Bread Life Joseph

Johannine Studies
I. BREAD OF LIFE IN JOSEPH AND ASENETH AND IN JOHN 6

Subjects reviewed in this chapter:
Bread, Cup, and Ointment in Joseph and Aseneth – Comparisons with John 6 – Conclusion

The Gospel of John and the apocryphal work have one very interesting expression in common – “bread of life.” Far from commonplace, this terminology is quite distinctive of the two writings mentioned; of the now vast corpus of extant Jewish works earlier than or roughly contemporaneous with the emergence of the New Testament writings, only Joseph and Aseneth shares with John 6 the exact expression artos (tēs) zoēs, “bread of life.”¹ Moreover, the similarity is not merely verbal. In both places the claim is made that the one who eats the life-giving food will not die but will live forever; both envision this attainment of life as a present reality; and both reflect the influence not only of the narrative about the manna in Exodus but also of later Biblical and post-Biblical amplification of the manna tradition.²

In spite of these and other similarities, the relationship between the bread-of-life terminology in Joseph and Aseneth and that in John 6 has not been extensively investigated. Several have noted the common element and the need to investigate it thoroughly, but discussions of possible affinities are found only in a very few works which provide little more than terse and preliminary remarks within discussions of larger topics.³ In view of the scant attention devoted to the subject, the purpose of the present study is to explore briefly this small plot of relatively uncharted common ground between the Fourth Gospel and Joseph and Aseneth. The basic question to be resolved is whether there is sufficient affinity of thought between the two usages of the bread-of-life motif to shed light on either or both of them.

Two factors account for the neglect of the topic to be investigated here. The first is the very late date and Christian character assigned to Joseph and Aseneth by several influential early interpreters. Most influential was P. Batiffol, who, in his introduction to the editio princeps in 1889-90, assigned the apocryphon to a Christian author of the fifth century A.D.⁴ So prevalent was this view, or slight variations of it, that Joseph and Aseneth was not included in the collections of Jewish pseudepigrapha by E. Kautzch⁵ and R.H. Charles⁶ and was rarely cited by or even known to New Testament scholars prior to the middle of the twentieth century.⁷ However, the solid current consensus that Joseph and Aseneth is Jewish and not Christian in its earliest attainable form⁸ and that it dates between 100 B.C. and A.D. 115⁹ means that this apocryphon is indeed significant for the study of early Judaism and Christian origins and that its usage of bread-of-life terminology should not be overlooked in research on John 6.

A second factor which no doubt has been a deterrent to the exploration of our topic is the uncertainty surrounding the enigmatic passages on the bread, cup, and ointment in which the expression “bread of life” occurs in Joseph and Aseneth (8:5-7; 8:9; 15:5; 16:16; 19:5; 21:21). As we shall see, these passages have evoked widely divergent interpretations and claims regarding history-of-religions analogies. A phenomenon so problematic in its own right naturally has not commended itself as helpful for illuminating John 6. In view of this difficulty it is appropriate to begin with a brief examination of the bread-cup-ointment passages in Joseph and Aseneth as a basis for comparison with John 6.

Bread, Cup, and Ointment in Joseph and Aseneth
In the text of Joseph and Aseneth edited by C. Burchard,¹⁰ the triad “bread of life,” “cup of immortality,” and “ointment of incorruption” appears three times (8:5-7; 15:5; 16:16), and the dyad “bread of life” and “cup of blessing” or “cup of immortality” is used three other times (8:9; 19:5; 21:21). These formulaic expressions have most commonly been supposed to reflect some sort of sacred meal, and on this assumption analogies have been drawn with a broad spectrum of other phenomena, including the sacred meals of the Qumran sectarians,¹¹ the Therapeutae,¹² the mystical Jewish circles posited by E. R. Goodenough,¹³ the mystery religions (especially the cult of Isis)¹⁴ and the early Christians.¹⁵ Indeed, it is precisely on the basis of the supposed sacred meal in Joseph and Aseneth that most claims regarding the history-of-religions affinities of the work have been made. A minority view is that the reference is not to a ritual meal at all but to the everyday Jewish meal, which itself had a solemn religious character, or to the entire Jewish way of life.¹⁶

Elsewhere we observed that it is the sociological rather than the ritual dimension of conversion to Judaism that is central in Joseph and Aseneth, and therefore that it is more difficult than many have supposed to extrapolate the ritual formalities of conversion for purposes of history-of-religions comparisons.¹⁷ The Judaism reflected in Joseph and Aseneth existed in dynamic tension with gentiles and struggled to maintain a distinctive Jewish identity. Table fellowship and intermarriage with gentiles, including the marriage of a convert to Judaism and a born Jew, were live issues. Conversion to Judaism carried the possibility of ostracism from family and former gentile associates. Considerable discord seems also to have existed within the Jewish community regarding the relative status of the convert. It is within the context of this determinative social matrix that Aseneth’s conversion is narrated and the bread-cup-ointment passages appear. Only with great peril to the understanding of these passages can this basic fact be ignored and hasty comparisons drawn with other texts and phenomena where the underlying concerns are quite different.

The literary and social context and function of the bread-of-life language in Joseph and Aseneth may be illustrated by reference to two of the passages in which the expression appears: 8:5-7 and 16:15f. In the first of these, Aseneth meets Joseph and comes forth to kiss him, but Joseph spurns her because, in his words, “It is not proper for a man who worships God, who blesses with his mouth the living God and eats blessed bread of life and drinks a blessed cup of immortality and is anointed with blessed ointment of incorruption, to kiss a strange woman, who blesses with her mouth dead and dumb idols and eats from their table bread of strangling and drinks from their libation a cup of deceit and is anointed with ointment of destruction. Rather, the man who worships God will kiss his mother and the sister born of his mother and the sister from his tribe and kinsfolk and the wife who shares his bed, who bless with their mouths the living God. Likewise, it is not proper for a woman who worships God to kiss a strange man, because this is an abomination before the Lord God” (8:5-7).¹⁸

Here the obvious function of the meal language is to distinguish the theosebēs, or “worshiper of God” (the Jew), from the idolatrous gentile, and to justify the social separation which the former must maintain from the latter. A fourfold series of antitheses expressed in relative clauses specifies the differences between the two classes of people. That the social concerns reflected here are not merely literary but are real ones in the author's community is decisively confirmed by the last sentence of the above quotation, which goes beyond the previous interdiction and envisions a situation not called for by anything in the story line itself. This generalization from the specific case at hand to a related situation not represented in the narrative betrays an interest in clarifying Jewish self-identity and appropriate Jewish conduct in a gentile environment. The contaminating effect of association with idolatry, including especially physical intimacy and intermarriage with gentiles, was a matter of grave concern to the author. Closely related is the concern for the maintenance of table fellowship in separation from gentiles and from the pollution of idols – a concern which is explicit in 7:1 and at least implicit in the repeated use of meal terminology in 8:5-7 and elsewhere to express the essence of the Jewish way of life vis-à-vis gentile existence.

The scene in Joseph and Aseneth 16 in which Aseneth eats from a mysterious honeycomb betrays another of the major concerns of the work – to enhance the status of the convert within the Jewish community and to establish the propriety of marriage between a convert to Judaism and a born Jew. D. Sänger correctly perceives that the visit of the “man from heaven” in chapters 14-17 is not the cause nor the occasion of Aseneth’s conversion but functions to provide heavenly ratification of a conversion that has already taken place and to articulate the benefits of conversion to the true God and membership in the elect people of God.¹⁹ The detailed narrative of this heavenly endorsement of Aseneth’s conversion and marriage to Joseph and her full acceptance as one of the people of God by God’s own chief angel is only one of numerous indications in Joseph and Aseneth that there existed in the Jewish community behind the document considerable dissension centering on the perception of the gentile convert, the relative status of the convert within the Jewish community, and especially on the propriety of marriage between a convert to Judaism and a born Jew.²⁰ It is within such a literary and social context that the language of “bread of life” is used in Joseph and Aseneth 16:16. By having Aseneth eat from the mysterious honeycomb – and we shall return to the significant point that she partakes of honey, and not of bread, cup, or oil – the author places this convert on a par with the Jew by birth, and indeed with the angels of God, who are said to eat the same immortal food. Aseneth’s eating of the honey and her full participation in the blessings of life and immortality symbolized by the honey, all at the direct command of God’s chief angel, function as proof that this convert is worthy to be received fully into the community of Israel and to be married to the revered patriarch.

The explanation that “all the angels of God . . . and all the chosen ones of God and all the sons of the Most High” eat from the same honeycomb (16:14) suggests that a continual feeding of the people of God is in view and that any ritual practice underlying the scene is not exclusively initiatory in character. Similarly, since it is Joseph, not Aseneth, who is characterized in 8:5 as one who eats bread of life, drinks a cup of immortality, and is anointed with ointment of incorruption, J. J. Collins is right that what this language describes “is evidently not, or at least not only, an initiation ritual. Rather, it is the habitual practice of the pious.”²¹ Moreover, in chapter 16 the miraculous appearance and disappearance of the comb, the strange marking of the comb, and the mysterious appearance and behavior of millions of bees dressed in royal attire make it unlikely that any repeatable ritual is reflected here at all. If traces of an actual cultic meal are present in this enigmatic episode, they are so interwoven into the literary fabric of the narrative that their particular form and significance are no longer recoverable.

In addition to the above considerations of literary context and function, which suggest that the bread-cup-ointment passages do not refer only, or even primarily, to a cultic meal involving these elements, one further fact renders it unlikely that this language refers to a specific ritual at all. It is an extremely important but often overlooked fact that Aseneth never actually receives any bread, cup, or ointment anywhere in the narrative. Instead she eats a piece of honeycomb and is then told by the man from heaven: “Behold, you have eaten bread of life, drunk a cup of immortality, and been anointed with ointment of incorruption” (16:16; see also 19:5). The explicit equation of eating the honey with eating the bread, drinking the cup, and being anointed with the ointment makes it highly unlikely that allusion to a fixed ritual form is intended in either half of the equation.²² Rather, both express the privileged status to which Aseneth has been elevated by virtue of her conversion.

Even though it is unlikely that the formulaic references to food, drink, and ointment, reflect a special ritual, and even if it is the representative function of this language to express life as a Jew which stands out in Joseph and Aseneth, it probably is not without significance that the particular acts chosen as representative are eating, drinking, and anointing. This triad echoes the Old Testament formula “grain, wine, and oil,” and, like that formula, summarizes the staples of life. It provides a representative expression for the Jewish way of life vis-à-vis gentile existence. The proper acquisition, preparation, and use of these staple commodities according to Jewish tradition, including the proper blessings said over them, stands over against the defiling food, drink, and oil of the gentile world.²³ This repeated use of meal terminology to contrast Jewish and gentile existence combines with the explicit concern expressed in 7:1 for the maintenance of table fellowship in separation from gentiles and from the pollution of idols to suggest that great significance was attached to meals and to table fellowship in the Jewish community behind Joseph and Aseneth. J. Jeremias rightly emphasizes the solemnity attached even to the “ordinary” daily Jewish meal where a blessing is pronounced.²⁴ That Jews sometimes contrasted their blessed daily meals with pagan sacrifices is clear from Sibylline Oracles 4:24-30, and the prayer in Didache 9:3f. seems to rest upon a Jewish tradition in which everyday food was considered to be a heavenly gift conferring life and wisdom.²⁵ It seems most likely that this high evaluation of the daily meal and the concern for the maintenance of purity in table fellowship is what gave rise to the use of meal language as a representative expression for life as a Jew.

In summary, the possibility cannot be excluded that the bread-cup-ointment passages in Joseph and Aseneth echo some otherwise unattested Jewish ritual meal. However, there is little in the document itself to suggest this, and in any case the nature and form of such a meal would be irrecoverable. On the other hand, if we cannot discern a special ritual meal in Joseph and Aseneth, neither should we conclude that the language is merely literary and symbolic. While the language of eating, drinking, and being anointed expresses the whole Jewish way of life, it grows out of and represents something very concrete in the Jewish community – the effort to maintain a distinctively Jewish way of life in precisely those areas in which susceptibility to gentile impurity was considered to be the greatest, namely, food, drink, and oil contaminated by association with idolatry. So representative of Jewish identity in a gentile environment is the peculiarly Jewish use of these three items that the entire life more judaico comes to be expressed in a triad or dyad so formulaic that it has been assumed – probably mistakenly and certainly too readily – to be a liturgical formula referring to a special ritual meal.

Comparisons with John 6
Formal differences between the bread-of-life theme in John 6 and that in Joseph and Aseneth are readily apparent. The stereotyped triadic and dyadic formulas in which the expression “bread of life” occurs intermittently in Joseph and Aseneth have no formal counterpart in John 6, where the expression rather represents the central theme of one sustained discourse. Theological differences are equally conspicuous. The Christological focus of the bread-of-life discourse in John 6 stands in marked contrast to the absence of any Christological or messianic thrust in Joseph and Aseneth. However, allowance must be made for the fact that borrowed imagery is inevitably filtered through the mind of the borrower and reshaped in the process. As is well known to students of New Testament Christology, early Christians regularly transferred to Jesus those attributes which had been ascribed in Jewish tradition to such non-messianic entities as Wisdom and Torah. Thus the absence of any Christological thrust in the bread-of-life conception in Joseph and Aseneth does not militate against the possibility that this conception lies behind the bread-of-life discourse in John 6. Neither do the differences in literary genre, the anti-Jewish polemic of John 6 versus the strongly Jewish character of Joseph and Aseneth, nor the other obvious dissimilarities between the two writings exclude the possibility of some affinity of thought between them in their use of the expression “bread of life.” The issue must rather be decided on the basis of whether there are, in addition to the expected differences, sufficient similarities of thought or language to suggest some sort of connection. To these similarities we now turn.

The most obvious point of similarity between the bread in Joseph and Aseneth and the bread in John 6 is that which is expressed in the genitival qualifier zōes (or tēs zoēs), “of life.” In both cases the explanation is provided that the partaker of the bread of life will not die but will live forever. The honeycomb which is equated with the bread-cup-ointment triad in Joseph and Aseneth is said to be “the comb of life, and everyone who eats of it will not die for ever and ever” (16:14). In very similar language, the bread of life in John 6:50f. is said to be such that “a person may eat of it and not die . . . if anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever.” In Joseph and Asenet 16:14 the honeycomb is said to be the “spirit of life,” and once again in similar language John 6:63 declares the words of Jesus to be “spirit and life.” Thus the works being compared both use the metaphor of eating bread to symbolize that which is considered to be of ultimate importance and most expressive of the identity of the people of God, and for both the result of this “eating” is unending participation in the divine life.

A further similarity lies in the fact that in both the Fourth Gospel and Joseph and Aseneth, this sharing in the divine life is not merely, nor even primarily, an eschatological experience, but has a decidedly “realized” character. The tension between present and future in the eschatology of the Fourth Gospel is a matter of long-standing discussion which need not detain us here. There clearly are elements of futuristic and apocalyptic eschatology in John; in the bread-of-life discourse itself the refrain “and I will raise him up in the last day” appears with slight variations four times (vv. 39, 40, 44, 54). Neither R. Bultmann’s view that these elements were added by an ecclesiastical redactor,²⁶ nor the more common view that they are mere remnants of pre-Johannine beliefs which the evangelist failed to discard but also failed to integrate into his thought²⁷ does justice to the text. Rather, John shares the already-but-not-yet tension which pervades early Christian thought in general and which is traceable to Jesus Himself.²⁸ Nevertheless, it certainly is true that Johannine eschatology is predominantly “realized” in character. The “life” envisioned in John 6, as elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, is a present possibility for the believer even if a future consummation is awaited: “the one who believes has (echei, present tense) eternal life” (6:47).

Similarly, the divine life in which Aseneth comes to participate upon her conversion to the God of Israel is expressed in terms which emphasize the blessings presently accruing to those who worship God. Following her repentance Aseneth is assured by the man from heaven that her name is written in the book of the living in heaven and will never be erased (15:4). She is told further that in turning to the God of Israel she has eaten honey from the “comb of life” which is made from the dew of the “roses of life” and imbued with the “spirit of life” (16:14). She has partaken of the same food as that eaten by the angels of God in paradise and thus shares in their immortality (16:14). She has eaten “bread of life,” drunk a “cup of immortality,” and been anointed with “ointment of incorruption” (16:16). As a result, she will not die but possesses untiring vitality and unfailing beauty (16:16). Her present participation in the divine life is symbolized by the radiant garments which she puts on at the command of her heavenly visitor (14:12-15:2; 15:10; 18:12f.) and by the glorious transformation of her physical appearance (18: 10f., 19:4; 20:6f.). The description of Aseneth’s blessed new status borders at times on an ascription of angelic status to her (18:9-11; 20:6f.), and this language is only one of several indications that the author considers the people of God already in this life to be leading an angelic sort of existence characterized especially by immortality. That the soteriology of Joseph and Aseneth is not exclusively here and now may be seen from the references to a place of rest prepared by God (8:9; 15:7; 22:13) – clearly a heavenly and eschatological concept even if nothing is said about when and how this new existence will be brought about. Nevertheless, in Joseph and Aseneth, as in John 6, the emphasis is on zoē “life,” as a present possession of the participant in the bread of life.

Moreover, in Joseph and Aseneth this participation in the divine life is couched in dualistic language which sets life over against death, knowledge against ignorance, light against darkness, and truth against error – antitheses very prominent also in the Fourth Gospel. Thus, for example, Joseph begins his prayer for Aseneth’s conversion with an address of God as the creator “who gave life to all things, and called them from darkness to light and from error to truth and from death to life” (8:9).²⁹ The conception of conversion as passage from death to life which is expressed here and elsewhere in Joseph and Aseneth is not unlike that expressed by Jesus according to John 5:24f.: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life, and he does not come into judgment but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when those who are dead will hear the voice of the son of God, and those who hear will live.”

The expression “bread of life” is itself part of a dualistic contrast in both Joseph and Aseneth and John 6; in the latter the life-giving bread supplied by the Son of man is set over against food which perishes (6:27; the verb used is apollumi), just as in Joseph and Aseneth the “bread of life” and the other incorruptible elements in the triadic formula are set over against the food, drink, and ointment of destruction (apoleia).

The bread imagery in both Joseph and Aseneth and John 6 is based in part on the tradition of God’s provision of manna for the children of Israel during their sojourn in the wilderness. This connection is explicit in the case of John 6, where the crowd’s request that Jesus produce manna or an equivalent sign (6:30f.) probably reflects the expectation that in the last days God or the Messiah would renew the gift of manna.³⁰ In the discourse itself Jesus declares his teaching and himself to be the real bread from heaven, in explicit contrast to the manna eaten by the fathers in the wilderness (6:32f., 48-51). P. Borgen has shown that even the literary form and midrashic technique of the bread-of-life discourse are heavily influenced by post-Biblical reflection on the manna tradition. Not only does the discourse reflect a number of specific haggadic traditions regarding manna; in its very exegetical method and its overall form it follows a fairly well-defined homiletic pattern attested in expositions of the manna miracle both in Philo and in Palestinian midrashim.³¹

The influence of the manna theme is far less explicit in Joseph and Aseneth – a fact no doubt to be explained by the author's desire to avoid the anachronism of having manna present in the patriarchal context in which the story is set. Nevertheless, Joseph and Aseneth does echo certain traditions regarding manna. The contrast drawn in both Joseph and Aseneth and John 6 between the bread of life and perishable food is similar to Philo’s distinction between the heavenly manna and things that are perishable.³² The equation of the bread of life with the honeycomb in Joseph and Aseneth 16:15f. is reminiscent of the statement in Exodus 16:31 and in various post-Biblical sources that the manna tasted like honey.³³ The life-giving properties attributed to this honey in Joseph and Aseneth 16 are the properties attributed elsewhere in Jewish tradition to the Torah,³⁴ which, as we shall see below, was sometimes represented symbolically by manna. The explanation in Joseph and Aseneth 16:14 that the honeycomb from which Aseneth ate is also the food of the angels of God in paradise recalls the tradition, attested at least as early as the Septuagint, that the manna was the food of the angels.³⁵ For these reasons manna was an especially appropriate symbol of that participation in angelic immortality which is the soteriological ideal in Joseph and Aseneth.

An obvious difference in the two uses of the manna tradition is that Joseph and Aseneth builds favorably on that tradition, whereas John 6 contrasts Jesus, the true bread of life, with manna. Nevertheless, it is significant that both draw on the same set of traditions to define the identity of the people of God, and the difference is only the expected Christian reevaluation and reformulation of inherited Jewish traditions in light of the Christ event. In the Hebrew Bible itself a distinction is drawn between the manna as physical nourishment and the power of God’s revelation to provide spiritual nourishment (Deuteronomy 8:3). R. Brown correctly notes that in John 6 Jesus goes far beyond this background in speaking not only of His revelation but also of Himself as the bread from heaven,³⁶ but the fact remains that the symbolism in John 6 builds upon a tradition begun in the Hebrew Bible and developed in post-Biblical Judaism in which manna symbolizes something more than mere physical nourishment.³⁷ Joseph and Aseneth therefore lies on the same trajectory of manna traditions which arrives at its Christian terminus in the Christology of the bread-of-life discourse.

The widespread Jewish use of bread (and sometimes of manna) as a symbol of the Torah³⁸ lies behind the concept of the bread of life in both John 6 and Joseph and Aseneth. That such symbolism is intended in John 6, and therefore that the contrast between the manna and the true bread from heaven implies a contrast between the Torah and the teaching and person of Jesus (as in 1:17), has been argued frequently and convincingly.³⁹ It is less obvious, but quite likely, that the imagery in Joseph and Aseneth also was influenced by a tradition in which the eating of bread was symbolic of Torah observance. Joseph and Aseneth obviously lacks the kind of extensive regulations regarding food and agriculture that dominate rabbinic halakah, but in her soliloquies and prayer Aseneth does confess to having been lawless (anomeō, 12:4) and to having committed “sins” (hamartiai) and “lawless deeds” (anomiai, e.g., 11:17; 12:3), and she places a premium on the observance of the commandments (entolai) and ordinances (prostagmata) of God (12:2). Moreover, as we have seen, a crucial feature of Jewish self-definition in Joseph and Aseneth is the avoidance of the defilement of idolatry in the contexts of meals and marriage – concerns not unlike those which dominated the Torah-centered circles known to us from rabbinic literature. It seems likely, therefore, that in Joseph and Aseneth the metaphorical usage of “eating bread of life” to express the avoidance of gentile impurity in table fellowship, and more generally to express the entire life more judaico, was influenced by the traditional use of bread as a symbol of Torah.

If the traditional use of bread and manna to symbolize Torah is in fact reflected in both John 6 and Joseph and Aseneth, the two represent quite divergent conclusions on the efficacy of Torah observance. As we have seen, Joseph and Aseneth is quite emphatic that in living the life more judaico one attains blessed life and immortality; to live faithfully as a Jew is to share the divine food and hence the immortality of the angels in paradise. In John 6, on the other hand, Jesus is contrasted with the manna (and hence with the Torah) precisely on the basis of the inability of the latter to give life: “Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.’” (6:32f.)

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever” (6:48-51b).

In view of this difference, it may be suggested that the element in Joseph and Aseneth which compares most favorably with John 6 lies not in that which the latter designates “bread of life,” but precisely in that which the bread-of-life discourse polemicizes against, namely, the idea that life is attainable through Torah observance. Joseph and Aseneth does not define the Jewish way of life primarily in terms of the observance of Torah, but it does, as we have seen, employ a traditional symbol of the Torah to express the Jewish way of life more generally in terms of a monotheistic faith concerned to maintain separation from gentiles and from the corruption of idolatry. It also employs as most expressive of Jewish identity the eating of sacred food, by which is meant either a special sacred meal or, more likely, the everyday eating of food and generally the everyday conduct of life in separation from the contaminating influences of an idolatrous gentile environment.

The bread-of-life discourse, as if composed to counter such ideas, emphasizes that life cannot be attained through any sort of Jewish legal piety. The same metaphor of “eating bread” is used, but the “eating” that leads to life is equated with the act of faith in Christ rather than with the ordering of life according to Jewish traditions. A “bread of life” is espoused, but the predicate is declared to be appropriate only for Jesus, not for the Torah. Jesus alone is the bearer of divine life; he is the true bread from heaven; life is attainable only through faith in him. The Christian identity articulated here is expressed most concretely, though not only, in the sacred Christian meal,⁴⁰ just as in Joseph and Aseneth the literal act of eating represents the most concrete and definitive, though not the only, expression of Jewish piety. In view of this it is reasonable to suggest that Joseph and Aseneth witnesses to a type of Judaism which forms a part of the backdrop for the bread-of-life discourse. The milieu of Joseph and Aseneth was of course very different from that of Jesus and John, but the use of related traditions in these cases to work out the identity of the people of God suggests that the motif of the bread of life in Joseph arid Aseneth provides at least one part of the grid against which the motifs in John 6 should be compared.

Conclusion This study has uncovered no evidence that Joseph and Aseneth exerted direct influence on the bread-of-life discourse in John 6. Certainly the use of the expression “bread of life” in both places is inadequate grounds for claiming such a direct connection; the independent coining of this expression in the two places is not at all surprising in view of the traditions which they share regarding the life-giving properties ascribed to manna and Torah. The similarities which we have noted in the use and development of these shared traditions, while significant for interpreting both writings, lack the specificity needed to demonstrate direct influence of one upon the other.

This conclusion does not mean that Joseph and Aseneth has no bearing on the interpretation of the bread of life in John 6. At the very least, Joseph and Aseneth witnesses to a type of Judaism which has important elements in common with the Jewish backdrop of the bread-of-life discourse. Without implying that Joseph and Aseneth itself influenced either Jesus or John, it is fair to conclude that this apocryphon is one of many witnesses to the varieties of Jewish thought which did influence the discourse in John 6 and which should therefore be taken into account in attempts to reconstruct the Jewish milieu of that discourse. More specifically, certain ideas in Joseph and Aseneth – including the dualism, the manna traditions, the Torah symbolism, and the metaphor of eating bread as an expression of Jewish identity – seem to lie on the same Jewish trajectories as those which receive Christian application and development in John 6. The common dependence on these traditions not only suggests the importance of Joseph and Aseneth for the study of John 6 and of the New Testament in general; it also adds another link in the chain of arguments for the essential Jewishness of the Johannine portrait of Jesus.⁴¹

Footnotes:
¹ Since bread is often a symbol of the Torah in rabbinic literature, and since the Torah is designated by such terms as “Torah of life” and “tree of life,” H. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 4 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1922-28), vol. 2, pp. 482f., speculate that the Torah was also called “bread of life.” However, the expression is not actually attested in the rabbinic sources.
² Here, and throughout this study, the term “post-Biblical” is used with reference to Judaism of the period after the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) but not necessarily after the Christian Scriptures (which of course include the New Testament). This usage, though quite standard among specialists in Judaic studies, admittedly is a potentially misleading one. However, “post-Biblical Judaism” is no more problematic than other common designations for the same phenomenon, such as “Intertestamental Judaism,” “Second Temple Judaism,” and the increasingly popular but nebulous “Early Judaism.”
³ See C. Burehard, Untersuchungen zu Joseph and Aseneth; Überlieferung-Ortsbestimmung, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 8 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1965), p. 130; R. Schnackenburg, “Das Brot des Lebens,” Tradition and Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt, Festgabe für K.G. Kuhn, eds. J. Jeremias, H.W. Kuhn, and H. Stegemann (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1971), pp. 335-42; idem, Das Johannesevangelium, 3 vols. (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Freiberg: Herder, 1965-75), vol. 2, pp. 57f. (ET: The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols., trans. K. Smyth et al. (New York: Seabury Press, 1980-82), vol. 2, p. 44]; S. Légasse, “Le pain de la vie,” Bulletin de littérature ecclesiastique 83 (1982), 248-51; and most recently C. Burchard, “The Importance of Joseph and Aseneth for the Study of the New Testament: A General Survey and a Fresh Look at the Lord’s Supper,” New Testament Studies 33 (1987), 119-21.
⁴ Le Livre de la Prière d'Aseneth. Studia Patristica: Études d'ancienne littérature chrétienne 1-2 (Paris: Leroux, 1889-90), pp. 7-18,30-37 This view was popularized in the introduction to the first English translation by E. W. Brooks, Joseph and Asenath, Translations of Early Documents, Series 2 (London: SPCK, 1918)..
⁵ Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1900).
⁶ The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913).
⁷ Joseph and Aseneth seems to have made its debut in the study of the New Testament and Christian origins in 1952. In that year G.D. Kilpatrick, “The Last Supper,” Expository Times 64 (1952), 4-8, suggested that the meal of the bread and cup in Joseph and Aseneth is important for understanding the origins of the Lord’s Supper.
⁸ See especially the arguments in Burchard, Untersuchungen, pp. 91-99. The view that the work has unmistakable Christian elements even in its earliest known form (e.g., T. Holtz, “Christliche Interpolationen in ‘Joseph und Aseneth,’” New Testament Studies 14 [1968] 482-97; and H.F.D. Sparks, “Joseph and Aseneth: Introduction,” in The Apocryphal Old Testament, ed. H.F.D. Sparks [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984], p. 469) is now very much in the minority.
⁹ Because of the strong probability that the work was composed in Egypt, the terminus ante quem of A.D. 115 is established by the pogrom of A.D. 115-17 in which Egyptian Jewry was reduced to virtual oblivion. The extensive dependence of Joseph and Aseneth on various parts of the Septuagint indicates a terminus post quem of c. 100 B.C. A date in the first century B.C. is favored by J.J. Gollins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 91; and in “Joseph and Aseneth,” Anchor Bible Dic-tionary (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, in press). C. Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., ed. J.H. Charlesworth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983-85), vol. 2, pp. 187f., is reticent to suggest anything more specific than a date of composition between c. 100 B.C. and A.D. 115.
¹⁰ “Ein vorläufiger griechischer Text von Joseph und Aseneth,” Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament 14 (1979), 2-53; supplemented in idem, “Verbesserungen zum vorläufigen Text von Joseph und Aseneth,” Dielheimer Blätter zmn Alten Testantent 16 (1982), 37-39. The priority of this long version is argued quite convincingly in idem, “Zum Text von ‘Joseph und Aseneth,’” Journal for the Study of Judaism 1 (1970), 3-34, and is assumed by most modern interpreters. However, in the absence of an edition of the long text which is both more recent than Batiffol’s and more accessible than the recondite journal in which Burchard’s preliminary edition appears, some continue to depend by default on the short recension published by M. Philonenko, Joseph et Aséneth: Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes, Studia postbiblica 13 (Leiden: Brill, 1968). In Philonenko’s text the number of passages employing the expression “bread of life” is reduced to three (8.5; 8.11; 15.4).
¹¹ K.G. Kuhn, “The Lord’s Supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran,” The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957), pp. 73-77; W. Nauek, Die Tradition und der Charakter des ersten Johannes-briefs, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 3 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1957), pp. 169-71; and more recently R.T. Beckwith, “The Solar Calendar of Joseph and Asenath: A Suggestion,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 15 (1984), 90-111.
¹² Kuhn, “The Lord’s Supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran,” pp. 75-77; and M. Delcor, “Un roman d'amour d'origine thérapeute: Le Livre de Joseph et Asénath,” Bulletin de littérature ecelesiastique 63 (1962), 3-27.
¹³ Philonenko, Joseph et Aséneth, p. 98.
¹⁴ Kilpatriek, Expository Times 64 (1952), 4-8; M. Philonenko, “Initiation et mystère dans Joseph et Aséneth,” Initiation, ed. C. J. Bleeker, Supplements to Numen, Studies in the History of Religions 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1965), pp. 147-53; idem, Joseph et Asénath, passim; idem; “Un mystère juif?” Mystères et syncrétismes, Etudes d'histoire des religions 2 (Paris: Geuthner, 1975), pp. 65-70; and most recently H.C. Kee, “The Socio-Cultural Setting of Joseph and Aseneth,” New Testament Studies 29 (1983), 394-413.
¹⁵ E.g., Holtz, New Testament Studies 14 (1968), 482-97; and Sparks, “Joseph and Aseneth: Introduction,” The Apocryphal Old Testament, p. 469.
¹⁶ So especially J. Jeremias, “The Last Supper,” Expository Times 64 (1952) 91f.; Burchard, Untersuchungen, pp. 121-33; Schnackenburg, “Das Brot des Lebens,” pp. 335-42; and more recently, with some modifications, D. Sänger, Antikes Judentum und die Mysterien: Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Joseph und Aseneth, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.5 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1980), pp. 167-90; Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, pp. 213f.; and Burchard, New Testament Studies 33 (1987), 109-17.
¹⁷ “The Social Setting and Purpose of Joseph and Aseneth,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, April, 1988.
¹⁸ This and all subsequent quotations of Joseph and Aseneth are Dr. J.E. Priest’s personal transla-tion of Burchard’s provisional Greek text; see footnote 10 above.
¹⁹ “Bekehrung und Exodus: Traditionshintergrund von ‘Joseph und Aseneth,’” Journal for the Study of Judaism 10 (1979) 29f.; and idem, Antikes Judentum und die Mysterien, pp. 156f., 182.
²⁰ Other indications of such tensions are discussed at length in aforementioned article in Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, April, 1988.
²¹ Between Athens and Jerusalem, p. 213. The same can be argued from 21:21, if Burchard’s edition of this textually-corrupt section can be trusted. In 21:13f. Aseneth expresses the whole of her former pagan life in terms of eating and drinking from the table of idols. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that when she balances this in 21:21 with a reference to eating and drinking the bread of life and cup of wisdom, this latter eating and drinking also represent an entire way of life which stands over against heathen conduct – the life more judaico.
²² Between Athens and Jerusalem, p. 213. The same can be argued from 21:21, if Burchard’s edition of this textually-corrupt section can be trusted. In 21:13f. Aseneth expresses the whole of her former pagan life in terms of eating and drinking from the table of idols. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that when she balances this in 21:21 with a reference to eating and drinking the bread of life and cup of wisdom, this latter eating and drinking also represent an entire way of life which stands over against heathen conduct – the life more judaico.
²³ A possible objection to this line of interpretation lies in the inclusion of the oil of anointing in the triadic formula. Burchard, Untersuchungen, p. 128, sees this as the Achilles’ heel in all attempts to interpret the formula. Oil was of course used in meals, but there is little if any evidence that an anointing played a part in Jewish meals. Jeremias, Expository Times 64 (1952), 91, cites only the anointing of the guest before the meal mentioned in Luke 7:46, and Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, p. 214, mentions only a few rabbinic references to the use of oil for cleaning the hands after a meal. However, as the Biblical triad of grain, wine, and oil itself attests, oil was a staple commodity in Jewish tradition and throughout the ancient Near East. It served the basic human needs for light, heat, nourishment, medicine, condiments, and perfume, and it figured prominently also in sacrifice and ritual, including the anointing of persons and vessels of special distinction. Moreover, as is well documented in Jewish sources, oil was regarded as especially susceptible to impurity, and pagan oil was regularly associated with idolatrous rites. Therefore, in view of the author’s apparent concern to maintain a distinctive Jewish self-identity vis-à-vis gentiles and to show that the openness to gentile converts is no concession to pagan idolatry and its corrupting effect, it is not surprising to find oil ranked alongside food and drink in a triadic formula in which the uniquely Jewish use of the staple commodities of life is set over against their usage outside Judaism and employed as an expression for the entire life more judaico. For a discussion of the uses and perception of oil in ancient Judaism, see S. B. Hoenig, “Oil and Pagan Defilement,” Jewish Quarterly Review 61 (1970-71), 63-75.
²⁴ Expository Times 64 (1952), 91f.
²⁵ On the traditio-historical study of the liturgical material in Didache 9 and 10 and its Jewish antecedents, see J.W. Riggs, “From Gracious Table to Sacramental Elements: The Tradition History of Didache 9 and 10,” Second Century 4 (1984), 83101, and the works cited there. Also worthy of note in connection with our topic is the fact that Didache 18.5f. mentions oil along with bread and wine as provisions needed by traveling prophets.
²⁶ Theology of the New Testament 2 vols., trans. K. Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955), vol. 2, p. 39; and idem, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. G.R. Beaslev-Murray (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), pp. 218-20.
²⁷ E.g., E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, trans. G. Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), p. 14; and M.E. Boismard, “L'évolution du thème eschatologique dans les traditions johanniques,” Revue Biblique 68 (1961), 507-24.
²⁸ See, among many other studies, W.G. Kümmel, “Futurische und praesentlische Eschatologie in ältesten Urchristentum,” New Testament Studies 5 (January 1959), 113-26; idem, Promise and Fulfillment: The Eschatological Message of Jesus, trans. D.M. Barton, Studies in Biblical Theology 23 (London: SCM Press LTD, 1961): G. Bornkamm. Jesus of Nazareth, trans. I. and F. McLusky and J.M. Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), pp. 90-95; O. Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans. F.V. Filson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950); and idem, Salvation in History, trans. S.G. Sowers (New York: Harper and Row, 1967).
²⁹ That God’s activity in conversion as well as creation is envisioned here is suggested not only by the centrality of the former theme in Joseph and Aseneth, but especially by the phrase “from error to truth,” which is hardly applicable to the physical creation. Similarly, in her own confession and prayer Aseneth appeals to God to resolve her predicament on the basis that He is the giver of life, the creator of being out of non-being (12.1f.); God’s salvific activity is conceived as analogous to his creative activity. Creation language in which conversion is represented as transition from death to life is found also in 15.5.12; 20.7; and 27.10.
³⁰ 2 Baruch 29.8; Sibylline Oracles, frag. 3.46-49. The rabbinic references cited by Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar, vol. 2, p. 481f., including Mekilta on Exodus 16:25, 33, and Midrash Rabbah on Ecclesiastes 1:9, are considerably later than the Fourth Gospel, but the passages from 2 Baruch and the Sibylline Oracles demonstrate that the tradition existed much earlier.
³¹ P. Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1965). This thesis has been clarified and defended recently in idem, Philo, John and Paul: New Perspectives on Judaism and Early Christianity, Brown Judaic Studies 131 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 121-29 and 131-44. Less convincing are the arguments of B. Gärtner, John 6 and the Jewish Passover (Lund: Gleerup, 1959); A. Guilding, The Fourth. Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St. Johns Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960), pp. 58-68; and E. J. Kilmartin, “Liturgical Influence on John 6,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 22 (1960), 183-91, that the form and content of the discourse in John 6 were determined largely by the Passover synagogue lectionary and the Passover Haggadah. Even though these claims are exaggerated, the heavy influence of manna and Passover traditions on John 6 is certain.
³² See Borgen, Bread from Heaven, pp. 131f.
³³ Josephus, Antiquities 3.1.6; Codex Neofiti I; see also Sibylline Oracles, frag. 3.34f., 46-49.
³⁴ E.g., Mekilta on Exodus 15:26: “The words of the Torah which I have given you are life unto you.” See further Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar, vol. 2, pp. 482f.; and Borgen, Bread from Heaven, pp. 148f.
³⁵ In the Massoretic text of Psalm 78:24f., manna is described as “the bread of the powerful beings” ('abbîrîm). The Septuagint translates 'abbîrîm as angeloi, thus making clear that in eating manna “man ate the bread of angels.” The same idea is explicit in Wisdom of Solomon 16.20-23, Pseudo-Philo Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 19.5, and at least implicit in the Palestinian Targum on Psalm 78:25, which speaks of the manna as “food which came down from the dwelling of angels.” According to the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 75b, Akiba considered the manna to be the food of angels, but the sages came to the consensus that this was not the case since according to Deuteronomy 9:18 angels neither eat nor drink. See further L. Ginrburg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols., trans. H. Szold et al (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1910-38), vol. 5, p. 236.
³⁶ The Gospel According to John, 2 vols., Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966-70), vol. 1, p. 266.
³⁷On the history of the manna tradition and its midrashic adaptation, see B.J. Malina, The Palestinian Manna Tradition: The Manna Tradition in the Palestinian Targums and Its Relationship to the New Testament Writings. Arbeiten zur Geschichte des späteren Judentums und des Urchristentums 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1968).
³⁸Such symbolism is implied already in Deuteronomy 8:3, as we have seen. The representation of the Word of God as bread is especially well attested in the Wisdom tradition (e.g., proverbs 9:5; Psalm 119:103; Sirach 15:3; 24:21-23; and Wisdom of Solomon 16:26). The gift of the Torah and the gift of manna are closely related in Nehemiah 9:13-15, 20. Philo equates manna with Wisdom and therefore implicitly also with Torah (Ouis Rerum Divinarrrnz Heres 39). For numerous rabbinic references to the Torah as bread, see Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar, vol. 2, p. 483f., and vol. 3, p. 302. See also H. Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel (Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksells, 1929), pp. 239-45, 255..
³⁹E.g., C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 291, maintains that in the description of Jesus as the bread from heaven who gives life to the world (John 6:33), the life-giving function of the Torah has been transferred to Jesus. See, among many other studies, S. Pancaro, The Law in the Fourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity According to John, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1975), esp. pp. 452-72; W. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1967); and T.F. Glasson Moses in the Fourth Gospel. Studies in Biblical Theology 40 (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1963).
⁴⁰ Without entering here into the complex and much-debated issue of the extent to which the Lord’s Supper is in view in John 6, we may safely assume that at least in vv. 51c-58, early Christian readers could hardly have failed to see such an allusion.
⁴¹ Re: B. Lindars, “‘Joseph and Asenath’ and the Eucharist,” Scripture: Meaning and Method, Essays Presented to A.T. Hanson for His Seventieth Birthday, ed. B.P. Thompson (Hull: Hull University Press, 1987), pp. 181-99. While nothing in Lindars’ article necessitates changes in the present study, it can be said that some of Lindars’ conclusions correspond closely to those expressed above. For example, with regard to the bread, cup, and ointment in Joseph and Aseneth, Lindars writes (pp. 194f.): “The meal references do not relate to a particular meal, nor to rites of initiation. The common meal, whether in the home or in a special group, is central to religious self-definition, and may thus be used as a symbol of the religion as a whole which is professed by the participants. By the same token it can be used to denote differentiation from pagan religion, which also has its meals effecting social definition.”