Nebuchadnezzar as a Symbol of Collective Trauma: The Portrayal of an Ancient Babylonian King in Light of the Jewish Reaction to Christianity
First Thing: These snippets of a far longer paper, printed below, underscore the tension between history and memory, as well as the import of how we think about and hold forces of action (leadership or otherwise) accountable- political authorities, virus strains, etc. As you read the below, consider our 2021 context and what is yet to come: How will the history of COVID-19 be told, where will the buck stop, and is it possible to glean practical insight from seemingly obscure exegetical history?
ABSTRACT
This paper explores models of response to collective trauma in the Jewish experience, with a study of memorialization of an arch-instigator of trauma, Nebuchadnezzar. I examine the exegetical career of that Babylonian king and destroyer of the first temple in Jerusalem, what with his representation in the biblical account as God’s “servant.” The paper highlights how rabbis of late antiquity read and engage the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar- as they alternately fetishize and vilify the figure, by way of creative stories. I claim that rabbinic characterizations of Nebuchadnezzar exemplify how religious leaders of cultural minority groups re/read authoritative texts as they deal with salient questions about their group’s extant vulnerability. I explore how late antique rabbis represent an arch-perpetrator of trauma as they attempt to appreciate how their beleaguered community is, in fact, God’s chosen people. In this vein, I pay attention to Jewish re/readings of Nebuchadnezzar, in light of the late antique, Jewish reaction to ascendant Christianity. The paper positions Nebuchadnezzar as a bogeyman and symbol of collective trauma in rabbinic narration.
Snippets of Paper:
“In order to strengthen the defenses of Esagila that the evil and the wicked might not oppress Babylon…I put about it a great wall. Its moat I dug and its moat-wall with mortar and brick I raised mountain-high.”[1] Nebuchadnezzar, the early 6th century BCE king of Babylon, uttered these words more than two millennia ago in reference to a wall he built around his capital city. Delineating his rationale for building this first “great wall,” he describes it as intended to keep out “the evil and the wicked.” Ironically, a thousand years later, Rabbinic Jewish authorities would classify Nebuchadnezzar himself as quintessentially “evil.” That they would do so is not immediately apparent for two reasons: first of all, the Babylonian king, historically-speaking, was quite adept, commanding respect across the Middle East for his building projects and his political and military leadership. Second, and more significantly, the biblical texts upon which the rabbis based their interpretations cast Nebuchadnezzar as a marginal and ambiguous figure. It is not inevitable, then, that rabbis in late antiquity should present the Babylonian king as a central figure and one of unquestionable evil. This paper presents the rabbinic Nebuchadnezzar as a typology and considers why he was so presented. What interest did the rabbis have in maligning Nebuchadnezzar as they did?
To understand the rabbinic construction of Nebuchadnezzar as an evil figure, we will first consider the historical Nebuchadnezzar, the historical figure’s treatment in biblical texts, and the interests of biblical texts. Then, we will dwell on a selection of representative texts from the rabbinic sources of late antiquity, mostly from the Babylonian Talmud and Midrash Rabbah. Finally, we will contextualize these rabbinic presentations of Nebuchadnezzar within a larger literary tradition. In this vein, we will juxtapose rabbinic readings of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem with readings in early Christian sources. Situating the rabbinic materials within the context of late antique Jewish exegesis more broadly will point to the rationale behind the radical approach of the rabbis to Nebuchadnezzar- as a fitting response to the emergence and success of Christian views and, with them, Christian appropriations of Israelite history.
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In biblical texts, God and Israel receive blame for their roles in the destruction and exile, while the human agents of the destruction, Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army, receive little attention for their critical role in Israel’s defeat. Rather, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians function as either mere pawns of God or “jackals”[2] unworthy of the text’s focus. Biblical texts, so concerned with theological readings of history, blame Israel and God for the destruction and exile, and prove uninterested in Babylonians as agents responsible for the tragedy.
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Nebuchadnezzar, assumes undeniable characteristics of depravity in the account of the late antique rabbis. He acquires the appellation “the wicked one,” is classified with the quintessentially evil biblical figures, Pharaoh and Haman, and is described as acting exceptionally cruelly and exotically. The rabbinic Nebuchadnezzar is an ill-intentioned, manipulative, and shameless person, faking repentance, lusting after young boys, and brutally oppressing an entire people. The meanings and motivations behind this transformation from the biblical representation of Nebuchadnezzar as a passive tool of God’s divine justice into an evil and eager vanquisher of Israel will be explored in the following sections. As we shall see, the re-imagination of Nebuchadnezzar as quintessentially evil demonstrates continual rabbinic engagement and re-engagement with the very questions of theodicy with which the Deuteronomistic historians of the Bible dealt.
Understanding the Rabbinic Vilification of Nebuchadnezzar: Motives and Implications
The rabbinic focus on Nebuchadnezzar stems from an interest in rationalizing and understanding Israelite history within their context. On the one hand, the rabbis generally remain committed to Deuteronomistic biblical notions of Israelite sin and divine will as explanations for Jerusalem’s destruction, even overtly indicting the people of Judah themselves for the destruction of the temple. One Talmudic text asks explicitly, “Why was the first Sanctuary destroyed?” and then answers, “Because of three things which prevailed there: idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed.”[3] But this explanation, wherein iniquitous Israelite behavior is simply and solely to blame for the destruction of the temple, thereby rearticulating the mainstream biblical Deuteronomistic view, coexists alongside other explanations of Judah’s exile. The rabbinic vilification and re-imagination of Nebuchadnezzar serves as one such alternative explanation.
I will argue that the rabbinic portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar as quintessential evildoer arises from a desire to assign responsibility for the destruction to someone other than Israel. As a third party available to be blamed, Nebuchadnezzar functions as a scapegoat for the rabbis, a figure whose role in the destruction is emphasized because of rabbinic interest in removing the focus on Israel or God as blameworthy. I will argue that the rabbinic focus on Nebuchadnezzar as evil personified is a response to the denigration of the Israelite ancestors of the Jews, and their God, in the rabbinic period. His portrayal at their hands indicates a struggle on the part of the rabbis of late antiquity to explain the painful collective history of the Jewish people and the event of the destruction, in particular, in a manner that deflects criticism of both Israel and God.
The rabbis, seeking to portray themselves and their predecessors in as positive a light as possible, did not contend that the ancient Israelites were generally faithful to the covenant. Instead, the rabbis chose to deflect blame from Israel to focus on the role of another party in the drama. The seeming inconsistency of the coexistence of two views accounting for the destruction, one which depicts Israelite propensity to sin as blameworthy and the other which depicts King Nebuchadnezzar as blameworthy actually sheds light on the particular, complex nature of the rabbinic project; in the rabbinic accounts of the destruction, several causes coexist, each at a different level of understanding. Evil Nebuchadnezzar may assume responsibility for the destruction on one level even if, on another, he is not even portrayed as part of the picture.
Because the rabbis are unwilling to wholeheartedly accept the harshness of the Deuteronomistic, biblical rationalization, Nebuchadnezzar appears in rabbinic exegesis as an utterly evil, blameworthy figure even as Judah in an underlying way also assumes responsibility for the destruction. Multi-causality, in the case of the destruction, functions as a means by which the rabbis imaginatively work out their anxieties regarding theodicy. It enables them to cast the burden of responsibility on multiple agents at the same time and therein address certain intellectual-ideological concerns, as proponents of the Jewish people.
Multi-causality within late antique rabbinic texts suggests serious engagement with, rather than blind acceptance of, traditional religious notions among rabbis. The coexistence of different explanations for the destruction suggests the profoundly engaged religious-intellectual processes of the rabbis as they conceived and reconceived midrashim. Rather than oversimplification, rabbis responded to the events of destruction by articulating, judging, and subsequently maintaining numerous particular views, each with different theological implications.
The rabbinic vilification of Nebuchadnezzar should not be seen as contradicting the Deuteronomistic interpretation of Israel’s destruction. Indeed, it is quite possible to read Nebuchadnezzar’s negative portrayal at the hands of the rabbis as emerging from the same unshakable faith in God’s justice that characterized the Deuteronomistic historian- the faith that God would, contrary to all expectation, punish the Israelites by subjecting them to not just any but the cruelest dictator. Jerome, a fourth century Christian exegete explicitly articulates such a view. In his commentary on Daniel, he says about Nebuchadnezzar’s primacy, “[God] often permits wicked kings to arise in order that they may in their wickedness punish the wicked.”[4] Jerome’s Christian narrative presents God as fully responsible for harnessing the wicked against the wicked. Nevertheless, the figure the rabbis present is not only a passive tyrant but also a bold actor. Nebuchadnezzar, less because of his concrete historical acts and more because of the rabbinic need to find a scapegoat for the destruction, is both unforgivable and unforgettable in the rabbinic telling. The rabbis will not show mercy to Nebuchadnezzar because of their need for a figure on whom they can rely for their theodicy.
Vilification and Rabbinic Theodicy
Necessarily, the attempt to rationalize the destruction of the temple was theologically complicated for the rabbis. To fully contextualize the rabbinic presentation of Nebuchadnezzar, we need to appreciate the range of theological options the rabbis had in accounting for the destruction. The rabbis possessed four main options as regards how they could rationalize Judah’s destruction. They could have selected from among the three biblical views, portraying the people Israel as sinners and the destruction as a just punishment, the people Israel as sinners and the destruction as an excessive punishment, or God as completely unjustified in but responsible for enacting the destruction. Additionally, the rabbis had another option- portraying the historical agents of the destruction themselves, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, as historically responsible for their actions.
The rabbis, in their presentation of Nebuchadnezzar as evil, chose this final option, transforming Nebuchadnezzar’s figure into a sort of bogeyman. In pursuit of an intellectually comfortable position to explain a particularly tragic moment in Israel’s long and troubled history, they resort to vilification. Indeed, Nebuchadnezzar endures blame for the destruction on account of his actual historical role in it, rendering him an easy target. The rabbis of late antiquity ascribe the destruction to him, and he takes on astounding characteristics of evil. To understand rabbinic explanations of the destruction and Nebuchadnezzar’s role in the destruction, we need to examine Christian explanations of the destruction. We will then consider the degree to which the rabbinic material may have arisen in response to or in polemic engagement with the Christian material.
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Rabbinic response to Christian appropriation
In late antiquity, Christian ascendancy posed a serious, if not existential, threat to Judaism. As James Carroll argues regarding Augustine’s pronouncement of toleration for diaspora communities of Jews, “It is not too much to say that, at this juncture, Christianity ‘permitted’ Judaism to endure.”[5] Certainly, the Jewish future, decades and even centuries after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135 CE did not look promising. The rise of Christianity would have caused some anxiety among Jewish religious elites. As one scholar suggests, “What we need to remember is that just as a good deal of Orthodox Christianity was formed around Pharisaic Judaism, so was a good deal of Rabbinic Judaism … formulated in reaction to Christianity.”[6] Indeed, rabbinic Judaism spoke not obliquely about Christianity but rather in direct response to it, and in light of new terms which the latter religion had introduced.
This being the case, we may better understand Nebuchadnezzar’s vilification. Christianity presented a formidable challenge to Judaism by simultaneously adopting a Deuteronomistic theological framework while re-envisioning the covenant and Israelite history. Christians sought to undermine Judaism for the sake of its own survival and success and succeeded in doing so. The amplification of the Deuteronomistic focus on Israel’s sin on the part of the Christians, interested in discrediting the Jews, put the Jews in a difficult position ideologically. Early Christian allegations that the Israelites were a perpetually iniquitous people, or a steadily deteriorating people, or that their condition of exile was proof of rejection by God, warranted serious responses from the religious elite of Israel, the rabbis. But how could the rabbis defend Jewish religion using traditional means, when they no longer had the ideological weapon of Deuteronomistic rationalization solely at their disposal? For the first time in their history, Jews had to respond to Deuteronomistic arguments voiced by their ideological opponents. They could no longer maintain simply and concurrently that past Israelite sin was to blame for past Israelite punishment, that current sin was to blame for current poverty and exile, and that Israel also existed in a Divine Covenant. When Christians utilize the first two notions together against the Jews in seeking to outright disprove the third notion, the rabbis could not respond as they always had, by speaking of God’s greater justice in this world. The Christians appropriate monotheistic, Deuteronomistic Jewish notions to render Jews as corrupt and hypocritical, and as a result, the Jews could not use their traditional notions to defend themselves ideologically. It is in this context that the rabbis, seeking a way out, vilify Nebuchadnezzar and transform him into a scapegoat for the destruction.
Conclusion:
Nebuchadnezzar’s metamorphosis into bogeyman at the hands of the rabbis of late antiquity, rather than a purely religious act independent of its exegetical context, serves as a simultaneously political and religious act on the part of the Rabbis, made necessary by the context of the rise of Christianity. His transformation into rabbinic bogeyman occurs as the rabbis must think creatively in response to the perceived Christian threat. Delicately, the rabbis seek to balance the long-standing Deuteronomistic myth of radical self-power and rugged self-determination with the reality of certain vulnerability in their own context staring them in the face, necessitating a more politically practical approach. Articulating a multi-Causal theodicy to find theological refuge, they seek to simultaneously adapt to and to transcend their political considerations.
[1] Sack, Images, 74.
[2] Psalms 44: 20.
[3] b. Yoma 9b.
[4] Jerome, Jerome’s Commentary, 27.
[5] Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, 218.
[6] Korn, Two Faiths, One Covenant, 72.