Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
When Paul interprets ‘Do not muzzle the ox while threshing’ as ‘do not neglect to pay Christian ministers’, commentators have quite naturally assumed that his exegesis was allegorical. However, comparisons with contemporary rabbinic exegesis suggest that this would have been regarded as a literal interpretation of the plain meaning of the text.
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12 Bonsirven showed that the rabbis frequently employed allegory, but he found no examples before 70 CE and few in the 1st cent.: ‘Exégèse allegorique chez les Rabbins Tan-naites’, RSR 23 (1933) 513–41Google Scholar, and Exégèse Rabbinique et Exégèse Paulinienne (Paris: Beauchesne & Sons, 1939).Google Scholar
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15 H. Thackeray, St. J. pointed out (in The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought [London & New York: Macmillan, 1900] 194)Google Scholar that πάντω could be translated ‘surely’, as in the Vulgate (utique instead of omnino). He claimed that Paul used πάντω in this sense in every instance except 1 Cor 9.22. Although he may have spoiled his case by over-stating it, this is a valuable suggestion which has been taken up by many scholars. It is especially valuable because it appears to remove the implication that Paul is denying the plain meaning of the text. However, it still leaves the question as to why Paul wrote in such a dangerously ambiguous manner. In the present exegesis, πάντω can be read as either ‘surely’ or ‘altogether’.
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23 The better MS evidence for φιμώσεις is outweighed by the likelihood that κημώσεις would have been absorbed from the LXX.
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25 The exactly equivalent phrase occurs in rabbinic sources, e.g. b.Yoma 35b, 66a.
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