BABYLON

CRUCIFIES JESUSLegal and religious ties between Babylon and Jerusalem that lead up, in part, to Jesus’ death

Scripture Reading

Reader: After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. He called out with a mighty voice,

ALL: Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul and hateful bird, a haunt of every foul and hateful beast. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury.

>>>>>>

Reader: Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,

ALL: Come out of her my people, so that you do not take part in her sins, and so that you do not share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her as she herself has rendered, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed. As she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so give her a like measure of torment and grief. Since in her heart she says,

Reader: “I rule as a queen; I am no widow, and I will never see grief,’

ALL: Therefore, her plagues will come in a single day—pestilence and morning and famine—and she will be burned with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.

The End

BABYLON

CRUCIFIES JESUSLegal and religious ties between Babylon and Jerusalem that lead up, in part, to Jesus’ death

Our Babylonian Origins• It is my thesis, one that I have published somewhere (and

shared years ago with this class), that Babylonia, together with ancient Sumer, form the cradle of ancient and modern civilization through the two political nations they influenced—Greece and Rome.

• Mesopotamia (a term that can be used to cover both Sumer and Babylonia) spawned myths related to, but earlier than, the Hebrew Bible. It’s people composed the earliest written legal sources of the ancient world and developed the city whose assembly helped to administer affairs.

The Three Great Institutions• Economics

• Self-interest, dependency, indebtedness• Competition, substitution, inflation• Slavery, stratification of society, objectification of persons

• Kingship• One person has the god-ordained right to rule all others• Whoever has the most power is most important• Rights to punish and control subjects through fear (angry kings

must be appeased)

• Judicial Systems• Way to control items of self-interest: early laws were economic• Externally imposed penalties support the system of order• Early law was not about commands but about settlements.

Debating Ancient Near Eastern Law• Scholars who suggest that laws are not really laws.

• Ancient Near Eastern laws were simply exercises copied by students in the scribal schools.

• The Laws of Hammurabi (LH) were simply royal propaganda, intended to impress the gods that Hammurabi was truly a just king.

• These and other laws share points of commonality, the most famous of which is the law of the goring ox, found in varying ways in LH, the Laws of Eshnunna, and the Covenantal Code.

• There is no term for “law” in either Sumerian or Akkadian.

• Scholars who suggest that laws represent “a significant stream of juridical scholarship” (Westbrook 18).• Because of the similarities between LE and LH, composed in roughly

the same time period, it seems that they were not anomalous within the general legal milieu of Babylonia.

• Keep in mind that the scribal schools produced future legal experts, royal officers involved in legal affairs of the king, and so forth.

Mesopotamian Law Not Like Modern Law

• Our modern concept of law is built upon legal developments in Greece and Rome, where written laws became reference points for citation (“according to the law…”) and where specific wording was debated.

• Ancient Near Eastern Law is not like Greco-Roman Law:• Instead of citing laws, legal scribes would create objective cases,

extending them to include possible scenarios using analogy.• Edicts, commandments, and decrees probably played a minor role in

the courts (Westbrook 21).

• Some believe that the Bible was the first to use law in the more modern sense, citing the Covenantal Code (Finkelstein 39-46). Westbrook suggests that this first occurs during the prophets and dates the legal narrative later than most mainstream Biblical scholars do, likening it to Greek narrative and law.

Biblical Law• Both Finkelstein and Westbrook ignore one facet of Hebrew

law that explains one of its important genres: the covenant.• All of the laws of Torah are covenantal law and thus serve as

stipulations of Yahweh’s treaty with Israel. • This is a valid, legal form of ancient Near Eastern royal “law”

that requires the vassal to keep the terms of the suzerain.• Furthermore, ascribing law to a heroic figure is not merely

Hellenistic, as Westbrook suggests; Neo-Babylonia scribes copied the Laws of Hammurabi, and Nebuchadnezzar appears to have attempted to emulate this famous Amorite king of Babylon (Wiseman 88, 101). Could not Moses serve as another Hammurabi? Indeed D. Wright has shown that the Book of the Covenant actually follows the subjects of LH in content.

Unique Features of Biblical Law• Nowhere else in the ancient Near East (except possibly in

theocratic Egypt where the Pharaoh is deified) does deity promulgate law.

• Nowhere else in the entire ancient Near East does deity formulate a suzerain-vassal treaty with a nation.

• Most of the divinely given stipulations (laws) are apodictic: they are simple prohibitions or prescriptions without a case history and without a penalty.

• Until the time of the monarchy, most laws were handled by the priests, though town elders decided court cases at the city gate. While this is not so unique, what is unique is the fact that Israel during this period had no king.

• The most significant difference is that Yahweh required Israel to keep his laws. It seems that most ancient laws to be kept were orally transmitted, not written.

How Did Law Function in Israel?• Most of the terms for law in Hebrew derived from the

judicial setting—the court judges.• Though ascribed to Yahweh, most of the casuistic laws in

the Hebrew Bible came out of this same context.• In many ways, law functioned as teaching (torah):

• In Deut. 4:5, Moses states that he “taught” Israel the laws.• They were to be “your wisdom and understanding” (v. 6, RSV), two

things intimately tied in Israel to learning.• The people were to pass them on to their children (v. 9).• Many of the laws contain motive clauses that unlike their

counterparts in cuneiform law, motivate their adherents “by reference to an historic event, a promise of well-being or. . . a divine will” (Sonsino 174).

Second Temple Legal Developments• A shift takes place from law as legal instruction with

covenantal obedience required (see Deuteronomy, LXX) to law as legal requirements with more formal obedience required. Though the covenant and teaching was not lost sight of, they originally served as a closer bond of trust between God and his people. After the Exile the emphasis changed to that of formal, strict obedience with less emphasis on a trusting relationship with God.

• Originally, cases were tried at the city gate by the elders who acted as judges. Harder cases were referred to specific judges such as Deborah and Gideon or to the priests. This continued after the monarchy allowed the king to be chief judge of difficult cases. In post-exilic period, judgment seems to have shifted from the elders at the city gate to the priests at the temple.

• From law as part of narrative, which gave its situational context and explanation, law became structured as codes with the rise of the Halakoth (later, Mishnah).

• In later Talmudic law, the kinds of motive clauses found in Torah gave way to explanations for expansionism.

• Unlike Mesopotamia, Israel’s laws combined ritual and civil laws to some extent. However, the separation of Leviticus, comprised chiefly of ritual law, reflects Babylonian practice (Falk 19-20).

• In pre-exilic times God delivered Israel and gave his laws through Moses; in the Second Temple period, the law (most specifically Deuteronomy?) was given by Moses, perhaps viewed similarly to Hammurabi. Recall the disputes of the scribes (=Pharisees; Rivkin 137-142) with Jesus over what “Moses wrote in the law” and Jesus’ contention that they didn’t really believe Moses.

• The Babylonian Talmud began as oral tradition during the exilic or post-exilic periods. The first half of the Talmud consisted of the Mishnah (oral laws). These laws are developed by expansionism after the manner of law from ancient Babylonia. Consider this example from the Talmud:

• VI. Regulations for Women’s Apparel on Sabbath• Mishna I: In what (ornamental) apparel may a woman go out, and in

what may she not go out.• Not in woolen or linen bands or with straps on her head (lest

she take off the bands to show her friends, thereby becoming guilty of carrying movable property for a distance of four ells or more).

• Nor to bathe herself with bands unless loosened.• Nor is she to go out with either Totaphoth or Sarbitin on, unless

they are fastened.• Nor with a hood in public ground, nor with gold ornaments, nor

with nose-rings, nor with finger-rings that have no seal, nor with pins. (But if she does do this, she is not to bring a sin-offering because they are ornaments and not burdens.)

• Here is another example:• Mishna IV: The ass is not to go out with a rug, unless fastened, with

cords tied to them, neither with a bell that has been muffled, nor with a collar on his neck, nor with ankle-boots. The hens are not to go out with cords tied to them, or with straps on their feet. Rams are not to go out with carts tied to their tails; nor sheep with sneezing-wood; the calf with the reed yoke, nor the cow with the skin of a hedgehog (tied to the udder), nor with a strap (between her horns). The cow of R. Elazar b. Azarya went out with a strap between the horns against the approval of the rabbis.

• Mishna V: A woman may go out with plaits of hair, be they made of her own hair or of another woman or of an animal; with Totaphoth or Sarbitin if fastened.1 With a hood or with a wig in her yard (private ground); with cotton wadding in her ear or in her shoe; or with cotton wadding prepared for her menstruation; wit a grain of pepper or of salt, or with whatever else she may be accustomed to keep in her mouth, provided she does not put it in her mouth on the Sabbath to commence with; if it fell out of her mouth she must not replace it. As for a metal or golden tooth, Rabbi permits a woman to go out with it, but the sages prohibit it.

More Legal DevelopmentsDuring the Old Babylonian period, the chief purpose of holding a trial or dealing with a court case was to create reconciliation between two estranged parties. During the Neo-Babylonian period, though settlement could take place in the pre-trial phase, the purpose of the actual trial was to establish a verdict and administer whatever penalty was chosen by the judges (see Magdalene 55-94). One can see the OB kind of trial at work in Israel’s pre-monarchical period (see Tamar and Judah, Ruth, etc.) and even in the early post-exilic period (see Ezra and Nehemiah). However, Nehemiah exhibits a tendency to arrive at a verdict and administer swift punishment. By the time of first- century C.E. Judaism, the Sanhedrin reflected more the style developed in the NB period. Keep in mind that the influence of Jews still living in Babylonia was quite strong on Jerusalem’s legal matters at that time.

The SanhedrinIn Babylonia, several court systems (though a term for “court” did not exist) held trials. The chief of these, the royal court, dealt with most of the civil cases. However, local assemblies (puḫru) also existed for the purpose of holding court. Finally, temple judges presided over cases pertaining to the temple. For emerging Judaism during the exile, deprived of self-governorship via a king and forced to seek identity chiefly in Torah and religion, having such an assembly to deal with legal disputes among themselves must have seemed a necessity. Of course, the Sanhedrin of the NT reflects the Roman Period where we know the most about it; yet such an assembly under varying names with differing functions must go far back into the exilic period (ABD 5:977).

Pharisees and Sadducees• The Pharisees called themselves “scribes,” but the Sadducees

called them perushim (Pharisees). The NT use of “scribes and Pharisees” should be understood as “scribes, also Pharisees” in the sense of “scribes (that is,) Pharisees” (Rivkin 135-142).

• In the Neo-Babylonian period, the role of the scribe, who served the courts, changed from that of a writer to a writer who also was involved in judicial affairs, even operating at times as a judge (Holtz 81-85).

• The Sadducees disapproved of how the Pharisees held to oral laws that came to be known as the Mishnah and ultimately, together with the Gemara, formed the Talmud. The Sadducees held only to Torah and rejected the Pharisees’ views on the judgment and afterlife.

• In Matthew 23, Jesus singles out the Pharisees for castigation; but nowhere does he focus on the Sadducees except when correcting them regarding the resurrection.

• The Pharisees could be viewed as the “theologians” (though “legal experts” is probably more appropriate), whereas, predominately, the priests were Sadducees.

• In their high regard for Torah, the Sadducees loved the lex talionis (“life for life,” “eye for eye”) that stemmed from Hammurabi’s laws. They applied it so mercilessly that the people preferred the Pharisees to the Sadducees, despite their many laws, for their merciful treatment.

• When Jesus countered talionic law in Matthew 5:38-42, when he refused to have the woman caught in adultery stoned, when he allowed the woman with a hemorrhage to touch his garment, and when he touched the lepers, he stood in opposition to the Sadducees.

• When his disciples did not wash properly, or ate grain they picked while walking through a grain field on Sabbath, Jesus challenged the traditions and laws of the Pharisees.

The Sabbath• Where Jesus clashed most vigorously with the Pharisees had

to do with Sabbath-keeping. Jesus repeatedly broke the oral laws for keeping Shabbat and other laws too.

• None of his Sabbath healings were “emergency cases.”• He told the paralytic to carry his mat (which required him to roll it).• He called the woman with scoliosis into the male section of the

synagogue, laid hands on her, and healed her.• He healed a man with a withered hand.• He healed a man born blind by the following:

• He spit on the ground (potentially “watering” on the Sabbath)• He formed mud with his hand (potentially making pottery)• He anointed the man’s eyes (oral law forbade medically so treating face).• He sent him to the Pool of Siloam (maybe more than Sabbath journey?).• He had him wash the mud off (law forbade washing above the neck).• The Pool of Siloam was the Jewish baptismal font for proselytes.

The Sabbath in Judaism• While Torah and the Prophets forbade working on Sabbath,

little is specified regarding what is work. Oral tradition, however, had over 400 laws specifying minutely what one could and could not do on the Sabbath.

• Examples include laws concerning:• Transfer: e.g., a tailor could not carry his needle nor a scribe his pen.

One could not search for vermin in one’s garments.• “Hanukkah” light: e.g., cedar hastwicks, raw flax, silk fiber, weeds

growing on the water, and ship moss forbidden on Sabbath.• Stoves, etc.: e.g. eggs could not be put close to a boiler or wrapped

in a hot cloth or in hot sand or hot road dust.• Labor: e.g., forbidden to writing two single letters (characters),

erasing in order to write two letters; forbidden to carry a mouthful of milk, enough honey to cover a wound, enough water for an eye bath. Prescribed quantities for all other liquids was one quart.

Important Days in Babylonia• The Babylonians had many important (holy?) days.

• The “evil days” consisted of the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th of the lunar month. These were days on which certain activities were not propitious to do.

• There also existed the shapattu, the 15th day of the lunar month, which was (and is) the day when the sun and the moon stand in opposition to each other. From a religious standpoint, Shamash (the god of daytime justice) and Sin (the god of nighttime justice) stood in opposition to each other. This day was referred to as “the day of the resting of the heart (i.e., the day of appeasement).

The question needs to be raised regarding whether scribal keeping of Shabbat better reflected Torah or the Babylonian special days?

The Priesthood• In early Sumer, a kind of priest-king both ruled the city-state and

presided over the temple. Whether “ruler” or “priest,” he bore the title EN, meaning “ruler” or “lord” (Steinkeller 104-105). Though later abandoned, the concept of ruling priest is thus very ancient. Similarly, the Jewish priests came to govern the cult, religion, and even to some extent national affairs, though limited, of course, by the foreign powers over them.

• By the Neo-Babylonian period, the administration of the EN-priests and priestesses had long since given way to the power of the male-only shangû, the administrative and cultic “high” priest. During this period, the temple priesthood was quite hierarchical in structure, and the priests acted harshly toward the foreign female slaves and often sexually exploited them (Beaulieu 12). Similarly, the Jewish priests had a hierarchical structure, above which, the “high priest” had considerable power. They were mostly Sadducees who ruled the people harshly. Even though it was the Pharisees who brought the adulterous woman to Jesus for stoning, the Sadducees no doubt supported this event.

Temple Economy• Just as the temple served as a substantial economic

institution in ancient Mesopotamia, so the Jerusalem temple was the chief economic center of Judaism.

• Just as the Babylonians brought their offerings to the temple so the priests could feed the gods and thus procure divine favor, so the Jewish people brought their offerings to achieve divine forgiveness.

• Just as the Babylonians viewed wealth and prosperity as signs of divine favor, so Judaism perpetuated this view. Jesus’ suggestion to the rich young ruler to sell all that he had and give to the poor, and then follow him, was a counterintuitive message to ancient ears.

Kingship and Messiah• The “Anointed” was a term applied in pre-exilic Israel to the

king; in the Second Temple period, it referred to the Messiah, who would eventually restore the throne of David and rule in Jerusalem.

• Kingship originated from ancient Mesopotamia where it progressed from a simple ruler or governor to a bureaucratic king who ruled by conquest and hierarchical power over his subjects.

• When Jesus asserted his Messiahship, he drastically reduced his “kingship” to teaching, healing, and reforming temple practices. He redefined covenant and law, and asserted no dictatorial or judicial power over others except when exercising mercy toward sinners as in the case of the adulterous woman.

The Triumph of the ConquestWhen Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, he borrowed a motif from Greco-Roman times when a ruler or conqueror would ride into the city after conquest (Duff 55-71). But we know from Assyrian reliefs that a very similar entrance took place in the Neo-Assyrian and, likely, the Neo-Babylonian periods. One cannot be think of the comparison of Nebuchadnezzar marching into Babylon toward the temple of Marduk (whose planet was Jupiter) and the early Roman conquerors whose face was painted red like Jupiter’s statue. Typically, the procession would halt at the temple, where in Rome, a sacrifice of white oxen would be made (cf. the burning out of a white ox’s heart during the Akitu Festival of Babylon that ended with a procession of Marduk back to his temple). The entourage of the conqueror included his army, spoils, captives, and sacrificial animals.

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry• Jesus takes this motif and turns it upside down.

• He himself, “King” and “Conqueror,” is the sacrifice about to be made.

• His army consists of his disciples who battle evil principalities and powers without use of force.

• His captives are those he set free from disease, death, and the tyranny of religious bigotry.

• He comes into the temple. In Mark, he merely looks around and leaves. In Matthew, he cleanses it from all that is economic in nature. Then he heals the blind and the lame while the children kept crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

The Basis for Jesus’ Death• Caiaphas argued that the reason for Jesus’ death was that “it is

expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish” (John 11:50, RSV).

• Alexander the Great was struck by the “substitute king (šar puḫi) ritual,” apparently done by the Babylonians in the tradition of the Neo-Assyrian period. In this ritual, when the omens signified that the gods were angry with the king and would destroy him (probably meaning that the city too would be destroyed), the king would leave the throne and a substitute king would be installed who would rule for some days (as high as 100). At the end of those days, a banquet would be held and the substitute king and his wife would be taken out and executed. Then the real king would return to his throne and rule.

• The usual ancient Near Eastern purpose for offering a human sacrifice was to appease divine anger.

• The concept of angry gods needing appeasement, as a prominent belief, at least in Mesopotamia, seems to derive from human experiences with angry kings. In The Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), the references to angry gods occur more numerously where the most references to angry kings exist. In Babylonian correspondence with Assyrian kings, the reference is made to “the wrath of god and king.”

• A parallel exists in the Hebrew Bible, where an emphasis on divine anger occurs mostly during times of power such as the monarchical period.

• Jesus rarely got angry, and when he did, his anger could be described as “grief” (Mark 3:5). Jesus never portrayed his Father as angry.

Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion• The focus of Jesus’ trial was to obtain a verdict of a

capital crime (Matt. 27:59), not to achieve reconciliation. In this the Sanhedrin reflected the purpose of Neo-Babylonian and later juridical practice.

• Crucifixion may have originated from the Persians, who reportedly put to death 3000 Babylonians in this manner (ABD 1:1207). Unreliable sources state that the Assyrians crucified victims.

• The forerunner of crucifixion is possibly the act of impalement (CEE), known to the Babylonians (LH 153) and the Assyrians (MAL A 53) (ABD 5:555).

Selected Bibliography• Bottéro, Jean. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. Translated

by Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

• Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. “Women in Neo-Babylonian Society.” Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 26 (1993): 12.

• Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (CEE). Available through Academic Search Premiere (EBSCO) at the PUC Library online under “Crucifixion” and “Impaling.”

• Duff, Paul Brooks. “The March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the Greco-Roman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem.” Journal of Biblical Literature 111/1 (1992): 55-71.

• Falk, Ze’ev W. Hebrew Law in Biblical Times. 2nd ed. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2001.

• Finkelstein J. J. The Ox That Gored. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 71. Philadelphia, Pa.: The American Philosophical Society, 1981.

• Freedman, David Noel. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1992.

• Fried, Lisbeth S. The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire. Biblical and Judaic Studies 10. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004.

• Graetz, Heinrich. History of the Jews. Revised Edition. 6 vols. Hebrew Publishing Company, 1949.

• Holtz, Shalom E. “The Career of a Neo-Babylonian Court Scribe.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 60 (2008): 81-85.

• Jeremias, Joachim. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period. Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press/SCM Press, Ltd., 1969.

• Lewy, Hildegard and Julius. “The Origin of the Week and the Oldest West Asiatic Calendar.” Hebrew Union College Annual 17 (1942-1943): 1-152.

• Magdalene, F. Rachel. On the Scales of Righteousness: Neo-Babylonian Trial Law and the Book of Job. Brown Judaic Studies 348. Providence,

R.I.: Brown University, 2007.• Oelsner, Joachim, Bruce Wells, and Cornelia Wunsch. “Mesopotamia: Neo-

Babylonian Period.” Pages 911-974 in vol. 2 of A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law. Edited by Raymond Westbrook. Leiden: Brill,

2003.

• Rivkin, Ellis. “Scribes, Pharisees, Lawyers, Hypocrites: A Study in

Synonymity.” Hebrew Union College Annual 49 (1978): 135-142.• Rodkinson, Michael L., trans. The Babylonian Talmud. Boston: Boston New

Talmud Publishing Company, 1903.• Sonsino, Rifat. Motive Clauses in Hebrew Law. SBL Dissertation Series 45.

Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1980.• Steinkeller, Piotr. “On rulers, Priests and Sacred Marriage: Tracing the

Evolution of Early Sumerian Kingship.” Pages 103-137 in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East. Edited by Kazuko Watanabe. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1999.

• Westbrook, Raymond. “Introduction: The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law.” Pages 1-90 in vol. 1 of A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law. Edited by Raymond Westbrook. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

• Wiseman, D. J. Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon. The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1983. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press/ The British Academy, 1985.

• Wright, David P. Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2009.

Questions• When John cites an angel saying, “Babylon is fallen” in

Revelation, to what is he referring?• Babylon here is the antithesis of the New Jerusalem. What in

John’s day is the most natural antithesis of the New Jerusalem?

• Can prophecy, especially apocalyptic prophecy, have more than one relevant application (“and the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth” Rev. 17:18)?

• The line—”the wine of the wrath of her fornication”—goes with the line—“and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her.” What is the significance of these lines?

• Why would John use Babylon to refer to Rome or to Old Jerusalem?