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The Righteousness of Joseph: Interpreting Matt 1.18–25 in Light of Judean Legal Papyri

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2022

Philip F. Esler Open the ORCID record for Philip F. Esler [Opens in a new window]
Philip F. Esler*
Affiliation:
University of Gloucestershire, Francis Close Hall Campus, Swindon Road, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK Email: Pesler@glos.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article seeks to explain Matthew's description of Joseph as righteous (δίκαιος) by investigating Matt 1.18–25 within its ancient context, especially Judean practices of marriage and divorce as illuminated by Judean legal papyri from the Dead Sea region in the first and second centuries ce and from the Judean politeuma of Herakleopolis in the mid-second century bce. The examination will demonstrate the importance of these papyri for understanding the narrative in Matt 1.18–25 in its original social setting where honour was a dominant value, especially the extent to which it reveals Joseph to be an exemplar of Matthean righteousness.

Keywords

Josephmarriagedivorcelegal papyririghteousnessexemplar
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 326 - 343
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Elliott, J. H., Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 1995) 9–16Google Scholar.

2 See Esler, P. F., Babatha's Orchard: The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the circumstances in Maoza in 99 ce underlying P.Yadin 1–4.

3 Esler, Babatha's Orchard, 1–27.

4 See Instone-Brewer, D., ‘1 Corinthians 7 in Light of the Graeco-Roman Marriage and Divorce Papyri’, TynBul 52 (2001) 101–16Google Scholar and ‘1 Corinthians 7 in Light of the Jewish Greek and Aramaic Marriage and Divorce Papyri’, TynBul 52 (2001) 225–43; Bauckham, R., Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2002) 121–35Google Scholar; Kloppenborg, J. S., The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine (WUNT 195; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006)Google Scholar; Esler, P. F., ‘Reading Matthew by the Dead Sea: Matthew 8:5–13 in Light of P. Yadin 11’, HTS Theological Studies 70 (2014) 1–12Google Scholar. For a more general work, see Huebner, S. H., Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 P. Benoit O. P., J. T. Milik and R. de Vaux, O. P., eds., with contributions from G. M. Crowfoot, E. Crowfoot and A. Grohmann, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, vol. ii: Les Grottes de Murabba‘at. Texte (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 109–14.

6 Benoit et al., Murabba‘at , 114–17.

7 Benoit et al., Murabba‘at, 254–6.

8 Yadin, Y., Greenfield, J. C., Yardeni, A. and Levine, B. A., eds., The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri (Judean Desert Studies; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University and Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 2002) 118–41Google Scholar. Also see Hartman, D., Archivio di Babatha. Testi del Vicino Oriente antico (Brescia: Paideia, 2016) 153–5Google Scholar.

9 Lewis, N., ed., with Yadin, Y. and Greenfield, J.C., The Documents from the Bar Kochba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri. Aramaic and Nabatean Signatures and Subscriptions (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Shrine of the Book, 1989) 76–82 (Greek texts by Lewis) and 142–3Google Scholar.

10 H. Cotton and A. Yardeni, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, vol. xxvii: Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Documentary Texts from Naḥal Ḥever and Other Sites: With an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts (The Seiyal Collection ii) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) 224–37.

11 Cotton and Yardeni, Discoveries, 250–74. Note Plates xlv–xlvi.

12 Benoit et al., Murabba‘at, 104–9.

13 Benoit et al., Murabba‘at, 243–54.

14 Cotton and Yardeni, Discoveries, 65–70.

15 Cotton and Yardeni, Discoveries, 57–9.

16 The brides signed P.Murabba‘at 21 and P.Yadin 10 (see n. 24).

17 M. L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 112.

18 Satlow, Jewish Marriage, 104–11. T. Ilan argues to similar effect (Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995) 65–9). L. Archer (‘Her Price is beyond Rubies’: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 151–3) expresses an older view that women married when they reached the age of twelve and a half.

19 Esler, Babatha's Orchard, 54, 90 (of the Nabateans but also applicable to Judeans).

20 See J. Goody, ‘Bridewealth and Dowry in Africa and Eurasia’, J. Goody and S. J. Tambiah, Bridewealth and Dowry (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) 1–58 and S. Anderson, ‘The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 21 (2007) 151–74. Also see Esler, Babatha's Orchard, 90–2.

21 Satlow, Jewish Marriage, 201. In P.Yadin 1 (Yadin et al., Documents, 173–200), written in Nabatean Aramaic, the word מהר appears (in line 18), but with reference to a wife's dowry, not a bride-price. The editors of P.Yadin 10 have מהר appearing as a possible option in line 5 (Aramaic text and translation; Yadin et al., Documents, 126–7), but after discussion they comment, correctly, in their note on this line: ‘It is more likely, therefore, that the term mōhar does not occur in the present ketubba, after all’ (133).

22 Esler, Babatha's Orchard, 92, 101.

23 ‘Unwritten marriages’ (ἄγραφοι γάμοι) were known, but they involved the man and woman living together, which was not the case with Joseph and Mary.

24 See Esler, Babatha's Orchard, 20–2.

25 See n. 24.

26 This differed from the practice in Greek marriage contracts whereby the bride's father or mother gave the bride to the groom, in the ekdosis provision: see U. Yiftach-Firanko, ‘Judaean Marriage Documents and the Ekdosis in the Greek Law of the Roman Period’, Law in the Documents of the Judaean Desert (ed. R. Katzoff and D. M. Schaps; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005) 67–84.

27 The Mishnah would later imply this clause if it was not expressed; see m. Ket. 4.8, where it is cited in Aramaic.

28 The Mishnah also implied this clause if it was not expressed (m. Ket. 4.7; again, cited in Aramaic).

29 Satlow, Marriage, 72 and L. H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009) 64.

30 Archer, Jewish Woman, 168–71.

31 See nn. 27 and 28 for m. Ket. 4.7 and 8.

32 Satlow, Marriage, 69–73. He notes that the three primary texts relied upon for this idea are the Aramaic version of Tob 6.13; Philo, Spec. 3.72; and Matt 1.18–19.

33 Satlow, Marriage, 69.

34 Satlow, Marriage, 72.

35 See P. F. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (SNTS Monographs 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) passim.

36 See L. Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des römischen Kaiserreichs, mit Beiträgen zur Kenntnis des griechischen Rechts und der spätrömischen Rechtsentwicklung (Leipzig: Teubner, 1891). This work is not cited in Satlow, Marriage.

37 G. I. O. Rowling, ‘Law in Roman Arabia 106–132 ce’ (PhD diss., Macquarie University, Sydney, 2019).

38 Benoit et al., Murabba‘at, 112.

39 See B. J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta, GA: John Knox, 1981; 20013). Two decades later classicists began to argue a very similar case (e.g. C. A. Barton, Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); and J. E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)). Also see P. F. Esler, ‘The Original Context of Old Testament Narrative’, Sex, Wives, and Warriors: Reading Biblical Narrative with its Ancient Audience (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 35–76. On the continuing importance of this subject among social scientists, see C. Stewart, ‘Honor and Shame’, The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, vol. xi (ed. J. Wright; Amsterdam: Elsevier, 20152) 181–4.

40 Esler, ‘Original Context’, 44.

41 This view was espoused by a number of the contributors to D. D. Gilmore, ed., Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean (Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1987), including D. D. Gilmore (3–4), C. Delaney (35–6) and M. Giovannini (61–74).

42 M. J. Giovannini, ‘Female Chastity Codes in the Circum-Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives’, in Gilmore, Honor, 61–74, at 61.

43 Satlow, Marriage, 101–4, at 102.

44 See Ilan, Jewish Women, 70–1.

45 Satlow, Marriage, 104.

46 F. W. Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981) 67. R. E. Brown (The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (new updated edn; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 124) similarly misinterprets ɛὑρέθη when he says, ‘This need not have the sense of a secret discovered by a busybody. A weakened sense in which “found to be” simply means “was” is to some extent present in English as well as Greek: “He found himself in the country.”’

47 For example, Luke 9.36; 15.24, 32; 17.18; Acts 5.39; Rom 10.20; 2 Cor 5.3; 11.12; 12.20; Gal 2.17; 2 Pet 3.10, 14; Rev 16.20; 20.15.

48 As recognised in BDAG3 412.

49 For the mechanisms involved, see P. F. Esler, ‘“All That You Have Done Has Been Fully Told to Me”: The Power of Gossip and the Story of Ruth’, JBL 137 (2018) 645–66.

50 The article does not appear in the Greek.

51 See the discussion by M. J. Marohl, Joseph's Dilemma: ‘Honor Killing’ in the Birth Narrative of Matthew (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008) 23–4.

52 J. Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (New York: Harper & Row, 1987) 44–5. Similarly, R. E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (new updated edition; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 124.

53 A. Lincoln, Born of a Virgin: Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition and Theology (London: SPCK, 2013) 73.

54 For this meaning of δɛιγματίσαι, see BDAG3 215.

55 For the meaning of λάθρᾳ, see BDAG3 581. Although it is possible to read λάθρᾳ with ἐβουλήθη, producing ‘he secretly decided to divorce her’, that interpretation would break the connection between this clause and the preceding one, which suggests that a secret divorce was needed to spare Mary public disgrace.

56 D. J. Harrington, S. J., The Gospel of Matthew (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991) 34.

57 R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids /Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007) 51.

58 Brown, Birth, 125–8.

59 W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel according to Matthew, vol. i: Introduction and Commentary on Matthew i –vii (ICC; (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988) 204–5.

60 See m. Ket 7.6; also C. S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 93.

61 See Brown, Birth, 128; but he does not cite evidence for this view.

62 See the edition of J. M. S. Cowey and K. Maresch, eds., Urkunden des Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis (144/3 – 133/2 v. Chr.) (P. Polit. Iud.): Papyri aus den Sammlungen von Heidelberg, Köln, München und Wien (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001) 56–71.

63 Cowey and Maresch, Politeuma, 56–71, at 56.

64 Cowey and Maresch, Politeuma, 69.

65 Cowey and Maresch, Politeuma, 46–55, at 46.

66 The editors follow U. Yiftach in noting that a συνοικισίου συγγραφή is the second part of the certification of a Greek marriage, the first part being the συγγραφὴ ὁμολογίας (Cowey and Maresch, Politeuma, 53).

67 Marohl, Joseph's Dilemma.

68 See Stewart, ‘Honor and Shame’, 182–3, who points to contemporary honour killings in the Near East and elsewhere and in immigrant communities in the West as evidence of the persistence of honour as a prominent social value.

69 P. F. Esler, ‘Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38)’, Sex, Wives, and Warriors, 79–110, 103–6.

70 See C. Keith, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents; Leiden: Brill, 2009).

71 For early church views on why Joseph wanted to divorce Mary secretly, see A. B. Calkins, ‘The Justice of Joseph Revisited’, Kecharitoméne: Mélanges René Laurentin (ed. C. Augrain and T. A. Koehler; Paris: Desclée, 1990) 165–77.

72 See Benoit et al., Murabba'at, 104–9, but also A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic, Hebrew and Nabataean Texts for the Judaean Desert and Related Material. A: The Documents. (In Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Ben-Zion Dinur Center of Research in Jewish History, 2000) 131 and idem, Textbook of Aramaic, Hebrew and Nabataean Texts for the Judaean Desert and Related Material. B: Translation, Paleography, Concordance. (In Hebrew and English) (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Ben-Zion Dinur Center of Research in Jewish History, 2000) 57. Also see T. Ilan, ‘Notes and Observations on a Newly Published Divorce Bill from the Judaean Desert’, HTR 85 (1996) 195–202, at 196. The original editors thought that ‘year 6’ in the dating clause referred not to the years of the First Revolt but to year 6 of the province of Arabia (111/12 ce). The latter suggestion always suffered from the problems that Masada was not in Arabia and that it was hard to see why two Judeans would have moved there in the latter period.

73 BDAG 182.

74 R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 52.

75 R. E. Brown, S.S, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1977) 128 –9.

76 As proposed by Brown, Birth, 129. Although he also suggests the aorist could be ingressive (BDF para 331).

77 BDF para 339.

78 BDAG 336.

79 BDF para 336.

80 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 208.