The Messiah in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

Yesterday, I finished my daily quiet time on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Testaments have a history that may extend from the second century B.C.E. to the second century C.E. Scholars debate whether it is a Jewish document with Christian interpolations, or a Christian composition that uses Jewish traditions. How they can tell the difference between the two, I have no idea.

I did not feel that I did justice to the Messianic expectations in the Testaments, and so I'm writing this post to compensate for that. There are obviously Christian elements, such as their statements that God will become a man and be rejected by Israel. There are also elements that may be either Jewish or Christian, such as the idea that Israel can repent in her exile and bring about her restoration under the Messiah. The Testaments' notion that God will reach out to the Gentiles may also be Jewish or Christian, for parts of the Hebrew Bible had such an expectation, and Christianity tended to emphasize it (to say the least).

If the Testaments are Christian, then they are not Christian in a supersessionist sense, for (as far as I can see) they do not maintain that the church will replace Israel. Rather, in the Testaments, God is faithful to Israel, and he will raise up her tribes in the last days. The messianic expectations of the Testaments correspond with Romans 11, which affirms that God will one day restore "Israel after the flesh."

What's puzzling are the Testaments' statements that Levi and Judah will bring about the salvation of Israel, indicating that (for them) the Messiah will come from both tribes. In the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Marinus de Jonge says this obviously refers to Jesus, but Jesus did not come from the tribe of Levi. Hebrews 7 emphasizes that fact!

Could this reflect another form of Messianic expectation within Judaism? Qumran expected a priestly Messiah and a royal Messiah--two separate individuals. But maybe there were Jews who thought the Messiah would be descended from both Judah and Levi.

Or perhaps Testament of Levi 3:23-27 contains the answer to my confusion. It says that the seed of Levi will be divided three ways, and the third part will technically be from the tribe of Judah. Maybe the Testaments think Jesus is a Levite the same way that Paul views Gentile Christians as Abraham's seed (Romans 4; Galatians 3), even though, physically-speaking, they are not. Christianity has a concept of spiritual descent.

At the same time, I can imagine Testament of Levi 3:23-27 as a Christian interpolation to a Jewish document. In this scenario, the Testaments say that the Messiah will descend from Levi and Judah, and the Christian interpolators take great pains to apply that to Jesus. I'm not sure if any scholar sees it that way, though.

Joseph's Slander

Years ago at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Pastor Tim Keller was preaching through the story of Joseph. His thesis was that none of its characters is morally good, yet God loves them and fulfills his righteous purposes through them anyway.

Keller said Joseph himself was a spoiled brat. He didn't use that term, but his interpretation of Genesis 37:2 gave that impression. Genesis 37:2 states that Joseph gave his father an evil report about his brothers, more specifically the sons of Jacob's maidservants, Bilhah and Zilpah. At first, I thought that meant that Joseph was telling his father something bad that his brothers had actually done. Keller maintained, however, that Joseph was slandering them.

Keller may be right, for the Hebrew word for "report" in Genesis 37:2, dibbah, often means "slander" in the Hebrew Bible (see here). But such a view about Joseph's act also occurs in the history of interpretation. I'm not going to research every treatment of this story, at least not in this post, but here are two:

1. The Testament of Gad is part of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, whose history probably extends from the second century B.C.E. to the second century C.E. In Testament of Gad 1, Gad states that he delivered a lamb from the mouth of a bear, and he killed the lamb because it was mangled and in pain. Joseph then told his father that the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah were slaughtering and eating the best of the flock. As a result, Gad hated Joseph. The book is about why hatred is wrong.

2. Genesis Rabbah 84:7 doesn't really say that Joseph was lying about his brothers, but rather that he was telling his father any evil about them that he could find. Rashi summarizes this rabbinic tradition as follows:

"evil tales about them: Any evil he saw in his brothers, the sons of Leah, he would tell his father: 1) that they ate limbs from living animals, 2) that they demeaned the sons of the handmaids by calling them slaves, and 3) that they were suspected of illicit sexual relationships. For these three [tales] he was punished: For [the report that his brothers ate] limbs from living animals, 'they slaughtered a kid' (Gen. 37:31) when they sold him, and did not eat it alive. For the report that he told about them that they called their brothers slaves, 'Joseph was sold as a slave' (Ps. 105:17), and concerning the illicit sexual relationships that he told about them, 'his master’s wife lifted her eyes, etc.' (Gen. 39:7)." (Source: http://www.chabad.org/.)

According to this passage, God disapproved of Joseph slandering his brothers, so he punished Joseph in a manner that resembled the slander.

James Kugel states in The Bible As It Was that ancient interpreters tried to make certain biblical characters look good. That may be the case with the patriarchs, but we don't really see it with Joseph, at least not in these two sources.