Jesus’ Arrest and Malchus’ Ear

It often amazes me, what portions of the New Testament receive comment, and what portions are lightly discussed. Take, for example, the incident during Jesus’ arrest, when someone slices off the ear of the servant of the high priest. This has to be one of the oddest stories found in the Gospels, but this oddness is rarely talked about.

This incident deserves more attention for many reasons. For one thing, it is (I believe) the only time that anyone associated with Jesus commits an act of violence against the person of another. Arguably, Jesus committed acts of violence during the Temple-cleansing incident, when he overturned the tables of the money changers and others selling animals for sacrifice, and “drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple.” But the Gospels do not report that Jesus struck or injured anyone in the Temple cleansing.

In contrast, during Jesus’ arrest, someone associated with Jesus sliced off the ear of someone else in Jesus’ arresting party. Under any normal circumstances, slicing off someone else’s ear is considered a serious, violent attack. Slicing off an ear is a common feature of torture. The victim of an ear amputation (particularly in ancient times) might die from blood loss or infection (the painter Vincent Van Gogh nearly diedfrom his infamous ear-severing incident). Even today, the surgical reattachment of a severed ear is not a simple procedure.

But the Gospels treat this ear amputation as no big deal. Mark tersely reports the incident as follows:

Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Mark report the ear-slicing without comment, or evident interest. He does not bother to tell us who struck the servant – or possibly, he wants to protect the identity of the attacker (more on this later). He does not tell us that the attacker was a disciple of Jesus, though I think such an identity is implied (no one seems to be present at Jesus’ arrest except for Jesus, his disciples and the forces come to arrest Jesus). Mark reports no reaction by Jesus to this armed assault: there is no concern shown by Jesus for the wounded servant, or any criticism leveled by Jesus against this act of violence. Instead, Mark tells us that Jesus rebuked the arresting force for carrying arms.

“Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.”

This is indeed a strange thing for Jesus to have said! Since when is it unusual for a police force or a group of soldiers to carry arms? This is what police and soldiers do. If Jesus had been arrested in the temple courts, as he indicated would have been more appropriate, his captors still would have been armed. Besides … why should Jesus be indignant that his captors were armed, when at least one person in Jesus’ party (Luke tells us that there were more than one) was also armed? Indeed, the only person reported to have used arms during Jesus’ arrest was a member of Jesus’ party, yet Mark has Jesus complain about the unused arms carried by his opponents. This is weird, to be honest. It doesn’t sound right.

Evidently, Mark’s account didn’t sound exactly right to Matthew, either. Matthew provides some additional detail to address our concerns:

Suddenly, one of those with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way?” At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

Matthew confirms what we suspected in Mark: it was “one of those with Jesus” who attacked the slave of the high priest. Matthew also adds an important element to Mark’s account: a condemnation by Jesus of violence. This seems only appropriate for the evangelist who reported Jesus telling us during his Sermon on the Mount to love our enemies and not to get angry. But in comparison to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ condemnation of violence at his arrest is positively tepid. At his arrest, Jesus makes two arguments about violence. The first is that violence leads to violence. This is an important point to make, but it falls well short of Jesus’ blanket condemnation of violence in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ condemnation of violence at his arrest sounds utilitarian: the violence we do unto others is ill-advised, because the same violence may eventually be done back unto us. Jesus’ condemnation of violence here is also worded in an oddly detached manner: a literal translation of Matthew 26:52 might be “those having taken the sword, by the sword will perish.” This sounds more like a proverb than a critique of a specific person whose violence has left a specific man seriously wounded. More troubling, however, is Jesus’ second argument against use of violence: that Jesus might himself call for overwhelmingly violent force (more than 12 legions of angels) where appropriate. Note what Jesus doesn’t say: he doesn’t say that he could summon armies of angels to fight for him if he wanted to, but that he’d never do so, because violence is never an appropriate response in any situation. Instead, Matthew has Jesus say that he chose not to summon angels in this case, because in this case Jesus’ opponents were doing what Jesus wanted them to do (i.e., fulfill scripture). At his arrest, Jesus seemed to allow for violence when he calls for it, against forces opposing his will. This leaves much more room for violence than was apparent from the Sermon on the Mount.

Let’s consider the third Gospel, that of Luke. Like Matthew, Luke’s account of the ear-removal seems designed to address elements missing from Mark’s Gospel:

When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”

It is in Luke – and only in Luke – where Jesus shows concern for the servant of the high priest. From the other three Gospels, we might understand that Jesus was willing to let the servant bleed to death, or die from infection, or remain disfigured.

But while Luke’s Jesus is more compassionate than in Mark or Matthew, Luke’s Jesus does not clearly condemn the ear-slicing. In the translation above, Jesus does seem to order an end to the violence: “No more of this!” These words might be read as a statement by Jesus that the ear removal was wrong. But these words have been translated in different ways. The Greek phrase Luke has Jesus utter is “Ἐᾶτε ἕως τούτου,” pronounced eate heōs toutou. This is not an easy phrase to understand. These three Greek words in order seem to indicate (1) a reluctant permission or allowing, with implied misgiving, such as the way one might point to a lurking danger, (2) a prepositionwith the sense of “until” or “as far as,” and (3) a demonstrative pronoun like “this” or “it.” A more literal translation of the phrase eate heōs toutou might be “suffer you thus far,” or perhaps “allow you as far as this.” A more modern way to translate this phrase this might be “I’m not going to permit this to go any further,” or even “That’s enough violence and bloodshed for the moment.” It’s really, really hard for me to say which of these readings is best, given my nonexistent knowledge of Greek. But even giving Luke the most generous of readings, his Jesus does not clearly say that the sword-blow was wrong, or even ill-advised. All we can say for certain is that in Luke, Jesus wanted no further sword-play.

Finally, we turn to John’s Gospel. John gives us an account of the ear amputation that is nearly as disinterested as Mark’s:

Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

John gives us detail we don’t find in the Synoptic Gospels: namely, the identity of the attacker (Peter!) and the name of the servant. But otherwise, John’s account is as remote as Mark’s. As in every Gospel other than Luke’s, John’s Jesus shows no concern for the servant of the high priest. As in every Gospel other than Matthew’s, John’s Jesus issues no principled condemnation of the violence.

And the strangeness of this scene does not stop there.

• The only violence reported is the single sword-blow by Jesus’ associate. We might imagine (as do some artists, and as does Reza Aslan in his book Zealot) that there was a brief battle or melee where Jesus’ disciples clashed with the force come to arrest Jesus. But the Gospels report no such thing. The Gospels report a single swing of a single sword, resulting in a single injury to a single person.

• The attack itself is problematic. Peter (or whoever the attacker might have been; let’s call him Peter) struck a blow that could have been fatal and was probably intended to be fatal. How else can we imagine a blow to someone’s head, delivered with sufficient force to sever an ear? If Peter had been a soldier, perhaps he would have possessed the skill to intentionally slice off the ear of the high priest’s slave (let’s call the slave Malchus, even though it’s only John’s Gospel that so names him). But Peter was a fisherman, not a soldier. He struck at Malchus’ head, without warning (some Gospel translations say he did so “suddenly”). It is reasonable to conclude that Peter intended to kill.

• Alternatively, if we want to imagine that Peter intended only to remove Malchus’ ear, then we have to re-picture the scene. We can do so by imagining that Peter was not wielding the kind of big, heavy sword shown in many paintings of the arrest scene (such as the one at the beginning of this post). An overhead blow from such a massive weapon would have continued through Malchus’ ear and into his neck or shoulder, killing him instantly. As described here, such a blow would pretty much have sliced Malchus in two, so that “Jesus would have had to add one more to the list of folks he raised from the dead.” As Malchus survived the blow, then perhaps Peter wielded a smaller sword, or even a sharp knife, in the manner shown in the two paintings to the right. If so, then it’s possible that Peter truly intended only to wound Malchus. But because the pictured sword is shorter, it means that Peter could not have wielded this blow from a distance – he would have had to overwhelm Malchus first (in something like hand-to-hand combat, as pictured above right), or else attack him without warning from behind (below right).

• Worse: Malchus was a δοῦλον (pronounced doulon), so described in all four Gospels, and while this word is sometimes translated as “servant,” it most
  certainly meant “slave.” As a slave, Malchus was probably unarmed. We’re thus left to understand that Peter used a concealed weapon to attack an unarmed slave, perhaps from behind. To say the least, this is not a pretty picture.

• If Peter’s actions here are disturbing, the reaction of Jesus’ arresting force is impossible to understand. They reacted by doing nothing. One of their own party had been violently attacked with deadly force, yet the Gospels record no response. Peter was not arrested, or himself attacked, or restrained. He was not even disarmed! Jesus told Peter to “Put your sword back into its place,” Peter did so, and all seemed to be fine with this. I ask if you can imagine anything comparable taking place in the real world. What is the universal police or military reaction when someone resists their efforts by force of arms, even if no damage is done as a result? Resisting arrest is a serious crime, often more serious than the original crime for which the resistor is being arrested. Resisting arrest by force is more serious, by force of arms more serious than that. And the actual use of deadly force to resist arrest should have landed Peter on the cross next to Jesus.

• Let’s be clear: Peter’s action was battery: the intentional and unpermitted act resulting in harmful contact with the person of another. (Peter’s action may have been more than battery: assault perhaps, or attempted murder, but it was at least a battery). Under Jewish law, some form of punishment was called for: the payment of damages or a fine, or perhaps flogging.

• There are also questions to ask about Peter’s carrying a sword. As we’ve already noted, it may have been against Roman law for a Jew to carry a sword. But Peter’s sword-carrying may have also been in violation of Jewish law. While the question is debated in the Talmud, it appears that the Talmud position is that Jews are forbidden from carrying weapons during the first day of a Jewish holiday. According to Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ arrest took place on the first night of Passover; according to John, the arrest took place on the Day of Preparation before Passover. Was the Talmud rule in effect during Jesus’ day? If so, would Peter have violated this rule?

At this point, I hope you’re beginning to see the ear-severing story as a strange one. We have many reasons to wonder if it could have happened in the way the Gospels describe. As this piece is already a long one, I’ll pause for a week or so before I consider expert explanations for what might have occurred in the way of sword-fighting during Jesus’ arrest. In the meantime, my question for this week is: what strikes you as odd in this story? Is there anything about this incident that doesn’t seem quite right to you?

Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?

written by Dr. Bart D Erhman

QUESTION:

You mention in your book Forgeries and Counter Forgeries that John most likely did not write the Gospel attributed to him as he almost certainly could not write in Greek. I seem to remember you writing that the Greek of that Gospel was good and fairly nuanced. However, I am being told by someone who is fairly conversant in these matters that John could easily have learned the Greek necessary to write the Gospel, since he lived for over 60 years on the mission field and that his Greek is the most basic of the NT. Is he right? And if so how would you respond?

RESPONSE

Yes, I get asked this question a lot, or rather, get told this a lot – that if an illiterate Aramaic speaking day-laborer spent a lot of time abroad, he would be able to write a Gospel in a foreign language (it  has been established on clear philological grounds that John’s Gospel, like the other books of the New Testament, is an original Greek composition, not a translation from Aramaic).    It’s clear that my thinking about this is not at *all* what (some? many?) other people think.  The problem, it seems, is that people have a massive misunderstanding about education levels in the ancient world, and of what people were capable of doing when it came to reading and writing.

To begin with, the New Testament itself indicates that the apostle John was a fisherman by trade.   How well educated were fishermen in rural Galilee?  We actually have a reliable answer to that.  They were not educated at *all*.   The vast majority of people in Galilee had zero education.  There were not day schools; the only people who got education were urban elites – the wealthy upper crust who lived in major urban areas.

John lived in a tiny rural community where there almost certainly was no school (see my bibliographical references at the end of this post).  And as a day laborer from a family of day laborers, he was in the lower classes.  He would never have learned his letters, let alone how to read a book, let alone how to copy a book, let alone how to compose a sentence in writing, let alone to compose a book.  And that is in his *own* language, which was Aramaic.  That is why the New Testament itself indicates that he was “agrammatos,” i.e., someone who didn’t know his letters, that is, someone who could not read (let alone write; let alone compose a book) (thus Acts 4:13).

Why would any experience he had on the missionary field with people who spoke a different language (Greek) suddenly make him educated, able to read any language, or the language of people he was suddenly living among, or able to compose a sentence in writing in that language, or able to write an entire book in perfectly constructed, even literarily pleasing in places, Greek?  I think the problem is that we simply assume that rural day-laborers in ancient Galilee were kind of like our next door neighbors in 21stcentury America: highly educated people with college degrees who know how to write and who, if they spent say twenty years in a foreign country, would be able to write in that other language.  But that’s not how it was at all.

For one thing, there is nothing in the New Testament to suggest that John spent any time at all outside of Palestine.  Whenever he is mentioned, he is either in Aramaic-speaking Galilee or Jerusalem.  But even more important, just because someone spends time in countries speaking a foreign language that doesn’t make them qualified to write a *book* in that language.

Here is more what it is like.  I have a wonderful house cleaner from Guatemala who has been in the U.S. for about fifteen years.  Her English is barely functional, even though she has TV, radio, a computer, access to social media and American movies, and is constantly among English speaking people doing her job.  Would she be capable of writing a Gospel about Jesus in English?   Good grief –NO!  She would not be able to construct more than a very brief and improperly worded sentence or two.  And she is far more educated (in her home country) than John was (in his).

Living abroad does not allow a person to become an author.  First there has to be a preliminary education, which, in the ancient world, happened only among children of very rich people, and took years.  After those years the student needed to learn how to compose writings.  That took more years.  It was a very long drawn out process.  It was only for the rich kids because everyone else had to start working for a living at a very young age.

Could an adult who was uneducated in this way eventually learn to write?  Possibly, but we have precisely zero evidence of anything like adult education in the ancient world.  And no evidence either, at all, of people being trained in a school setting to write in a second language.

I’m afraid too many people have a completely romantic idea about what education was like in the ancient world, because they think that it must have been roughly analogous to education in the modern world.   And partly because they’ve heard so many fictions about education in Palestine, where allegedly every boy went to a synagogue school to learn to read and write Hebrew.  But that’s simply not true.

I discuss all of this in my book Forgery and Counterforgery.  But no one has to take my word for it.  Go to the real experts. It is much better to see what such established scholars who have devoted huge chunks of their research lives to such matters have to say than simply to make some guesses based on some rather romantic hunches about what life might have been like all those years ago.

If you want to learn about literacy in antiquity, the best place to start is Columbia professor William Harris’s book Ancient Literacy.  If you want to know about how literacy worked in ancient Palestine, go to Catherine Hezser’s amazing study, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (she argues that the rates of literacy at the time in Palestine were probably not a lot more than 3%; that is, only 3% or slightly more of the population could read.  And that this 3-4% were wealthy urban elites – not rural fishermen).  If you want to see how education worked – how children learned to read and write – then read the books on ancient educational systems by Raffaela Cribiore, for example her enlightening Gymnastics of the Mind.

Do Later Manuscript Discoveries Ever Support Proposed Interpolations?

written by Dr. Bart D Erhman

It is fine, I think, for a post on the blog every now and then to get technical and into the nitty-gritty of scholarship.  And so I have no qualms about the following.

Yesterday I posted a response to a question about “textual emendation” by Jan Krans, a New Testament textual expert who teaches in the Netherlands.  The same blog reader had a second question that I have also directed to Jan, and here I give both the question and the answer.

The question has to do with my claim that there are some words/passages in the New Testament that *look* like they were added after the original was published, but for which we have NO manuscripts that lack the words/passage (so that there is no hard evidence that they were added after the text was originally published).   But has it ever happened that after a scholar suggested such a thing, a manuscript has turned up that provides actual evidence?  Here’s the interesting question about that, and Jan’s intriguing response.

QUESTION:

Do you know of any case where an interpolation has become a corruption, i.e. a part of the text that many scholars believed was not “original,” but was not missing from any of the known manuscripts, was found to be missing from a subsequently discovered manuscript?

JAN’S RESPONSE:

This question asks for conjectures for which attestation has been discovered after their publication, and then specifically conjectures that involve an omission (when the corruption is an interpolation, the conjecture is an omission). Whether interpolation has to involve a larger omission is left out of consideration. The issue of wider support for the conjectures will be addressed later.

If some less interesting cases are excluded, as well as those where the critic should or could have known about manuscript attestation, but did not bother looking for any—Friedrich Blass is known for this practice—, the following can be listed (in almost all cases, more information can be found by entering the cj numbers in the Amsterdam Database at NTVMR):

[I – Bart – need to explain what Jan is doing in the following lines.  He first gives the verse where the words can be found; he then gives the Greek words themselves.  I have translated them in boldface.  After the square bracket ], he indicates that a scholar has suggested that they were not originally found in the text by designating them with “om” which means – “omit”.  That is followed by the abbreviation “cj” which means a conjecture  (i.e. a scholar has conjectured, without any manuscript evidence, that the words were not originally in the text).  Following that he gives the name of the scholar who proposed the omission, followed by a cj number – which designates which proposed emendation this is in the data base maintained at Amsterdam.  He then in parentheses gives the date that the emendation was proposed, followed by a statement of which manuscript or manuscripts were later discovered which omitted the word(s) in question.  So there’s a lot packed into every line here!]

– Matt 23:35 υἱοῦ Βαραχίου = son of Barachiah] om. cj Hammond (cj11258) (1653), attested in ℵ01*

– Matt 26:42 μου = my] om. cj Blass (cj16341; not yet online) (1901), attested in 𝔓37(there is also versional and patristic evidence)

– Matt 27:9 Ἰερεμίου = Jeremiah] om. cj Beza (cj12376) (1556), attested in Φ043 33

– Mark 2:26 ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως = when Abiathar was high priest] om. cj Beza (cj12696), made by Beza in 1556, who himself discovered, before 1582, that the omission was attested in D05

– Mark 10:30 οἰκίας καὶ ἀδελφοὺς καὶ ἀδελφὰς καὶ μητέρας … μετὰ διωγμῶν = houses and brothers and sisters and mothers … with persecutions ] om. cj Pearce (cj11325) (before 1774), attested in ℵ01*

– Luke 3:36 τοῦ Καϊνάμ = the son of Chainan ] om. cj Beza (cj10149) (1556); as at Mark 2:26, Beza conjectured the omission before finding it confirmed in D05

– John 7:22 διὰ τοῦτο = for this reason] om. cj Schulthess (cj11943) (1833), attested in ℵ01*

– John 7:32 οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι = the chief priests and Pharisees] om. cj Semler (cj11947) (1771), attested in min. 118

– John 10:26 καθὼς εἶπον ὑμῖν (TR/𝔐) = just as I said to you ] om. cj Erasmus (cj10526), attested in 𝔓66c.75 ℵ01 B03 etc.; here, taking his cue from the Vulgate, Erasmus conjectures an omission that is now the text of our editions

– John 11:11 πορεύομαι ἵνα = I am going in order to ] om. cj Dieffenbach (cj12085) (1816), attested in min. 1186

– John 11:12 οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτῷ = the disciples … to him] om. cj Griesbach (cj11962) (1775/1777), also attested in min. 1186

– John 19:20 τῆς πόλεως = the city ] om. cj Holwerda (cj10829) (1869), attested in min. 1313

– Acts 14:8 ἀδύνατος ἐν Λύστροις τοῖς ποσίν = in Lystra who could not use his feet] ἐν Λύστροις just retain the words “in Lystra” cj van de Sande Bakhuyzen (cj12019) (1880), attested in mins. 1611 1890 2138 (ECM)

– Acts 20:9 κατενεχθεὶς ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου = being overcome by sleep ] om. cj Owen (cj10013) (1782), attested in mins. 206* 429 522 630 1509 1891 2200 (ECM); interestingly, in the apparatus of the Nestle editions, attestation (N21-NA28) has replaced Owen’s name (N13-20)

– Rom 8:38 οὔτε δυνάμεις = nor powers ] om. cj Fritzsche (cj10928) (1839), attested in min. 462

– 2 Cor 3:3 καρδίαις = hearts] om. cj Holwerda (cj10142) (1853), attested in 0243 630 1739; similar to Acts 20:9, earlier Nestle editions mention Holwerda (N11-NA25), whereas from NA26 onwards only attestation is given

– Gal 2:3 ὁ σὺν ἐμοί = who was with me] om. cj van Manen (cj14767) (1887), attested in 𝔓46

– Col 2:14 τοῖς δόγμασιν = with its legal demands] om. cj Baljon (cj10109) (1885), attested in min. 1881; again, the Nestle editions are interesting: Schmiedel (perhaps incorrectly so) is mentioned as author of the conjecture (N13-NA27); in NA26 the attestation is added, and in NA28 Schmiedel’s name is omitted

– 1 Pet 2:5 πνευματικάς = spiritual [sacrifices] ] om. cj Mill (cj15144) (1707), attested in ℵ01

– 1 Pet 3:4 ἄνθρωπος = person ] om. cj Bentley (cj11129) (around 1720), attested in min. 629

– 1 Pet 3:20 τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ὀκτώ = that is, eight] om. cj Wassenbergh (cj11132) (1815), attested in min. 88

– 1 Pet 3:21 ὅ = which [in reference to baptism]] om. cj Semler (cj16123) (1783), attested in 𝔓72 ℵ01* etc. (ECM)

– 2 Pet 2:12 γεγεννημένα = born] om. cj Bentley (cj14640) (around 1720), attested in 𝔓72

Jan now gives some reflections:

If I may briefly comment on this list, some patterns emerge. First, in general, most or all manuscripts tend to suffer from accidental omission, so it may be due to coincidence when one such omission agrees with a scholarly conjecture. Here the wealth of Greek manuscripts that we have is simply bound to produce a number of such instances. Second, and more specifically, the first hand of Codex Sinaiticus has many omissions, and since this manuscript is large and was discovered late in the history of scholarship, a number of conjectured omissions can be found here. Third, it is tempting to speak of “scribal conjectures” for some instances (e. g. Mark 2:26 and Luke 3:36), that is, a scribe may have left out some words for similar reasons as the critic who conjectured the omission.

It would seem that omissions are the more probable category for these patterns, but the Amsterdam Database does not confirm this. Conjectured additions are just as often found attested, and substitutions even more often, whereas conjectures that involve transpositions and more complicated operations very rarely turn up in manuscripts.

As for the scholarly reception of these conjectures, only the ones on Matt 23:35, Matt 27:9, Mark 2:26, Rom 8:38, 2 Cor 3:3, and to a lesser degree 1 Pet 3:4, have found considerable support. The ones on Matt 23:35, Matt 27:9, Mark 2:26 are clearly harmonising and grounded in hermeneutical principles that are no longer seen as critical. In my view, only Holwerda’s conjecture on 2 Cor 3:3, which I could have mentioned at the first question, is a serious candidate for the original text.

Could Moses Write Hebrew?

written by Dr. Bart D Ehrman

As you may have noticed, on a number of occasions I get asked questions that I simply can’t answer.   I received one such question this week, about the history of the Hebrew language.  Here is how the questioner phrased it:

What is our earliest evidence for Hebrew as a written language? I’ve been to apologetic seminars where they say it’s long been said by atheists that the Hebrew Bible can’t be trusted because the Hebrews didn’t have a written language until well after the stories in the OT would’ve taken place. The evidence that the Hebrews had a written language in close proximity to the Biblical stories is based on pottery evidence and things of that nature. I’m sure these are topics you are very familiar with and I’d appreciate your take.

It’s actually amazing how many topics I’m not familiar with at all!  So, not knowing the answer, I asked a colleague of mine who is an expert in Hebrew philology, Joseph Lam (he teaches courses in my department in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, and on the religion, culture, and literature of the Ancient Near East, and in Hebrew Bible; his office is across the hall from mine).   I simplified the question to get the heart of it.  This is what I said in an email to him.

Joseph,

Someone has asked me the question below.  Damn if I know!  I don’t need a long exposition, just a basic answer will do (some kind of inscription?)

What is our earliest evidence for Hebrew as a written language? 

Here is his very helpful response.

It depends on what you define as Hebrew. We have a number of inscriptions from Palestine in the late 2nd millennium/early 1st millennium BCE (which is when Hebrew mostly likely branched off as a distinct language from the broader “Canaanite” family of languages), but early Hebrew and Canaanite are difficult to distinguish from one another, especially in short inscriptions (sometimes a single word). For a long time the standard answer was the Gezer Calendar from the late 10th century (900’s) BCE, but I now think that text is better described as Phoenician or common Canaanite. Others would say the more recently discovered Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon (11th/10th century), but there are various oddities to that text that make it difficult to classify. There are also a number of short inscriptions from Tel Rehov that have been dated archaeologically to the 10th/9th centuries. The upshot is, there are a number of candidates from the 10th/9th centuries, but certainly by the 8th century we have many more unambiguously “Hebrew” inscriptions.

For more detail, I would recommend to your readers the following online article (and the article to which it responds):https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/what%E2%80%99s-the-oldest-hebrew-inscription/

As a follow-up, I said/asked the following:

Fantastic.  Just what I needed.  The questioner was not a scholar, but an interested lay person, who was especially interested in the question of whether, if there was a Moses living in say the 13th c BCE, he would have been able to write.   Do you have an opinion?  (I myself  don’t think there *was* a Moses, but still,  assuming there was…)

Here is Joseph’s short and very interesting response.

If there was a Moses, raised in the Egyptian court, he probably would have learned to write in Egyptian! The texts of the Pentateuch, whoever wrote them, are NOT in 13th century language; they are in classical 1st millennium Hebrew. Whatever a hypothetical 13th century Moses wrote, whether in Egyptian or Canaanite or something else, that’s NOT what we have preserved in the Pentateuch.

Islam on slave girls/concubines

It is true that a lot of people push this subject ‘under the rug’ and do not understand it or are sometimes ashamed of this concept. That is because, today’s society and behavior is absolutely different from the conditions prevalent 1500 years ago at the time of Revelation of the Quran. There is no place on earth where this concept is practiced today, thus to really understand the concept in its entirety, we must try to imagine the times of the Revelation of the Glorious Quran.


Since time immemorial, slavery was an accepted practice; thus it was not Islam that started this practice, but rather Islam was the first system to inculcate the freedom of slaves and take steps to make them equal citizens of society. Slavery was abolished in modern society only a couple of centuries ago, and was openly practiced in almost all parts of the civilized world even until the early 1900s. But Islam made it a virtue to free slaves, and inculcate them into society as equal citizens, almost 1500 years ago

The prophet said regarding the rights of slaves:

Your servants and your slaves are your brothers. Anyone who has slaves should give them from what he eats and wears. He should not charge them with work beyond their capabilities. If you must set them to hard work, in any case I advise you to help them.

Source: Bukhari, Iman, 22; Adab, 44; Muslim, Iman, 38–40; Abu Dawud, Adab, 124

Ali reported that the last words of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, were: "The prayer! The prayer! Fear Allah concerning your slaves ! "

Source: Al-Adab al-Mufrad Al-Bukhari , Nr. 158.

· Jabir ibn 'Abdullah said, "The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, advised that slaves should be well-treated. He said, 'Feed them from what you eat and clothe them from what you wear. Do not punish what Allah has created.' "

Source: Al-Adab al-Mufrad Al-Bukhari , Nr. 188.

· Sallam ibn 'Amr reported from one of the Companions of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Your slaves are your brothers, so treat him well. Ask for their help in what is too much for you and help them in what is too much for them."

Source: Al-Adab al-Mufrad Al-Bukhari , Nr. 190.

· Abu Hurayra reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The slave has his food and clothing. Do not burden a slave with work which he is incapable of doing."

Source: Al-Adab al-Mufrad Al-Bukhari , Nr. 192.

Not one of you should [ when introducing someone ] say ‘This is my slave’ , ‘This is my concubine’. He should call them ‘my daughter’ or ‘my son’ or ‘my brother’.

Source: Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 2 ,4

For this reason ‘Umar and his servant took it in turns to ride on the camel from Madina to Jerusalem on their journey to take control of Masjid al-Aqsa. While he was the head of the state, ‘Uthman had his servant pull his own ears in front of the people since he had pulled his. Abu Dharr, applying the hadith literally, made his servant wear one half of his suit while he himself wore the other half. From these instances, it was being demonstrated to succeeding generations of Muslims, and a pattern of conduct established, that a slave is fully a human being, not different from other people in his need for respect and dignity and justice.

"The masters were obliged not to put slaves under hardship; slaves were not to be tortured, abused or treated unjustly. They could marry among “themselves with their master's permission - or with free men or women ! They could appear as witnesses and participate with free men in all “affairs. Many of them were appointed as governors, commanders of army and administrators. In the eyes of Islam, a pious slave has precedence over “an impious free man." Source: Al-Tabataba'i, Tafsir ( vol.16, pp. 338-358 )

The Prophet, had stipulated in his "last pilgrimage" speech:

"And your slaves ! see that you feed them such food as you eat yourselves and dress them what you yourself wear. And if they commit a “mistake which you are not inclined to forgive then sell them, for they are the servants of Allah and are not to be tormented! "

Source: Ibn Sa'd, op. cit., vol. II:1, p. 133

"Serve God, and join not any partners with Him ; and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbours who are near, neighbours “who are strangers, the Companion by your side, the way-farer (ye meet), And what your right hands possess : for God loveth not the arrogant, the “vainglorious" Surah An Nisa, verse 36

The phrase "What your right hands possess" refers to one’s slaves (male and female). Allah swt ordains the kind treatment of slaves in the same verse where He commands man to worship Him and to treat his parents, relations and neighbours generously, and this signifies the importance of this ruling.

What were the rights of concubines?

The status was similar to that of wife. The children were exactly like the other children from the person’s legally wedded wife. They were to be given exactly the same rights as his other children. The children of the slave girl would inherit the property exactly as the other children. There was absolutely no difference amongst the children. And once any slave girl bore a child, she could not be sold to anybody else and thus became a permanent member of the household.

Then you will probably ask how is this any different from the modern days concept of a mistress/prostitution/adultery? 

There is a huge difference between the slave girls of those times and the system of prostitution which is so prevalent as a disease in today’s society.

The slave girl was a social issue of the times, which if not solved by Islam would give rise to adultery and prostitution. In prostitution, the woman sells here services for a fee to anyone who is willing to pay. The slave girl was taken into a household as a full member.

In prostitution, the woman has sexual relationships with many men. The slave girl would have sexual relations only with the person she was given to; very similar to the husband-wife relationship, the only difference being that the wife came into the house through a marriage contract, and the slave girl was allotted to the person by the state.

Prostitution is a result of illegal lust, and is a huge sin in the eyes of Allah.

The allocation of slave girls was a issue of the times to envelope the woman taken as slaves in a war into the Islamic society. Prostitution and adultery do not have any responsibility attached to it. The man- woman have a one-off relationship and depart. The slave girls were a responsibility of the person, who spent on them, gave them a place to live, fed them, clothed them, and raised their children as his children.

The children from adultery and prostitution are regarded as born out of wedlock and grow up without the name and without the shadow of a father. The children of the slave girls were known as the children of the person, grew up with his other children, and had exactly the same rights and inheritance as the other offspring. The system of slave girls was accepted and respected by the Islamic society of the times. The slave girl was treated like his wife, and the children from these slave girls were treated like their children by society. No religion, no state, no moral society accepts and respects the institutions of prostitution and adultery. This is a disease of society and every moral society has tried to eradicate this disease with little success.

Despite this, it was not simply a case of forcing someone into having sex to satisfy your desires.

Below are three English translations to the Verse where Allah commands the Muslim men to not force their slave women into sex.

The following translations were taken from http://mama.stg.brown.edu/webs/quran_browser/pqeasy.shtml

Translation: Yusufali:

"Let those who find not the wherewithal for marriage keep themselves chaste, until God gives them means out of His grace. And if any of your slaves ask for a deed in writing (to enable them to earn their freedom for a certain sum), give them such a deed if ye know any good in them: yea, give them something yourselves out of the means which God has given to you. But force not your maids to prostitution when they desire chastity, in order that ye may make a gain in the goods of this life. But if anyone compels them, yet, after such compulsion, is God, Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful (to them), (The Noble Quran, 24:33)"

Translation: Pickthall:

"And let those who cannot find a match keep chaste till Allah give them independence by His grace. And such of your slaves as seek a writing (of emancipation), write it for them if ye are aware of aught of good in them, and bestow upon them of the wealth of Allah which He hath bestowed upon you. Force not your slave-girls to whoredom that ye may seek enjoyment of the life of the world, if they would preserve their chastity. And if one force them, then (unto them), after their compulsion, lo! Allah will be Forgiving, Merciful. (The Noble Quran, 24:33)"

Translation: Shakir:

"And let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah makes them free from want out of His grace. And (as for) those who ask for a writing from among those whom your right hands possess, give them the writing if you know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you; and do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail good of this world's life; and whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (The Noble Quran, 24:33)"

In all three translations, we clearly see that if the slave woman desires to keep chaste, then her Muslim master must not compel her into sex. It might sound odd to us today, but pagans back then were used to having sex with and raping their slave girls, even the ones who were married:

Narrated Jabir ibn Abdullah: "Musaykah, a slave-girl of some Ansari, came and said: My master forces me to commit fornication. Thereupon the following verse was revealed: "But force not your maids to prostitution (when they desire chastity). (24:33)" (Translation of Sunan Abu Dawud, Divorce (Kitab Al-Talaq), Book 12, Number 2304)"

So to women back then, it was something normal for a married slave woman to sleep with her master. It was something normal in the society at that time.

Allah Almighty in the Noble Quran not only allows for the slave man or woman to earn their freedom from their Muslim master, and receive money from their Muslim master to help them start their free life, but also commands the Muslim men to not compel their slave women into sex.
Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him also said:

Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ash'ari: "The Prophet said, "Give food to the hungry, pay a visit to the sick and release (set free) the one in captivity (by paying his ransom)." (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Food, Meals, Volume 7, Book 65, Number 286)"

Islam came to liberate all slaves and to end the Judeo-Christian and Pagan slavery that was practiced before Islam. When Allah Almighty made lawful for the Muslim men to have sex with their slave women, He did it to keep the Islamic society back then during Islam's weak, partial and venerable times under control.

Also, if any compulsion was made unto the slave woman, then Allah Almighty will add more mercy and forgiveness unto her in the Day of Judgement. Below is the commentary on this exact section and point in Noble Verse 24:33 by Minister (Sheikh) Abdullah Yusuf Ali; may Allah Almighty rest his soul:

"The poor unfortunate girls, who are victims of such a nefarious trade (i.e., slave trade), will yet find mercy from Allah, whose bounties extend to the lowest of His creatures."

When Islam was reveled to Prophet Muhammad, slavery was a worldwide common social phenomenon; it was much older than Islam. Slavery was deeply rooted in every society to the extent that it was impossible to imagine a civilized society without slaves.

In spite of this social fact, Islam was the first religion to recognize slavery as a social illness that needed to be addressed. Since slavery was deeply rooted in the society, Islam did not abolish it at once. Rather, Islam treated slavery in the same manner it treated other social illnesses. Islam followed the same methodology of gradual elimination in dealing with this social disease as it did with other social illnesses, for example: the prohibition of alcohol in three steps.

Concerning having slave women, we would like to let you know that it happens to be a practice necessitated by the condition in which early Muslims found themselves vis-à-vis non-Muslims, as both parties engaged in wars. Slave women or milk al-yameen are referred to in the Qur'an as “Those whom your right hand possess” or “ma malakat aymanukum”; they are those taken as captives during conquests and subsequently became slaves, or those who were descendants of slaves.

Thus, it was a war custom in the past to take men and women as captives and then turn them into slaves. Islam did not initiate it, rather, it was something in practice long ago before the advent of Islam. And when Islam came, it tried to eradicate this practice, bit by bit. So it first restricted it to the reciprocal practice of war, in the sense that Muslims took war captives just as the enemies did with Muslims.

But as it aimed at putting an end to such issue, Islam laid down rules which would eventually lead to eradicating the practice. So it allowed Muslims to have intercourse with slave women taken as captives of just and legitimate wars. In so doing, the woman would automatically become free if she got pregnant. What's more, her child would also become free.

Not only that, Islam also ordered a Muslim to treat the slave woman in every respect as if she were his wife. She should be well fed, clothed and given due protection. In the family environment, she had the opportunity to learn about Islam and was free to accept it or reject it. She also had the opportunity to earn her freedom for she could be ransomed.

In the light of the above-mentioned facts, and the nature of the question posed by people, it's clear that some people misunderstand the wisdom behind the permissibility of having female slaves and think that it is meant to unleash men’s desires and give them more enjoyment. Never! That is not the point! It is, rather, means of freeing slaves; and this is clarified above in the fact that if a master got a female slave pregnant, then he could neither sell her nor give her away as a present. And if he died, she would not be considered part of his property. She'd receive her freedom and her baby would also be free.

But, we have to stress that this case should not be confused with that of female servants or maids, for they are free and not slaves. Therefore, it is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with them except through an Islamic marriage.

Slavery has been abolished by international conventions, and goes in line with aims and objectives of Islam, as it has called for centuries ago.

As for marrying slaves, it is something permissible under two conditions: first, if one is unable to pay the dowry of a free woman. Second, if there is fear of committing adultery if one doesn’t get married. This is clarified by the following verse: “And whose is not able to afford to marry free, believing women, let them marry from the believing maids whom your right hands possess. This is for him among you who feareth to commit sin. But to have patience would be better for you.” (An-Nisaa’: 25)

This verse shows that Muslim men should abstain from illicit relations and seek enjoyment through marriage to free women or through their female slaves.

In conclusion, Allah has forbidden certain types of behavior and permitted other kinds of behavior as a safeguard to the individual and to the society. Allah has forbidden fornication and adultery. However, in the case of captives whom your right hands posses, it's something necessitated by the special circumstances which were created when the Muslims were at war.

This is not a practice for today which allows men to take extra sexual partners in addition to his wife, or a loophole as you put it. You have the same responsibilty to the slave girl as you would to the wife, with the same inheritence rights for the children born out of such relations hence it is more of a burden than a loophole to escape the 'treating wives equally' concept. Regardless of that, it is not a concept which is in practice today or encouraged for today. It was something specifically utilised and designed for 1500 years ago where the practice was already widespread. All Islam did was to bring structure to what was already in existence, and eventually aim to remove it all together. One may say it should be banned straight away, why the long drawn out process.

The reality is however human nature does not allow for such action. People gradually get use to change, and the Quran itself was revealed over a long period of time for this reason so people could gradually get use to the injunctions and guidelines and thus adapt better. That is exactly the case with this issue, rules were bought in to slowly eradicate the practice and give rights to women who without Islam would have nothing equivalent to rely upon