The Star and the Two Spirits

• Anchor Bible Dictionary — its entries on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, on Judah and on Tamar.
• Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism — its entries on the Testaments and on the testament as a form.
• Dictionary of New Testament Background (IVP) — its entries on the Testaments and on the Pseudepigrapha. These are subjects to look up; the exact entry titles were not checked, and none of these works is held on this disk.
• On the text — any article that says which Greek it quotes. Charles (1908) and de Jonge (1978) print different texts from different manuscripts, and an article that quotes ‘the Greek of the Testament of Judah’ without naming the edition cannot be checked against this page.

• R. H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908) — the Greek read on this page.
• R. H. Charles, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (London: A. & C. Black, 1908; reprinted London: SPCK, 1917) — the English quoted here.
• R. H. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913) — his revised translation; held, not quoted.
• M. de Jonge et al., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (Leiden: Brill, 1978) — not held, not consulted.
• H. W. Hollander and M. de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1985) — not held, not consulted.

Two books, read side by side, give Tamar the same people. The 1917 edition of Jubilees, in a note on its 41:1, points the reader here — “Cf. Test. Judah x. ("from Mesopotamia").” — and this page can now check it: the Greek of 10:1 reads ἐκ Μεσοποταμίας θυγατέρα Ἀρὰμ.

Genesis narrates no campaign of Jacob and his sons against the Canaanite kings and no war with Esau. Its nearest are Simeon and Levi’s killing of the males of Shechem (34:25–26) and one line of Jacob’s at 48:22, Shechem ἣν ἔλαβον ἐκ χειρὸς Αμορραίων ἐν μαχαίρᾳ μου καὶ τόξῳ, which I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and bow; the 1917 Jubilees note on its war says the legend “harmonizes with the statement given in Gen. xlviii. 22”. It ends the brothers’ quarrel in reconciliation (33) and a shared burial of Isaac (35:29). Jubilees and this Testament both tell both wars. Compared for what is named — in Charles’s spellings on both sides, so the spellings are his:

• The Amorite kings. Jubilees 34:4 names the kings of “Tâphû”, “Sêlô” and “Gâ’as”; the Testament has Judah fight the men of Tappuah (3:2; 5:6), the allies from Shiloh (6:2), and the king of Gaash (7:1).
• Two cities built. Jubilees 34:8: “he built Rôbêl and Tamnâtârês”. The Testament 7:9: “And I built Thamna, and my father built Rabael.” Two similar pairs of names, not identical in Charles’s spellings, and the building shared out differently.
• Esau. Jubilees 38:2: “Jacob bent his bow and sent forth the arrow and struck Esau, his brother”. The Testament 9:3: “And Jacob smote Esau with an arrow”. In both the sons of Esau are then besieged and made tributary (Jubilees 38:10–13; Testament 9:4–7). The 1917 Jubilees notes say of this war “It is also found in Test. Judah ix.”, of the place where Esau fell “in Test. Judah ix. 3 the name appears as Anoniram”, and of the tribute “For 11-13 cf. Test. Judah ix. 7-8.” Checked against the Testament: all three hold — “as he went he died at Anoniram”.

What this comparison cannot do: it cannot say which book had the stories first, or whether both drew on a third. It records that two Second-Temple books tell the same wars Genesis does not.

In his Greek edition Charles writes of 24:1: “The phrase is drawn from Mal. iv. 2, and ἀναστήσεται ἄνθρωπος recalls the peculiar text of the LXX of Num. xxiv. 17”. In his English notes, on the same verse: “Like the sun of righteousness. From Mal. iv. 2”. Those are his claims of source; this page does not adopt them. What it does is measure the words, in Stage 4 — and report what the Hebrew and Greek of Numbers 24:17 each have: the Hebrew וְקָ֥ם שֵׁ֙בֶט֙, and a sceptre shall rise; the Greek καὶ ἀναστήσεται ἄνθρωπος, and a man shall rise. The Testament’s 24:1 has the Greek’s man; its 24:5 has a sceptre — ἀναλάμψει σκῆπτρον βασιλείας μου, the sceptre of my kingdom shall shine forth. Both columns are reported; nothing is inferred from them.

• 163 verses in Charles’s English. 25 of them read in Greek on the page images, plus four lines of the Armenian column.
• Slew / slay / killed: 17 verses, every one in chapters 2–12. Wine: 19 times, 15 of them in 13:1–20:5. Kingdom: 13 times, 9 of them in 21:1–25:5. (Charles’s English.)
• At eight of the 25 verses read, Charles’s English follows a reading from his margin, apparatus or Armenian column rather than the Greek text he prints — 20:5 (testifieth all things), 21:2 (the Lord), 21:4 (As the heaven is higher than the earth), 24:1 (the sons of men, manuscripts bdg), 24:5 (shall arise a stem, the Armenian column’s ἀναστήσεται πυθμήν), 25:5 (Jacob), 26:2 (a hundred and nineteen) and 26:4 (Judah, which the Greek text lacks; his margin: β, S¹). The 1917 editors describe the English as the translation of one manuscript family; at these verses it is not. (At 12:12 lived could render either the text’s ἐποίησα or the margin’s ἔζησα, and is not counted.)
• Charles’s brackets are his judgement. At 24:1 he square-brackets from my seed; at 24:4 the whole line; at 25:5 a clause his English then lacks. At 22:2 his Greek half-brackets and all the Gentiles (not in the Armenian) where his English square-brackets it (interpolated). None of this is a count of ‘Christian interpolations’, and the page does not make one.

Against the 7,927 verses of the Greek New Testament: all 25 reach two, 19 reach three, 7 reach four, 1 reaches five, and nothing reaches six.

Against the 30,348 Greek Old Testament units: all 25 reach two, 24 reach three, 10 reach four, 2 reach five, and 1 reaches eight — 26:4, Judah’s burial, καὶ ἔθαψαν αὐτὸν μετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ ἐν, with a band of 6: five royal burials in 4 Kingdoms and 2 Chronicles, and one in Judith 8:3 — a burial formula.

Depth is not rarity. The one five-word New Testament run is 25:1, Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ, band 4 (Matthew 8:11, Luke 13:28, Acts 3:13, Acts 7:32), a triad 18 Greek Old Testament units carry. A run is read with its band, or not at all.

Read the verse’s Greek against the Greek Old Testament piece by piece (each count is of units that carry the sequence, among the 30,348 screened):

• ἀνατελεῖ ὑμῖν — shall rise for you — 1 unit: Malachi 3:20 (καὶ ἀνατελεῖ ὑμῖν τοῖς φοβουμένοις τὸ ὄνομά μου ἥλιος δικαιοσύνης). No New Testament verse.
• ἄστρον ἐξ Ἰακὼβ — a star from Jacob — 1 unit: Numbers 24:17 (ἀνατελεῖ ἄστρον ἐξ Ιακωβ καὶ ἀναστήσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ Ισραηλ). No New Testament verse.
• ἀναστήσεται ἄνθρωπος — a man shall rise — 2 units: Numbers 24:17 and 1 Kingdoms 25:29.
• ἥλιος δικαιοσύνης — sun of righteousness — 1 unit: Malachi 3:20. No New Testament verse. The ESV’s English of the Malachi verse: “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” (ESV 4:2).

So the longest run with Numbers 24:17 is short, and the reason is one word. Numbers has ἀνατελεῖ ἄστρον, shall rise a star; the Testament has ἀνατελεῖ ὑμῖν ἄστρον, and ἀνατελεῖ ὑμῖν is Malachi’s pair. With the shelf’s normaliser the run is three (ἄστρον ἐξ Ἰακώβ) — or four (καὶ ἀναστήσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐκ) only by counting the first of the four words Charles brackets, [ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματός μου], and folding its ἐκ with Numbers’ ἐξ. Charles’s apparatus records that manuscript g lacks ὑμῖν; if that reading is applied to the text read here, the Numbers run becomes four — a figure for a reading this page does not hold.

And every four-word contact the verse makes with the Greek Old Testament goes through Charles’s bracket. The verse’s deepest run against the 30,348 units is four, band 4: Numbers 24:17 (καὶ ἀναστήσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐκ), Numbers 24:7 and Leviticus 22:4 (ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος), 3 Kingdoms 1:48 (ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματός μου). Remove the four bracketed words and the deepest run is three, shared by 77 units — most of them καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, and after these things.

Against the New Testament the verse reaches three, band 11: καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, and after these things, in seven verses; καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ καί in Ephesians 5:9; and three more only through Charles’s bracket — ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος, from the seed, in John 7:42 (ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος Δαυίδ), and ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ in Matthew 12:35 and Luke 6:45. Without the bracketed words the band is 8: seven verses at καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, and Ephesians 5:9 at καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ καί, and righteousness and, which four Greek Old Testament units also carry. No New Testament verse shares a star from Jacob, shall rise for you or sun of righteousness in Greek.

And the right-hand column has none of the Numbers words. Charles’s Greek for the Armenian reads ἀνατελεῖ τὸ ἄστρον εἰρήνης — the star of peace shall rise — with no Jacob and no man; against Numbers 24:17 it shares one word at a time. It is Charles’s retranslation, so this is a statement about what the Armenian has, as he rendered it, and not a run in any ancient Greek.

1 John 4:6 ends τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης — the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit. Three of the 25 verses read reach four words with it, each a different four:

• 14:8 τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης — run 4; among New Testament verses band 1.
• 20:1 τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὸ — run 4; band 1.
• 20:5 τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας — run 4; band 5 (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13, 1 John 4:6, and Hebrews 10:29 at καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς).

From 1 John 4:6’s side: screened against the 25 verses, its deepest run is four, band 3 — these three. Screened against all 30,348 Greek Old Testament units, those closing nine words reach three, band 22 — 19 of the 22 at καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα, and the spirit, and nothing reaching four. τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας and τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τό occur in no Greek Old Testament unit. (The whole verse’s deepest Greek Old Testament run is five, band 2 — Genesis 17:12 and Numbers 17:5, at ὃς οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ, in another clause.)

That is the opposite of the star. The star verse finds its rarest phrases in the Greek Old Testament and none in the New; the spirit of deceit finds its words in one New Testament verse and none in the Greek Old Testament.

What sets 1 John 4:6 apart is not that the Greek Old Testament lacks the words. Two other four-word runs among the 25 verses also stand in one New Testament verse and in no Greek Old Testament unit — 14:1 with James 5:19 and 26:2 with Luke 24:46 (the counter-examples below). It is that three separate verses meet it. Fourteen New Testament verses are met in four words or more by one of the 25 verses read; 1 John 4:6 is the only one met by more than one.

• 14:1 → Ephesians 5:18 — run 3, and Proverbs has the same three. μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ stands in the Greek of Proverbs 23:31 as well; from Ephesians’ side its deepest Greek Old Testament run is three, band 8, and Proverbs 23:31 is one of the eight. 14:1’s own deepest New Testament run is not Ephesians at all but James 5:19, four, band 1, ἀπὸ τῆς ἀληθείας καί — from the truth and — four words that stand in no Greek Old Testament unit either (James 5:19’s own deepest Greek Old Testament run is three, band 4). So a four-word run that stands in one New Testament verse and no Greek Old Testament unit can come from a sentence about wine turning the mind from the truth.
• 22:2 → Acts 15:17 — run 4, band 1, and it is Amos. καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, and all the Gentiles, stands in six Greek Old Testament units; Acts 15:17’s deepest Greek Old Testament run is fourteen, band 1, with Amos 9:12, which Acts introduces as written (15:15). And Charles half-brackets these four words: not in the Armenian.
• 25:1 → Matthew 8:11 — run 5, band 4. The patriarch triad. Matthew 8:11’s own deepest Greek Old Testament run is six, band 1, with 4 Kingdoms 13:23.
• 26:2 → Luke 24:46 — run 4, band 1, and in no Greek Old Testament unit: καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὅτι, and he said to them that. καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς alone stands in 28 New Testament verses and 111 Greek Old Testament units; Luke 24:46’s own deepest Greek Old Testament run is three, band 113. And three of the four words stand inside Charles’s half-brackets, not in the Armenian: Καὶ ⌈εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὅτι.

• 24:2 → Matthew 3:16, the heavens opened: run 2 (the heavens, which 4 New Testament verses and 14 Greek Old Testament units carry). The verse’s deepest run against the whole New Testament is two, band 127.
• 24:2 → Zechariah 12:10, the spirit of grace: run 2 — πνεῦμα χάριτος, in that unit only; in no New Testament verse.
• 24:4 → John 4:14, the fountain of life: run 1, though Charles’s English note brackets the line, “with some hesitation”, as an interpolation based on it, and allows that the words may be genuine.
• 24:5 → Isaiah 11:1, the root: run 2 (τῆς ῥίζης). Charles’s note says the words are based on Isaiah 11:1 and that “Our text differs here from the LXX” — the measurement agrees.
• 24:6 → Romans 10:12 and Acts 9:14: run 3, band 2 — all who call upon, in no Greek Old Testament unit.
• 25:4 → Daniel 12:2, the dead arising: run 2 in both Greek Daniels.
• 19:1 → 1 Timothy 6:10: run 2. → Colossians 3:5: run 1.
• 16:1 → Ephesians 5:18: run 1. Among the four evil spirits in wine 16:1 names ἀσωτίας — “four evil spirits—of lust, of hot desire, of profligacy, of filthy lucre” — and Ephesians 5:18 says of wine ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν ἀσωτία, in which is dissipation. The same noun in two cases is two forms to this screen; the shared form is ἐστιν.

• Any Greek beyond the 25 verses read. The other 138 verses were seen only through the machine-read net, and the net misses runs (Stage 4).
• Whether the reading of the page images is right to the last accent. Each verse was read at magnification and the iota subscripts checked at the scan’s full resolution; one breathing, on the name Er at 10:1, could not be settled, and that word is not printed; nor could the accent on ἓξ at 12:12, recorded as a grave (the regular spelling before a following word), be told from an acute at the scan’s resolution. The readings are in the file beside this page, with their page numbers, so anyone can check them against the same scan.
• de Jonge’s critical edition (1978), which prints a different Greek text on different manuscripts — in copyright, not held, not consulted. Every Greek word here is Charles’s text, and a run measured on de Jonge’s could differ.
• The Armenian and the Slavonic themselves. The right-hand column is Charles’s Greek retranslation of the Armenian (his introduction: “In my retranslations of A into Greek I have reproduced the irregularities of this Version”). The page uses it for what it has and lacks, and no more.
• The date and the interpolation question. Charles’s case for a Jewish work with Christian additions and de Jonge’s for a Christian composition are reported, not tested.
• The commentaries named in Stage 1. None is held; none was consulted.
• Allusion. A run of identical words finds verbatim contact. A run of one is not proof of independence, and a run of four is not proof of use.

• The English corpus file has no em dashes at all. The 1917 printing has them (16:1, 20:1); both are restored where this page quotes those verses.
• It lost a word at 25:3. The 1917 page reads no spirit of deceit of ⌈Beliar⌉,; the file read of For he shall be cast. The half-bracketed word went with its brackets. Restored.
• Two commas became full stops (24:3 in truth,; 25:5 in joyfulness,). Restored. Not quoted here, and also wrong in the file: 3:3 l found for I found; 13:4 fatherin-law; 14:5 my sons shame for my sons’ shame.
• The English is not uniformly one manuscript family. The 1917 editors say they reprint the translation of one family; at eight of the 25 verses read (20:5, 21:2, 21:4, 24:1, 24:5, 25:5, 26:2, 26:4) it follows another reading (Stage 3).

• The sample is chosen. The distribution in Stage 4 is of 25 verses picked by theme and by the net, not of the Testament. It should not be quoted as ‘the Testament’s’ distribution.
• The star finding leans on two of Charles’s decisions: his choice of ὑμῖν for the text (manuscript g lacks it) and his bracket round from my seed. Both are stated beside the numbers.
• The structure counts are counts of Charles’s English words. They show where the vocabulary falls; they are not counts of the Greek.
• Jubilees is compared in the same translator’s English. The page compares what the books tell, not how they word it, and does not say which told it first.

• R. H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (1908) — text, apparatus and introduction; the pages used are listed in the file beside this page.
• R. H. Charles, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (1908; SPCK 1917) — the English and its notes.
• M. de Jonge et al., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (1978) — not consulted.
• H. W. Hollander and M. de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (1985) — not consulted.

• Measure before you repeat. The verse in this Testament that names a star from Jacob shares no more than three words in a row with any New Testament verse, and outside Charles’s bracket those three are and after these things in seven verses of the eight and and righteousness and in the eighth. Its distinctive phrases stand in Numbers and Malachi. A link that feels obvious can measure three.
• The one New Testament verse that three of the 25 verses read each meet in four words is about discernment. 1 John 4:6 closes on the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit (the page’s gloss of the Greek). The Testament names the same two spirits in its exhortation: “two spirits wait upon man” (20:1). Scripture tells us to test the spirits (1 John 4:1); this page tested the words.
• Judah names his own sins to his sons. Wine, money and a woman’s beauty, each by name (14:5–6; 17:1). Whatever one makes of the book, it pictures a father telling his sons where he fell so that they will not.
• How Pleasant Springs reads it. This is the church’s view, stated as such: the Testaments are a Second-Temple witness, read for the light they throw on the world of the New Testament and tested by the canon; nothing taught here rests on them.
• One concrete response. Ephesians 5:18 gives the charge in its own words — καὶ μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ, ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν ἀσωτία, ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι, and do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit (the page’s gloss). If there is a habit you would not want your children to inherit, name it to someone this week.