historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

SHELAMZION IN QUMRAN 63
["If you will obey my commandments . . .] I will give the rain of your
land in its season, [the early rain and the later rain, that you may
gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. . .]" (Deut. 11:13—14).
Rabbi Nathan says: . . . [This refers to the way rains] fell in the days
of Queen Shelamzion (Sifre Deut. 42). 10
Since I wish to make a case here for intertextuality between this
rabbinic midrash and the Qumran pesher on Hosea, some observations
on chronology are appropriate. The date of the final redaction
of Sifre Deuteronomy is not known exactly, but it is not earlier
than the third century CE. Pesher Hosea A, on the other hand, is
Qumranic, and could therefore not be dated much later than the
Herodian period. 11 If it indeed refers to political events during the
reign of Shelamzion, it also does not make sense that it was composed
much later. Thus, to claim that a first century BCE document
is found in dialogue with a third century CE compilation hardly
shows sound historical judgement. I therefore suggest that we consider
for a moment the composition of the rabbinic midrash on Deut.
11:13—14 independently of the compilation in which it is embedded.
If we compare the rabbis' appraisal of Queen Shelamzion's reign
with that of Josephus' Antiquities, we discover a striking disparity. The
rabbis love her; Josephus, or rather his source, Nicolaus of Damascus,
hates her (Ant. 13.430-32). Far from claiming that one source is
biased and that the other is telling the truth, I would claim that if
rabbinic literature preserves the pharisaic tradition to a certain degree,
the midrash in Sifre is the appraisal of this reign by Shelamzion's
co-rulers and Josephus' text is that of her detractors (and particularly
the Herodians who deposed her dynasty, and Nicolaus, their
mouthpiece). When would the Pharisees have formulated the midrash
10 A parallel tradition exists for this midrash in the tannaitic Sifra on Lev. 26:3-4
("If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I
will give you your rains in their seasons," Behuqotai 1:1), but I believe it is secondary,
because it is more elaborate and also because the queen is no longer presented
by herself in the tradition but together with Shimeon ben Shatah.
11 On this date for the manuscript based on palaeographic considerations, see
J. Strugnell, "Notes en marge du Volume V des Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,"
RevQ 7 (1969): 199.