In the Syriac Book of the Cave of Treasures, which in a general way we may reckon among the rewritten Bible texts, in ch. 27.6–11, an apocryphal fourth son of Noah appears, Yōnṭōn by name.1
Scholars commonly date Cave of Treasures to the 6th c. C.E. and believe that a Christian author in northern Mesopotamia wrote it; see Peter Bruns, “Spelunca Thesaurorum/Schatzhöhle,” in Lexikon der antiken christlichen Literatur (ed. Siegmar Döpp and Wilhelm Geerlings; 3d ed.; Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2002) 650. For arguments that favor a date towards the end of the 6th or early 7th centuries, see ch. 1 “Einleitung” of the author's forthcoming doctoral thesis Die Adam-und Sethlegenden im syrischen Buch der Schatzhöhle (CSCO 618, Subsidia 119; Louvain: Peeters, 2006). The classification of the Cave of Treasures as a rewritten Bible text follows from the book's similarity to works which undoubtedly belong to this genre, such as the Book of Jubilees or the pseudo-Philonic Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, as Gary A. Anderson has noted (“The Cosmic Mountain. Eden and Its Early Interpreters in Syriac Christianity,” in Genesis 1–3 in the History of Exegesis [ed. Gregory A. Robbins; Studies in Women and Religion 27; Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1988] 214, n. 8).
Stephen Gero, “The Legend of the Fourth Son of Noah,” HTR 73 (1980) 321–30. The name “Yōnṭōn” does not actually appear in Jewish sources. Gero inferred the legend's Jewish origin from a peculiar exegesis of Gen 9:24 in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanh. fol. 70a. Here Ham's crime against the drunken Noah consists in castrating him in order to prevent Noah from begetting a fourth son. Similarly the Midrash Gen. Rab. 36.7 asserts, without mentioning the castration, that Ham prevented Noah from begetting a fourth son; see ibid., 321–22. Combining this with the appearance of Yōnṭōn in the Cave of Treasures, Gero concluded that the Talmudic and Midrashic accounts refer polemically to a fourth son of Noah, whom they believed to possess astrological knowledge; see ibid., 327–30. Since the authorities quoted in the relevant passages of Talmud and Midrash belong to the 3rd and 4th centuries, this motif must considerably antedate the Cave of Treasures, which preserves it in its original form, while the Rabbinic sources succeeded in erasing almost every memory of it.
Clemens Leonhard, “Observations on the Date of the Syriac Cave of Treasures,” in Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of Paul-Eugène Dion (ed. P. M. Michèle Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl; vol. 3 of The World of the Aramaeans; JSOTSup 326; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) 287–88, and n. 112. Leonhard here refers to Witold Witakowski, “The Division of the Earth Between the Descendants of Noah in the Syriac Tradition,” Aram 5 (1993) 635–56, at 641 and 648, who, likewise without further discussion, asserts that the author of Cave of Treasures “invented” Yōnṭōn.
Su-Min Ri, Commentaire de la Caverne des Trésors. Étude sur l’histoire du texte et de ses sources. (CSCO 581, Subsidia 103; Louvain: Peeters, 2000) 341–57, at 356.
In earlier Jewish writings, two Biblical personages appear in possession of astrological and oracular knowledge. In the Book of Jubilees ch. 8.1–4, Kainan, a grandson of Shem, discovers an inscription with astrological content that the fallen angels have written; according to Josephus's Jewish Antiquities 1.69–71, the descendants of Seth erect two stelae containing a prediction of the flood and conflagration.5
Similar motifs also appear in such medieval works as the Book of Jashar and the Chronicles of Jerahmeel; see Thomas W. Franxman, Genesis and the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus (BibOr 35; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1979) 79–80. I do not treat these later sources here because they do not yield information on the motif's use before the Cave of Treasures was written.
The account in Jubilees 8.1–4 runs as follows:6
I take this translation from The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text (ed. and trans. James C. VanderKam; CSCO 511; Scriptores aethiopici 88; Louvain: Peeters, 1989) 50–51. Scholars commonly date the Book of Jubilees to the time immediately after the Maccabaean revolt; see James C. VanderKam, “The Origins and Purposes of the Book of Jubilees,” in Studies in the Book of Jubilees (ed. Matthias Albani, Jörg Frey, and Armin Lange; TSAJ 65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 3–24, at 19–20. John C. Reeves adduces convincing reasons for dating the book to an earlier period, that is, between 225 and 175 B.C.E. (Jewish Lore in Manichean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions [HUCM 14; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992] 54). For the purpose of the present article it suffices to say that Jubilees can be safely dated to the first half of the 2nd c. B.C.E.
8.1In the twenty-ninth jubilee, in the first week—at its beginning—Arpachshad married a woman named Rasueya, the daughter of Susan, the daughter of Elam. She gave birth to a son for him in the third year of this week, and he named him Kainan. 2When the boy grew up, his father taught him (the art of) writing. He went to look for a place of his own where he could possess his own city. 3He found an inscription which the ancients had incised in a rock. He read what was in it, copied it, and sinned on the basis of what was in it, since it was the Watchers’ teaching by which they used to observe the omens of the sun, moon, and stars and every heavenly sign. 4He wrote (it)down but told no one about it because he was afraid to tell Noah about it lest he become angry at him about it.
This reveals a pronounced negative attitude towards astrology, in accord with the book's generally hostile stand against Hellenism.7
See VanderKam, “Origins and Purposes,” 20–22.
See Wolfgang Speyer, Bücherfunde in der Glaubenswerbung der Antike. Mit einem Ausblick auf Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Hypomnemata 24; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970) 111–20. According to Proclus, In Tim. 1.24 A/B, already Krantor, who lived around 250 B.C.E., maintained that Plato derived the myth of Atlantis from Egyptian stelae; see ibid., 115. As Eusebius, Praep. ev. 1.9.26 shows, Philo of Byblos, too, knew the motif and related that Sanchuniathon found stelae with the teachings of Hermes in a temple of Amun; see Speyer, Bücherfunde, 114–15. According to Ps.-Democritus, an alchemical author of Late Antiquity, the Greek philosopher Democritus found a stone with an inscription of Ostanes concerning alchemical knowledge; see ibid., 26–27. Speyer holds that this motif—of ancient knowledge inscribed on stone tablets which later generations rediscover—ultimately goes back to Egypt; see ibid., 19, 78, 111–20. If so, knowledge of the motif could have easily reached Judaea, which the Ptolemies ruled until 200 B.C.E. We may no longer accept Bousset's contention of the motif's “Chaldaean” (in the sense of Babylonian) origin, which he bases upon a single parallel in Berossos (Wilhelm Bousset, “Die Beziehungen der ältesten jüdischen Sibylle zur chaldäischen Sibylle und einige weitere Beobachtungen über den synkretistischen Charakter der spätjüdischen Litteratur,” ZNW 3 [1902] 23–49, at 43–46; idem and Hugo Gressmann, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter [HNT 21; 4th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1966] 492–93).
See Jacques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1–2 in the Book of Jubilees (Supplements to JSJ 66; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 313, 315. The Masoretic text reads Selach, to which George Kedrenos, Compendium historiarum, also attests; see Speyer, Bücherfunde, 114, n. 23. George probably depends here upon Julius Africanus, who is attributing the Kainan-episode to Selach; see Bousset, “Beziehungen,” 44.
In the—admittedly much later—Samaritan book Asatir 4.15 Kainan's father Arpachshad receives a “book of signs” which apparently contains astrological knowledge; see Albertus F. J. Klijn, Seth in Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Literature (NovTSup 46; Leiden: Brill 1977) 30, n. 15. Since the Asatir (whose title derives from the Arabic plural asāṭīr “stories; legends”) in its present form goes back to the 9th—12th centuries C.E. (see Hans G. Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Religion der aramäischen Periode [Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 30; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1971] 10–11), this account most likely reflects the story in Jubilees. Likewise, the note in Josephus's Jewish Antiquities 1.144 that Arpachshad is the ancestor of the Chaldaeans (see Bousset, “Beziehungen,” 44) in all likelihood also goes back to such a tradition, since “Chaldaean” in antiquity is almost synonymous with “astrologer.” Klaus Berger interprets Jubilees 8.1–4 as referring to faulty methods of calculating the calendar, but the text does not clearly indicate this (Das Buch der Jubiläen [ed. and trans. Klaus Berger; JSHRZ 2.3; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1981] 369 n. 3e). However, the discrediting of astrology in Jubilees ch. 8.1–4 may relate to the partition of the earth which follows soon after the Kainan-episode in Jubilees ch. 8.8–9.15, especially given that the division of the earth into
by Greek geographers involved astronomical knowledge (see below, n. 28). According to ch. 8.9, Noah's children at first divided the earth “in a bad way among themselves” (VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 51). Only after this, in 8.11, does Noah himself divide the earth by casting lots. This presupposes two ways of dividing the parts of the earth among Noah's descendants, one of which is evil and, as the annunciation of divine judgement in ch. 9.15 shows, presumably leads to “wickedness, impurity, fornication and sin” (ibid., 58)—evils that other parts of Jubilees associates with the fallen Watchers. Since the geographical section in Jubilees chs. 8–10 seems to aim toward the refutation of “the claim that the Jews stole their land from the Canaanites, the supposedly rightful owners” (VanderKam, “Origins and Purposes,”, 22 n. 83), we may surmise that the author of Jubilees, by attributing the origin of astrology to the fallen angels, wishes to subvert the astronomical foundation of Hellenistic geography. In its place he introduces a division of the earth according to the casting of lots by Noah, which validates the right of the Jewish nation to its ancestral land. In the Ethiopic Book of Enoch ch. 8.3 some of the fallen angels teach astrology to humankind, which explains why Jubilees attributes the invention of astrology to the Watchers; see van Ruiten, Primaeval History, 318.
In contrast to this Josephus gives the motif a much more positive turn. In Jewish Antiquities 1.69–71 he writes about the descendants of Seth:11
I take this translation from Louis H. Feldman, trans. Judean Antiquities 1–4. (vol. 3 of Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary; ed. Steve Mason; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 24–26.
1.69All of these, being virtuous, lived in happiness in the same land without civil strife, with nothing unpleasant coming upon them until their death. And they discovered the science with regard to the heavenly bodies and their orderly arrangement. 70And in order that humanity might not lose their discoveries or perish before they came to be known, Adamos having predicted that there would be an extermination of the universe, at one time by a violent fire and at another time by a force with an abundance of water, they made two pillars, one of brick and the other of stones and inscribed their findings on both, 71in order that if the one of brick should be lost owing to the flood the one of stone should remain and offer an opportunity to teach men what had been written on it and to reveal that also one of brick had been set up by them. And it remains until today in the land of Seiris.
This account shows a marked difference from Jubilees 8.1–4. First of all, it attributes the discovery of astronomy
12As Per Beskow remarks, the distinction between astronomy and astrology does not operate in antiquity (“Astrologie I. Einleitung,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie [ed. Gerhard Krause and Gerhard Müller; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979] 4:277).
See Louis H. Feldman, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible (JSJ Supplements 58; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 3–8. We do not know why Josephus attributes the invention of astronomy to the Sethites. Later rabbinic authorities as well as Christian exegetes and historiographers interpret the “sons of God” in Gen 6:2 as descendants of Seth; see Philip S. Alexander, “The Targumim and Early Exegesis of ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6,” JJS 23 (1972) 60–71, at 62–63; Lionel R. Wickham, “The Sons of God and Daughters of Men: Genesis VI 2 in Early Christian Exegesis,” OtSt 19 (1974) 135–147, at 141–44; Gedaliahu A. G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (NHS 24; Leiden: Brill, 1984) 25–26. Since the fall of the Watchers in Jubilees likewise refers to Gen 6:2, it would prima facie seem probable that Josephus credits the descendants of Seth with astronomical knowledge on the basis of their identification with the Watchers. However, Josephus's paraphrase of Gen 6:2 in Ant. 1.73 does not indicate that he knew of such an interpretation of the fallen angels; see Feldman, Judean Antiquities, 26 n. 172. Moreover, Josephus's knowledge of actual astrological books ascribed to Seth most probably lies immediately behind his account in Antiquities. Later on, Byzantine historiographers in particular depict Seth as an astrologer; see Klijn, Seth, 48–53.
To be sure, Adam is the one who makes this prediction. Such accords with later rabbinic sources, which ascribe to Adam a general prophetic foreknowledge as well as skills in calendrical calculation, which he transmitted to Enoch and Noah; see Salomo Rappaport, Agada und Exegese bei Flavius Josephus (Veröffentlichungen der Oberrabbiner Dr. H. P. Chajes-Preisstiftung an der israelitisch-theologischen Lehranstalt in Wien 3; Vienna: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1930) 7 and nn. 44–45; Feldman, Judean Antiquities, 24 nn. 164–65. Adam's prediction, however, by virtue of having an astrological background, does relate to the Sethites’ discovery of astronomy; the Sethites themselve, of course, inscribe the prophecy on stelae.
See Wilhelm Gundel and Hans G. Gundel, “Planeten,” in Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (ed. Konrat Ziegler; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1950) 20: cols. 2095–2096, 2148–2151.
“Stars clash with stars”; see ibid., col. 2150. The Hellenistic Babylonian author Berossos (first half of the 3d c. B.C.E.), to whom Seneca here refers, obviously thought that a flood would take place when the planets met in the constellation of Aquarius, a watery sign, whereas a conflagration would occur upon their conjunction in the fiery sign Cancer. Since Cancer dominates at the world's beginning, conflagration also marks the end of the world; see ibid. Feldman (Studies, 15) notes the motif's use in Stoicism but does not point out its astrological background. Besides, rabbinic authors also know a
but relate this event to the punishment of Sodom; see Rappaport, Agada, 90–92, and Feldman, Judean Antiquities, 24 n. 166. As Ginzberg convincingly argued, this most likely compensates for the denial of individual retribution, which the ending of the world through a cosmic conflagration implies; see ibid., 90–91. The rabbinic rejection of this notion accords well with Gero's interpretation of the legends about Noah's castration as polemics against astrological tenets; see above, n. 2. On the other hand, Josephus likely did not think the flood and conflagration would occur at the same time. If he did (as Rappaport [Agada, 91–93] supposes) the erection of two stelae as a precaution against the loss of the Sethites’ knowledge would have served no purpose, since both would perish in the double catastrophe. As to the motif's origin, it is “Chaldaean” (see Bousset, “Beziehungen,” 45 n. 5) insofar as we consider its astrological background. Cuneiform texts, however, as Bousset himself elsewhere notes (Bousset and Gressmann, Religion, 492–93) offer not a single parallel, wherefore the notion cannot be Babylonian. According to Gundel and Gundel (“Planeten,” cols. 2148–2149) the motif ultimately goes back to Hermetic and Egyptian sources.
See above, n. 8.
).” This has a parallel in the fragment of Ps.-Manetho that Syncellus preserves, which states that Thoth erected stelae with oracular knowledge
. After the flood Agathodaemon found and translated them and deposited them in Egyptian temples.
18See Gerrit J. Reinink, “Das Land ‘Seiris’ (šir) und das Volk der Serer in jüdischen und christlichen Traditionen,” JSJ 6 (1975) 72–85, at 73.
See ibid., 72–85, esp. 80. Feldman (Judean Antiquities, 26 n. 168) relates Reinink's conclusions too briefly and misrepresents his argumentation. Reinink does not suggest that “the term Seiris is based on the old Chinese word for silk” (ibid.) but connects the name with Greek
“silkworm” and related terms, which themselves undoubtedly do have that origin; see Reinink, “Seiris,” 78. Reitzenstein's contention that Seiris is identical with
, which denotes the country of Isis and which we therefore take to refer to Egypt (see ibid., 74), does not seem probable in the light of Reinink's findings. In the Hypostasis of the Archons a mountain of Sir (
) appears as the landing place of Noah's ark, and ch. 134 of the Pistis Sophia maintains that Jesus dictated books with oracular knowledge to Enoch in Paradise, which Enoch later deposited on the “rock Ararat” (see ibid., 74, and Speyer, Bücherfunde, 30). Moreover, according to Hippolytus's refutatio 9.13.1–3, the 2nd c. Judaeo-Christian prophet Elchasai (probably a legendary figure) received his holy book from Seres in Parthia. This latter information accords with the fact that the silk-trade between China and the Mediterranean operated through the intermediary of Parthia (see Reinink, “Seiris,” 79 and n. 38). In the later Syriac chronicle of Ps.-Dionysius (compiled in the 8th c.) the country appears under the name of
[šīr], which Bardaisan's Book of the Laws of Countries uses to denote China. In the chronicle, the Magi, who possess an oracular book by Seth predicting the birth of Christ, dwell there (see ibid., 74–75). This account already represents the Christian version of the story which we will treat below in connection with Yōnṭōn.
Summing up, we may say that both Josephus and the Book of Jubilees attribute astronomical/astrological knowledge to persons of remote antiquity. In both cases inscriptions preserve this knowledge and both times there is a connection with Noah. In Jubilees one of Noah's descendants finds the inscription during his lifetime; according to Jewish Antiquities, the inscription's content pertains to the flood. Unlike the Book of Jubilees, however, Josephus has a positive image of oracular knowledge and, furthermore, locates the inscription in a far-eastern country where, he contends, one could see it even in his own day.20
A version of this story, very similar to the one in Josephus, appears in the Vita Adae et Evae ch. 49.3–50.1; see Feldman, Judean Antiquities, 24 n. 166. It most likely depends either on Jewish Antiquities or on a common source but differs from Josephus insofar as the inscription does not deal with astrology but concerns the life of Adam and Eve; see ibid., and Rappaport, Agada, 7–8.
Having outlined the setting of these stories in their Hellenistic environment, I will now relate them to the account found in Cave of Treasures. In its present form, to be sure, this account presents a Christian reworking of the theme, which serves the purpose of explaining how the Magi were able to predict the birth of Christ and actually come to Bethlehem to do him homage. Ch. 45.11 of the Cave of Treasures states that they read the “oracle of Nimrod”, and ch. 27.6–11 explains the origin of this oracle by describing a meeting between Nimrod and Yōnṭōn, a “son of Noah”:21
I offer this translation based upon the Eastern recension of the Syriac text as given in La Caverne des Trésors. Les deux recensions syriaques (ed. Su-Min Ri; CSCO 486; Scriptores Syri 207; Louvain: Peeters 1987) 210.
27.6And Nimrod went up to yqrwra, that is, Nod. 7And when he reached the lake
wkrs, he found Yōnṭōn, the son of Noah. 8And he went down and bathed in the lake; then he drew near and prostrated himself before Yōnṭōn, son of Noah. 9And Yōnṭōn said to him: You who are a king are prostrating yourself before me? 10And Nimrod said to him: Because of you I went down here. 11And he stayed with him for three years and Yōnṭōn [taught] Nimrod wisdom and revelatory books; and he [Yōnṭōn] said: Do not return to me.
Like the texts quoted above, this passage deals with the transmission of oracular knowledge deriving from a person of the remote past. The sentences that follow (ch. 27.12–22) show that this knowledge concerns stellar oracles: Nimrod returns to his country and starts using the divinatory methods taught to him by Yōnṭōn. A fire-priest observes him and subsequently asks the demon residing within the fire to reveal the same art to him. The demon advises him to marry his mother, sister and daughter,22
Christian polemics constantly targeted marriages between close relatives, which the Zoroastrian nobility and clergy apparently practiced; see Eznik of Kolb, De Deo § 187 (in A Treatise on God written in Armenian by Eznik of Kolb (floruit c. 430–c. 450) [trans. Monica J. Blanchard and Robin D. Young; Early Christian Texts in Translation 2; Louvain: Peeters, 1998] 117–18) and the Nestorian canons quoted in Victor Aptowitzer, Kain und Abel in der Agada, den Apokryphen, der hellenistischen, christlichen und muhammedanischen Literatur (Veröffentlichungen der Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation 1; Vienna: Löwit, 1922) 8–9.
Since Nimrod in this account appears in close contact with fire-worship (though he does not invent it)and, further, since Ps.-Clementine Homilies 8.4.1 identifies him with Zoroaster, it seems valid to assume that in Cave of Treasures the name Nimrod in fact stands for Zoroaster, to whom Hellenistic astrology attributed a corpus of divinatory and magical texts.23
On Zoroaster in astrology, see Wilhelm Gundel and Hans G. Gundel, Astrologumena (Sudhoffs Archiv Beihefte 6; Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1966) 61–65. The traditions attributed to Ps.-Zoroaster obviously go back to Hellenistic Egypt (see ibid., 61–62) which accords well with the Egyptian background of the inscription/stelae in Book of Jubilees and Josephus; see above, n. 7. The teacher-student motif present in Cave of Treasures occurs in Hippolytus's Elench. (1.2.12) where, however, Zoroaster appears as teacher, and Pythagoras is his student; see ibid., 60 n. 2. The account in Cave of Treasures may be trying to subvert such a notion by stating that Zoroaster himself learned his wisdom from a son of Noah. The use of
[segad] “to prostrate oneself; to bow down; to worship” in Cave 24.8 indicates the wish to make Nimrod/Zoroaster inferior to Yōnṭōn, which stands in marked contrast to Zoroaster's exaltation by pagan astrologers.
Later works, to be sure, mention Yōnṭōn prolifically, but all these references ultimately go back to Cave of Treasures; see Gero, “Legend,” 323–26.
Ri, in commenting on Cave 27.6–11, derived a first hint of Yōnṭōn's identity from his dwelling place in a country named Nod. Both Gen 4:16 and Cave 5.31 mention this location as the place where Kain fled after murdering his brother, and the Masoretic text locates it
. The rabbinical law of exegesis by analogy apparently identified this place with the “Eastern mountains” (
), which Gen 10:30 mentions as the dwelling-place of the descendants of Yoqṭān, grandson of Arpachshad.
25See Ri, Commentaire, 350–52. Josephus (Antiquities 1.147) mentions that the sons of Yoqṭān inhabit India and
, that is, China; see Ri, Commentaire, 352. That the author of Cave of Treasures regarded Nod as a far-eastern country is also shown by the fact that we may best explain the unintelligible “lake
wkrs” (
) in Cave 27.7—with reference to parallel accounts in Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum and the ps.-Dionysiac chronicle—as
[
uqianos yamā] “ocean”, that is, the world-surrounding sea (see ibid., 324–25). Cave 24.20 furthermore mentions the “mountains of Nod” as located at the “ends of the East”.
and
), Ri contends that these two names designate the selfsame person.
26See ibid., 341–57, esp. 356. Apart from misspelling, we may assume the possibility that “Yōnṭōn” represents a Babylonian pronounciation of “Yoqṭān.” Note that the name “Aquila” seems to appear as “Onkelos” in Babylonian sources, as two passages in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud attest (yMeg 1.9 and bMeg fol. 3a), where Palestinian
is rendered as
in the Babylonian version. Other examples show insertion of the letter nun; note the forms “Andrianus” and “Indropicus” for “Hadrian” and “Hydropicus” in the Babylonian Talmud (see Alec E. Silverstone, Aquila and Onkelos [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931] 31 and n. 5; The Targum Onqelos to Genesis [trans. Bernard Grossfeld; The Aramaic Bible 6; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988] 5 and n. 7). “Yōnṭōn” may also be the “phonetic” representation of a Babylonian regional form “Yōnqṭōn;” in this case the whole episode in Cave 27.6–11 most likely derives from an oral source.
).
27See ibid., 354–56. In place of the term
, which in the Masoretic text parallels the “Eastern mountains,” the Septuagint version of Num 23:7 has Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, of course, is the home-country of the Chaldaeans, that is, astrologers. Hellenistic authors say that Zoroaster himself was a king of Bactria (see ibid., 329); Cave 24.20 mentions Bactria alongside the “mountains of Nod” as an eastern country.
In addition to this tentative connection, we may further support Ri's assumption with a specific Hellenistic and Late Antique link between astronomy and geography which will help to actually identify the elusive fourth son of Noahin Jewish sources. Hellenistic geographers divided the earth into
or
, that is, parallel circular belts between the poles and the equator. These
ultimately derived from a similar belt-like division of the sky and their exact determination on earth required astronomical skills.
28See Wolfgang Hübner, “Geographie und astrologischer Zonen-Begriff in der Antike,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 24 (2001) 16–23, and idem, “Zone,” in Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike 12.2 (ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider; Stuttgart: Metzler, 2003) 12.2, cols. 832–34.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (trans. Michael Maher; The Aramaic Bible: The Targums 1B; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992) 49. Gen 10:25 first of all connects the division of the earth with Yoqṭān's brother Peleg on account of a play on words with the root
Pi
el “to divide; to separate.” The Targum passage relies on a derivation of the name “Elmodad” from
Qal “to measure.”
VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 51; see above, n. 9.
, as in fact a Hellenistic reader of Gen 10:25 and Targum Ps.-Jonathan to Gen 10:26 would naturally assume astronomical knowledge on part of the persons involved in dividing the earth. Given the fact that the division took place in the days of Yoqṭān, it would furthermore have made sense to attribute this knowledge to Yoqṭān, whose descendants were known to live in an Eastern land, the traditional habitat of astrologers, thus turning Yoqṭān into an astronomer/astrologer who could easily have taken the role of the instructor of a key figure of Hellenistic astrology such as Nimrod/Zoroaster.
31A connection between Yoqṭān and Nimrod, albeit a polemical one, appears in ch. 6 of Ps.-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. Here Yoqṭān, together with Nimrod, collaborated in throwing Abraham into the fiery furnace; see Ri, Commentaire, 353. Given that rabbinic literature, which aimed at refuting astrology, frequently mentions Nimrod's hostility towards Abraham (see Gero, “Legend,” 32–30 and n. 52), Ps.-Philo likely regarded Yoqṭān as an astrologer alongside Nimrod. In Book of Jubilees 8.7 Yoqṭān does not appear by name, but his father Eber married a daughter of Nimrod by name of Azurad, which would make Yoqṭān a grandson of Nimrod; see Ri, Commentaire, 353. Furthermore, Yoqṭān and Seth are curiously similar. According to Jubilees 4.4, the name of Seth's wife is Azura, and in the Revelations of Ps.-Methodius, whose author apparently had access to a more complete version of Cave of Treasures, Yōnṭōn—like Seth in Gen 5:3—was “a man in his [Noah's] likeness, like his image” (Gero, “Legend,” 325). Since already Josephus in his Jewish War 6.289 mentions astrological texts under the name of Seth (see Gundel and Gundel, Astrologumena, 191), this parallel may likewise indicate an astrological significance for Yoqṭān /Yōnṭōn. Furthermore, we may possibly restore the unintelligible place-name yqrwra in Cave 27.6 to Yaqdīra (see Ri, Commentaire, 320), which can be connected to the name “Yoqṭān.” Bousset's and Götze's identifications of Yōnṭōn with the Mesopotamian fish-monster Oannes or the Iranian epical hero Fer°dīn seem far-fetched and do not have any textual basis; see Gero, “Legend,” 328 n. 47.
We may also explain the rejection and elimination of this motif in rabbinic literature, which Gero surmised, along these lines. Not only did Hellenistic geography divide the earth in accordance with astronomical precepts, but it also assigned to the various zones of the earth (most often seven in number) a planet that ruled over and influenced each particular area and the peoples living there.32
See Gundel and Gundel, “Planeten,” cols. 2140–2143.
See James H. Charlesworth, “Jewish Astrology in the Talmud, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Early Palestinian Synagogues,” HTR 70 (1977) 183–200, at 187. The Biblical text here adduced to denigrate astrology is Jer 10:2. I have argued elsewhere that Qumran fragments 4Q552–553—and, perhaps, Dan 10:13, 20, 21—accept the connection between planets and peoples with regard to the pagan nations (Alexander Toepel, “Planetary Demons in Early Jewish Literature,” JSP 14 (2005) 232–34, 237–38).
See Gero, “Legend,” 327–30.
If we accept the derivation of the name “Yōnṭōn” from “Yoqṭān,” however, we still must ask how a fifth generation-descendant of Noah came to be seen as Noah's son. First of all, Jewish tradition knows other tradents of astrological and oracular lore who are directly related to Noah. These include, on the one hand, Noah's son Shem, to whom tradition attributes a treatise on astrology, and on the other hand a Sybil by the name of Sambethe whom tradition calls a daughter of Noah. Moreover, Genesis Apocryphon §7 appears to attribute astrological knowledge to Noah himself.35
See Charlesworth,“Jewish Astrology,” 190–91; Bousset, “Beziehungen,” 24–25); The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (trans. Geza Vermes; 4th ed.; London: Penguin Books, 1995) 450.
See above, n. 8.
See Bousset, “Beziehungen,” 43.
From the preceding discussion we clearly see that Yōnṭōn's appearance in Cave of Treasures 27.6–11 is by no means merely a Christian legend; rather, Gero's direction of explanation has proven fruitful and, in fact, revealed a likely Jewish counterpart of Yōnṭōn, credited with measuring the earth by astronomical methods, which would have made him one of the early practitioners of astronomy and astrology, alongside heros of Hellenistic astrology such as Nimrod/Zoroaster. The identification of Yoqṭān as an astronomer furthermore shows the ambiguous attitude towards Hellenistic science that seems to have prevailed before the formation of rabbinical Judaism. On the one hand, as we have seen, the Book of Jubilees (2nd c. B.C.E.) already condemns astrology and perhaps sought to discredit alleged tradents of astrological lore. On the other hand, Hellenistic Jewish writers like Artapanus and Ps.-Eupolemus unequivocally accept astrology by attributing its invention to Abraham.38
Fragments preserved by Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.17–18; see Charlesworth, “Astrology,” 189–90.
Ibid., 190.
