“Vergil and Homer opened my Books:” The Sibylline Oracles and the non-Jewish canon

Helen Van Noorden
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Abstract

The hybrid cultural weave of the Sibylline Oracles is one of the most arresting aspects of a collection which preserves Judaeo-Christian compositions in Greek ranging from c. second century BCE to the seventh century CE. Reviewing world history in the form of prophecy, sketching rewards and punishments due at the end of days, and urging ethical behavior, these oracles in Homerizing hexameters combine Classical and Biblical traditions and are attributed to an ancient Sibyl. This article focuses on a distinctive case of repetition within the Sibylline corpus to highlight how the sense of a Classical canon is updated in the Jewish development of this prophetic genre. The passages triggering both intertextual and intratextual investigation ar Sibylline Oracles 3.419–25, which “predicts” that the blind Homer will be the first to open the Sibylline books and copy her tale of Troy, and the far less studied Sibylline Oracles 11.163–71, where phrases about Homer are revised to produce an emphasis on Vergil’s skill as a poet and discretion in concealing the Sibylline writings until his death. Study of these lines in their immediate and wider narrative contexts reveals the Jewish sibyllists exploiting the literary knowledge of Classically-educated readers, first and foremost in order to build up the Sibylline authority, a priority which is developed through both “combative” and “parasitic” stances in relation to canonical authors. Overall, this study offers new information about modes of allusion in Jewish Greek literature and the relationship between the tracks of Homeric and Vergilian reception in cross-cultural contexts.
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维吉尔和荷马打开了我的书:西比林神谕和非犹太正典
Sibylline圣谕的混合文化编织是一个收藏中最引人注目的方面之一,该收藏保存了从公元前2世纪到公元前7世纪的希腊犹太-基督教作品。以预言的形式回顾世界历史,勾画末日的奖惩,敦促道德行为,这些《家园化卦》中的神谕结合了古典和圣经的传统,被认为是一个古老的西比尔。这篇文章聚焦于Sibylline语料库中一个独特的重复案例,以强调古典正典的意义是如何在犹太对这一预言流派的发展中得到更新的。引发互文和文本内调查的段落是《西比林圣训》3.419–25,它“预测”盲人荷马将是第一个打开西比林书籍并复制她关于特洛伊的故事的人,而研究较少的《西比琳圣训》11.163–71,在那里,关于荷马的短语被修改,以强调维吉尔作为诗人的技巧和在他去世之前隐瞒西比尔作品的谨慎。在其直接和更广泛的叙事背景下对这些台词的研究表明,犹太锡比林主义者利用受过古典教育的读者的文学知识,首先是为了建立锡比林权威,这是通过与经典作家相关的“战斗”和“寄生”立场发展起来的优先事项。总体而言,本研究提供了关于犹太-希腊文学中典故模式的新信息,以及跨文化背景下荷马和维吉尔接受轨迹之间的关系。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.40
自引率
33.30%
发文量
13
期刊介绍: The last twenty years have witnessed some remarkable achievements in the study of early Jewish literature. Given the ever-increasing number and availability of primary sources for these writings, specialists have been producing text-critical, historical, social scientific, and theological studies which, in turn, have fuelled a growing interest among scholars, students, religious leaders, and the wider public. The only English journal of its kind, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha was founded in 1987 to provide a much-needed forum for scholars to discuss and review most recent developments in this burgeoning field in the academy.
期刊最新文献
The question of an alleged resurrection in Jubilees 23:29–31 The dilemma of King David: Reading Josephus’ Antiquities against the grain through the lens of Greco-Roman tyrant typologies From the new editors: Pseudepigrapha in the 2020s Recent research on the so-called Life of Joseph also known as In pulcherrimum Ioseph Kings from the Sun: Usages of an Eastern title in the Sibylline Oracles and related material
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