Further Corrections to Flusser’s Judaism of the Second Temple Period

Dear Jerusalem Perspective,

I am so happy to see that JP has made an effort to collect in a single blog post the numerous errors in David Flusser’s collection of essays, Judaism of the Second Temple Period. The English translation of Professor Flusser’s two-volume work is a shame. Your blog will help many scholars and laypersons who cannot (or will not) read it in Hebrew.

I would like to contribute two additional corrections, both based on the same misconception. The translator has Prof. Flusser claim that the apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. But Prof. Flusser would never have written this nonsense, and it is not in the Hebrew edition. My proposed corrections, based on the Hebrew edition, are as follows:

1. “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum” (1:248).

   The second sentence of the second paragraph on p. 248 should be corrected as follows (corrections marked in bold):

   Here Paul the author addresses his Christian readers….

2. “The Apocryphal Psalms of David” (1:273).

   Two sentences located on the bottom third of p. 273 should be corrected as follows (corrections marked in bold):

   To be sure, this interpretation is preserved in a late midrashic collection, but its origins are ancient as it is based on one of the core assumptions of Paul’s the e Epistle to the Hebrews. Paul states there There it is stated that Christ is greater than the angels (1:4), and his glory is greater than that of Moses (3:2-6); Christ is compared to Melchizedek since the latter is greater than Abraham (7:4-10).