (e.g. Windisch, Prigent, Kraft) have suggested may reflect the ancient Jewish tradition of biblical interpretation known as midrash. In this paper the conclusions of such scholars are tabulated and shown to be tentative. Moreover, it is argued that by demonstrating similar motifs between Barnabas and Jewish midrashic literature (especially the Mishnah), it becomes more plausible to identify midrash in the letter of Barnabas.

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The letter of Barnabas is a pseudonymous text dating from the late first century or early second century CE (Treat: 613-14). Its popularity in antiquity is attested by its inclusion in one of the early codices of the Christian Bible, Sinaiticus, though ultimately it was excluded from the Christian canon. The text itself is not so much a letter as a polemical treatise advocating the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. That is, the letter of Barnabas is an example of the "adversus Iudaeos" tradition within early Christianity (Williams; Ruether: 117-23; Limor & Stroumsa; Fredriksen: 37-38, 61-62).

Based on ancient evidence and also the work of several contemporary scholars I have recently argued that the term Christian should strictly speaking be applied only to the movement of followers of Jesus after the so-called "parting of the ways" from Judaism, when the church had definitely established its own separate theological and institutional ethos (Hegedus). (On the notion of the "parting of the ways" see Dunn 1991; Dunn 1992; Lieu; Becker & Reed: 1-32.) The date of the letter of Barnabas suggests that it is to be viewed in the context of the early Jesus movement, which was still a part of Judaism before the "parting of the ways." Indeed, despite the letter's anti-Jewish polemic the author of Barnabas was clearly fascinated with Judaism and makes frequent reference to the Hebrew Bible, sometimes coming up with ingenious interpretations of the biblical text, which numerous scholars have identified as midrash.

The identification of midrash in the letter has been a trajectory within modern source critical analysis of the letter of Barnabas beginning with the pioneering study of Hans Windisch, who related the midrashic elements of the text to the final chapters of the letter, which contain material he termed "Didachestoff" because of its similarities to another text of the early Jesus movement, the Didache (or Teaching of the Twelve Disciples), which is roughly contemporary with Barnabas (Windisch: 410). Among more recent scholars who have also discerned the presence of midrash in the letter of Barnabas are L. W. Barnard, Adalbert G. Hamman, Pierre Prigent, and Robert A. Kraft. Yet while the claims of scholars regarding midrash in the letter of Barnabas are intriguing, they are by no means conclusive: the tentative nature of such claims needs to be given more emphasis in the scholarly literature. In the present paper (an earlier version of which was presented at the Fourteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 31 July-4 August 2005), I also contend that methodologically the identification of midrash in the letter of Barnabas is more convincing if and when similar elements are found within other ancient Jewish midrashic literature.

The findings of the various scholars who have worked on the topic of midrash in Barnabas may be tabulated as follows:

* Windisch, 1920: 409: Barnabas 6.8-19; 11.6-11; 15.1-7; 16.6-10.

* Barnard 1959; Barnard 1993: Barnabas 4 ("a good example [of midrash] is chapter 4").

* Prigent 1961: Barnabas 6.8-19; 7.2-11; 8.2-7; 10.6-8, 11; 11.1-10.

* Dahl 1968: 62-63: Barnabas 6.8-19 ("c'est un "midras," sur un parole de Moise").

* Kraft & Prigent 1971: Barnabas 6.8-19; 7; 8; 10-12.

* Hamman 1989: Barnabas 6.6b; 11.6.

It is significant that for the most part the scholars mentioned here identify various different passages of the letter of Barnabas as midrash, and yet to my knowledge no one has so far drawn attention to the problem that there are real discrepancies among these findings. Since there is no overall consensus as to which passages of the letter of Barnabas contain midrash, the conclusions of these scholars should be regarded as at best tentative.

A potential difficulty with midrashic analysis of Barnabas is the letter's hostility toward Judaism. Of course, such polemic is already found earlier in texts of the Jesus movement (it is evident in the writings of the New Testament), but the letter of Barnabas evinces a new level of hostility within the history of the early church (Simon: 68), for example, when it claims that the Jewish covenant had been abrogated from the time of Moses (4.6-8, 14.1-5) or that Jewish observances possessed nothing more than a figurative or symbolic value before the coming of Jesus (9.1-4: the author claims that an evil angel misled the Jews into following the Torah literally). The anti-Jewish perspective of the letter of Barnabas is sometimes attributed to the author's hostile response to plans that had been proposed to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, though scholars are not agreed on this point (Paget: 9-30). Certainly, in light of this polemic locating the letter of Barnabas in the context of the Jewish Jesus movement may seem "paradoxical and productive of confusion," as Simon (414) notes, and moreover may problematize the identification of passages within the letter of Barnabas as midrash. The anti-Jewish polemic in the letter suggests that the author had some sort of intense relationship with Judaism, perhaps the kind of "love-hate" relationship that might characterize followers of Jesus who had become alienated from Judaism. Yet as Luke T. Johnson has argued, harsh polemic was in fact a standard feature of philosophical and religious debate everywhere in late antiquity:

   the slander of the NT [against the Jews] is typical of that found
   among rival claimants to a philosophical tradition and is found
   as widely among Jews as among other Hellenists ... the way
   the NT talks about Jews is just about the way all opponents
   talked about each other back then [Johnson: 429].

Similarly, when we consider the polemic of the letter of Barnabas within its larger social and rhetorical context it is not the harshness of the letter's polemic per se but rather its close adherence to and reliance upon Jewish tradition that stands out as significant. The possibility that our author made use of or was influenced by midrash is most intriguing in light of the harsh anti-Jewish polemic which is so predominant in the letter. Here is a text which is hostile to Judaism and at the same time was very likely influenced by Judaism, even making use of midrash in its interpretation of Scripture.

Let us look briefly at one passage of the letter which most of the above named scholars agree contains midrash, Barnabas 6.8-19:

[8] What does the other prophet, Moses, say to them? See, this is what the Lord God says, 'Enter into the good land, which the Lord swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and receive it as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.' [9] Learn what knowledge says. Hope, it says, in Jesus, who is about to be revealed to you in the flesh. For a human is earth that suffers. For Adam was formed out of the face of the earth. [10] Why then does he say, 'Into the good land, a land flowing with milk and honey'? Blessed is our Lord, brothers, who placed the wisdom and knowledge of his secrets within us. For the prophet is speaking a parable of the Lord. Who will understand it, except one who is wise and learned, who loves his Lord? [11] Since, then, he renewed us through the forgiveness of our sins, he made us into a different type of person, that we might have the soul of children, as if he were indeed forming us all over again. [12] For the Scripture speaks about us when he says to his Son, 'Let us make humans according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over the wild beasts of the land and the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea.' Once the Lord saw our beautiful form, he said 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth.' He said these things to the Son. [13] Again I will show you how he speaks to us. He made yet a second human form in the final days. And the Lord says, 'See! I am making the final things like the first.' This is why the prophet proclaimed, 'Enter into a land flowing with milk and honey, and rule over it.' [14] See, then, that we have been formed anew, just as he again says in another prophet, 'See, says the Lord, I will remove from these people their heart of stone' (that is to say, from those whom the Spirit of the Lord foresaw) 'and cast into them hearts of flesh.' For he was about to be revealed in the flesh and to dwell among us. [15] For the dwelling place of our heart, my brothers, is a temple holy to the Lord. [16] For again the Lord says, 'And how will I appear before the Lord my God and be glorified?' He answers 'I will praise you in the assembly of my brothers, and sing your praise in the midst of the assembly of saints.' And so we are the ones he has brought into the good land. [17] Why then does he speak of milk and honey? Because the child is first nourished by honey and then milk. So also, when we are nourished by faith in the promise and then by the word, we will live as masters over the earth. [18] For he already said above, 'Let them increase and multiply and rule over the fish.' Who can now rule over wild beasts and fish and birds of the sky? For we ought to realize that ruling is a matter of authority, so that the one who issues commands is the master. [19] Since this is not happening now, he has told us when it will happen--when we have ourselves been perfected so as to become heirs of the Lord's covenant [adapted from Ehrman: 33-35].

The opening in v 8 is in the form of a Biblical citation, though it is really a paraphrase of Exodus 33:1 and 3 (with Greek eiselthate "enter" in place of Hebrew lekh aleh of the Masoretic text and poreuou anabethi of the Septuagint); the reference to the "good land" follows Deuteronomy 1:25, and the notion of the land as an inheritance is based on Leviticus 20:24. Prigent notes Kraft's observation that this would be a targum if it were not followed by an interpretation; therefore, according to Prigent this passage is better described in terms of "[le] genre midraschique" (Kraft & Prigent: 121, n. 4). In 6.9ff. Barnabas presents an interpretation of the Scriptural text which he attributes to "knowledge" (Greek gnosis), by which he presumably means the source of his exegetical inspiration (Paget: 131, n. 140). (The same word gnosis is used in 9.8 in connection with a numerological interpretation of the 318 members of Abraham's household [Gen 17:27-28; 14:14] as presaging Christ and his cross: this latter has much in common with the Jewish practice of gematria, and it is significant that our author expresses particular personal satisfaction at having arrived at this interpretation in 9.9. As Professor Asher Finkel noted to me, the gematria-like exegesis in Barnabas 9.7-9 suggests that this passage may be midrashic, a question I will pursue in a future study drawing on Alon.) In chapter 8, Barnabas provides a christological interpretation of the "land of milk and honey" in which he identifies the promised "land" as Jesus. Presumably behind this lies a word play between the names of Jesus and Joshua (cf. Acts 7:45, Heb 4:8), who led the people into the promised land, and also between Adam and the Hebrew adhamah "earth/ land": Barnabas is saying that like the "earth that suffers" (ge paschousa in 9.9) Jesus the second Adam, the "man par excellence," offers salvation (Paget: 131).

Barnabas' laying claim to the "land" for believers in Jesus is echoed by Tertullian writing a few decades later: "They [the Jews] consider the special soil of Judea to be that very land, which ought rather to be interpreted of the flesh of the Lord, which in all those who put on Christ is changed into the Holy Land" (On the Resurrection of the Dead 26.11-13). By contrast, Origen (Against Celsus 7.28-29) explicitly denies that the "land flowing with milk and honey" refers to Judea and at most allows that it symbolizes the heavenly Jerusalem. In Barnabas 6.10ff, the author goes on to interpret the phrase "milk and honey" from Exodus in terms of baptism, an association which many later Christian writers would also pick up. Barnabas again uses Scripture to explicate his theme, citing Genesis 1:26 and 28 in v 12; in this way the story of the creation of humankind in Genesis 1 becomes a story about Christian recreation or new creation through baptism (Paget: 132).

Throughout this passage the emphasis on Scripture, and the themes of creation, land and covenant, reflect the fundamental and pervasive Jewish character of the text. Yet our author's point is actually to supplant the traditional Jewish view of these by referring them to belief in Jesus. Moreover, he accomplishes this by means of a continuous commentary on Scripture, which itself makes further reference to Scripture; it is because of this type of scriptural commentary that scholars have identified this passage as midrash. For example, Paget states, "The way B[arnabas] cites scripture [in 6.8-19] is different from chs. 2-5, for here, rather as in a midrash, scripture becomes part of a continuous commentary" (Paget: 132, 136). Prigent (in Kraft & Prigent 1971: 125, n. 1) even claims that Barnabas was making use of '[un] midrasch baptismal" in writing this passage, but surely that is speculation in the absence of actual evidence for the existence of "baptismal midrashim."

When it comes to identifying midrash in Barnabas we may be on much firmer ground when we locate similarities between Barnabas and motifs in Jewish midrashic literature, especially the Mishnah. While not midrash per se these motifs from the Mishnah strongly suggest that our author had some familiarity with Jewish midrashic sources which he made use of in interpreting passages from the Hebrew Scriptures. These similarities connect the letter of Barnabas more tightly with Jewish tradition and thus make it more plausible to identify sections of Barnabas as midrash.

First let us look at Barnabas 7.4-11:

[4] What then does he say in the prophet? 'Let them eat some of the goat that was offered for all sins on the day of the fast.' Now pay attention carefully. 'And let all the priests alone eat the intestines, unwashed, with vinegar.' [5] Why? Since you are about to give me gall mixed with vinegar to drink--when I am about to offer my flesh on behalf of the sins of my new people--you alone are to eat, while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes, in order to show that he had to suffer for them. [6] Pay attention to what he commands: 'Take two goats that are lovely and alike and offer them as a sacrifice; and let the priest take one of them as a burnt offering for sins.' [7] But what will they do with the other? 'The other,' he says, 'is cursed.' Pay attention to how the type of Jesus is revealed. [8] 'And all of you shall spit on it and stab it and wrap a piece of scarlet wool around its head, and so let it be cast into the wilderness.' When this happens, the one who takes the goat leads into the wilderness and removes the wool, and places it on a blackberry bush, whose buds we are accustomed to eat when we find it in the countryside. (Thus the fruit of the blackberry bush alone is sweet.) [9] And so, what does this mean? Pay attention: 'The one they take to the altar, but the other is cursed,' and the one that is cursed is crowned. For then they will see him in that day wearing a long scarlet robe around his flesh, and they will say, 'Is this not the one we once crucified, despising, stabbing and spitting on him? Truly this is the one who was saying at the time that he was himself the Son of God.' [10] For how is he like that one? This is why 'the goats are lovely and alike and equal,' that when they see him coming at that time, they may be amazed at how much he is like the goat. [11] But why do they place the wool in the midst of the thorns? This is a type of Jesus established for the church, because whoever wishes to remove the scarlet wool must suffer greatly ... [adapted from Ehrman: 37-41].

As we have seen, this section is identified as midrash by Kraft & Prigent (132, n.1) The subject of the seventh chapter of Barnabas is the Day of Atonement ritual described in Leviticus 16 (cf. 23:26-32), and this chapter also exhibits some interesting similarities to the description of the Day of Atonement ritual in the Mishnah (Paget: 136-37). The source of the quotations in Barnabas 7.4 ("What then does he say in the prophet? 'Let them eat some of the goat offered for all sins on the day of fasting.' Now pay attention carefully: 'And let all the priests alone eat the intestines, unwashed, with vinegar'") is unknown.

There is no reference in the Bible to the priests eating the goat. Rather, according to Leviticus 16:27, the goat that is sacrificed as a sin offering in the Day of Atonement ritual is to be taken outside the camp, its skin, flesh, and dung to be consumed in fire. However, there is a tradition referred to in tractate Menahoth 11.7 of the Mishnah: "If it [the Day of Atonement] fell on a Friday, the he-goat of the Day of Atonement was consumed at evening. The Babylonians used to eat it raw since they were not squeamish" (Danby: 509). The tradition behind the latter text may also be reflected in the reference to the priests eating the goat in Barnabas 7.4; it is still unclear, however, what would be the background to the notion of the entrails being eaten "unwashed with vinegar" which Barnabas mentions at the end of that verse.

Also, Barnabas 7.6, apparently quoting Leviticus 16, describes the two goats as "lovely and alike" [kalous kai homoious], a description not found in the Biblical text; but Mishnah tractate Yoma 6.1 says that the two goats of the Day of Atonement "should be alike in appearance, in size, and in value" (Danby: 169). Other ancient writers who were aware of the two goats are Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 40.4) and Tertullian (Against Marcion 3.7.7; Against the Jews 14.9). Then, according to Barnabas 7.8 the people "all spat on and stabbed/pierced" [emptusate pantes kai katakentesate] the second goat (i.e. the "scapegoat"). But again, these details are not found in Leviticus 16; a possible parallel is Mishnah Yoma 6.4, which refers to people who pulled the goat's hair during the procession (Danby: 169). Also in Barnabas 7.8 there is a reference to a piece of scarlet wool wrapped around the goat's head; this detail is not in the biblical account but is found in Mishnah Yoma 4.2: "He bound a thread of crimson wool on the head of the scapegoat and he turned it towards the way by which it was to be sent out," while a thread was bound around the throat of the other goat which was to be slaughtered as a sin offering (Danby: 166). (Tertullian also mentions the scapegoat being spat upon and the scarlet thread in Against Marcion 3.7.7 and Against the Jews 14.9.) Lester Grabbe has plausibly argued that these details recounted in the Mishnah draw on the actual ceremony of the Day of Atonement as it was carried out in the last days of the Second Temple (cf. Neusner: 134; Crossan: 570). He also suggests that Barnabas drew on a written source which derived from someone, perhaps a Jew of the Diaspora or a Jewish Christian, who had seen the ceremony but did not completely understand what was going on or deliberately distorted what he saw (Grabbe: 164-65). As mentioned earlier, the parallels from the Mishnah are significant in that they tie Barnabas to a Jewish source(s) independent of Leviticus 16, which may make it more plausible to characterize as midrash the kind of commentary on Leviticus in which our author was engaged.

The eighth chapter of Barnabas consists of a commentary on Numbers 19, the famous ritual of the sacrifice of a red cow. Barnabas 8.1-7 reads as follows:

[1] And what do you suppose is the type found in his command to Israel, that men who are full of sin should offer up a cow, and after slaughtering it burn it, and that children should then take the ashes and cast them into vessels, and then tie scarlet wool around a piece of wood (see again the type of the cross and the scarlet wool!), along with the hyssop, and that the children should thus sprinkle the people one by one, that they may be purified from their sins? [2] Understand how he speaks to you simply. The calf is Jesus; the sinful men who make the offering are those who offered him up for slaughter. Then they are no longer men and the glory of sinners is no more. [3] The children who sprinkle are those who proclaimed to us the forgiveness of sins and the purification of our hearts. To them he has given the authority to preach the gospel. There are twelve of them as a witness to the tribes, for there were twelves tribes in Israel. [4] But why are there three children who sprinkle? As a witness to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because these were great before God. [5] And why is the wool placed on a piece of wood? Because the kingdom of Jesus is on the tree, and because those who hope in him will live forever. [6] But why are the wool and hyssop together? Because in his kingdom there will be evil and foul days, in which we will be saved. And because the one who is sick in the flesh is healed by the foul juice of the hyssop. [7] And thus the things that have happened in this way are clear to us, but they are obscure to them, because they have not heard the voice of the Lord [Ehrman: 41-43; on this passage see Neusner: 217-18].

Once again Barnabas' agenda here is christological, and he is interested in only those details of the biblical text that serve his agenda. Many of the central aspects of the text from Numbers are omitted in Barnabas, including the requirements of the cow, the role of the priests, the intent of the ritual (i.e., to cleanse people who have become unclean through touching a corpse), the mixing of the cow's ashes with water, the impurity of the one who burns the cow or sprinkles the water mixed with ashes, and the location of the ritual "outside the camp" (Chandler: 103). (The "outside the camp" theme is also used to advantage in another text of the early Jesus movement, Hebrews 13:11-13, referring to Leviticus 16:27.) Moreover, the author of Barnabas (or his source) alters some elements of the Numbers 19 passage. The point of the rite in Numbers 19 is ritual purity, which is required of those who have come into contact with a corpse, but the author of Barnabas changes this to "purification of the heart" (i.e., forgiveness of sins, a universal need of all human beings), and this is obtained not through the sprinkling of water mixed with ashes but through the proclamation of the Gospel. As well, Numbers 19:6 states that "the priest shall take cedarwood, hyssop and crimson material and throw them into the fire in which the cow is burning." But Barnabas refashions these elements so as to create an implement for sprinkling the cleansing agent (presumably the blood of Christ) upon the people (he has in mind the cross of Jesus' crucifixion, evoked by the Greek word for "wood," xulon). Another alteration of the biblical text, this time more ominous, is the description of those who offer the sacrifice as "those in whom sins are complete" in Barnabas 8.1 (cf "sinful men" in 8.2; the meaning of the phrase "glory of sinners" at the end of 8.2 is unclear). Similarly, in 5.11 Barnabas writes: "So then the Son of God came in the flesh for this reason, that he might complete the total of the sins of those who persecuted the prophets to death"; thus those who performed the rite of the red cow (and were as a result ritually unclean) are identified with those who persecuted the prophets and those who crucified Jesus--a clear example of the anti-Jewish polemic of this letter I referred to earlier.

Karen Chandler writes,

   [The text] reveals Barnabas' interest in Numbers 19 not only
   by what he chooses to tell us, but even more clearly by what
   he does not. No data are included which would explain the
   cultic significance of the rite. Only materials congenial to his
   typological hermeneutic are included [103-04].

Indeed, Barnabas is clearly using typology in his approach to Numbers 19 by identifying the cow with Jesus (and note the term "type," Greek tupos, used twice in 8.1 at the outset of the passage); but this does not exclude Prigent's identification of Barnabas chapter 8 as midrash (Kraft & Prigent: 137-38, n. 2). (Indeed there are clear similarities between typology and midrash.) One element of Barnabas' interpretation of Numbers 19 bears a resemblance to later Jewish tradition: while in Numbers 19 the one who sprinkles the water mixed with ashes is a person (presumably an adult) who is ritually clean (Num 19:9, 17), Barnabas refers to those who perform the rite as "children" (ta paidia in Greek) (8.1, 3-4). Similarly, according to Mishnah tractate Parah 3.3-4 it is children who mixed the ashes with water. The introduction of children into the rite, a departure from or expansion of Numbers 19, is explained by Windisch in terms of purity: "Kinder sind reine Menschen" (Windisch: 348). Whatever the reason, while children perform different functions in these two texts--in Mishnah Parah they gather the ashes and mix them, in Barnabas they perform the actual sprinkling--nevertheless for our purposes the role of the children is an interesting addition to the Numbers account which Barnabas and Mishnah Parah have in common. Such parallels may shed light on the background to the letter of Barnabas, confirming that our author drew on Jewish tradition and may make the identification of Barnabas' commentary on the sacrifice of the red cow in chapter 8 as midrash more plausible.

Works Cited

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Johnson, Luke T. 1989. "The New Testament's Anti-Jewish Slander and the Conventions of Ancient Polemic." Journal of Biblical Literature 108/3: 419-41.

Kraft, Robert A. 1961. The Epistle of Barnabas, its Quotations and their Sources. Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Kraft, Robert, ed., & Pierre Prigent, trans. 1971. Epitre de Barnabe. Sources Chretiennes 172. Paris, France: Editions du Cerf.

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Prigent, Pierre. 1961. Les Testimonia dans le Christianisme Primitif: L'Epitre de Barnabe I-XVI et ses sources. Paris, France: Librairie Lecoffre.

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Tim Hegedus (PhD, University of Toronto), is Associate Professor of Second Testament, Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5; e-mail: [e-mail]. His recent publications include "Naming Christians in Antiquity," Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 33/2 (2004) 173-90; and Ancient Astrology and Early Christianity (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2007--forthcoming). His current research interests include the so-called "parting of the ways" between ancient Judaism and the early Jesus movement, and the influence of ancient Jewish Biblical interpretation on Second Testament and patristic biblical interpretation.