The ‘wooden house’ of Sibylline Oracles 8:198

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FransJVermeiren
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The ‘wooden house’ of Sibylline Oracles 8:198

Post by FransJVermeiren »

Sibylline Oracles 8:198 goes as follows: αἰφνίδιος δἑ βροτοὑς ξύλινος δόμος ἀμφικαλύψῃ. Collins (in J.H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 1, p. 423) translates this way: Suddenly a wooden house will cover men round about. He does not comment the verse, nor does C. Alexandre in his 1856 edition. Milton S. Terry (1899) comments ‘Wooden house – A coffin’.

The basic meaning of the Greek δόμος is structure, erection, and understandably a favorite translation is house, but, as Terry’s comment illustrates, other translations are possible. I will use the basis meaning of δόμος, and I translate the verb ἀμφικαλύπτω as ‘to enfold’: Suddenly a wooden structure will enfold men.

But maybe the first word of this verse is the most important for a sound understanding: it emphasizes the suddenness of the enfolding of people with that wooden structure. There is a wooden structure from the era that was erected remarkably quickly: the siege wall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Josephus describes that Titus and his generals organized its erection as a competition between their legions and companies (War V:502-503). In verse 509 Josephus concludes like this: The whole was built in three days, such rapidity, over a work that might well have occupied months, being well-nigh incredible. (H. St. J. Thackeray, Loeb Classical Library 210).

Therefore I believe that Sibylline Oracles 8:198 describes the building of the Jerusalem siege wall.
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The practical modes of concealment are limited only by the imaginative capacity of subordinates. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.
Charles Wilson
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Re: The ‘wooden house’ of Sibylline Oracles 8:198

Post by Charles Wilson »

Josephus, Ant..., 13, 13, 5:

"He [Jannaeus] also built a partition-wall of wood round the altar and the temple, as far as that partition within which it was only lawful for the priests to enter; and by this means he obstructed the multitude from coming at him..."

CW

Edit PS: I hope you realize, Frans, that I Post this, not in opposition to your point but more in favor of it. "Type - Anti-Type". It is consistent with the Transvaluation of the Jannaeus/Hasmonean Story.

Thanx.
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