The ‘wooden house’ of Sibylline Oracles 8:198
Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 3:33 am
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.
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.