the synoptic problem? an old testament perspective · the synoptic problem? an old testament...

Bulletin for Biblical Research 19.1 (2009) 11–34

The Synoptic Problem?An Old Testament Perspective

gary n. knoppers

the pennsylvania state university

The synoptic phenomenon is neither a uniquely NT issue nor a new issue, be-cause there are many parallel stories, laws, and poems in the Hebrew Bible/OT.This study examines the literary technique of imitatio or mimesis in the classicaland ancient Near Eastern worlds to see what the employment of this techniquemay tell us about why ancient writers reused, retold, and expanded select olderworks and how their early audiences may have understood these parallel stories.After discussing the esteem with which ancient writers viewed the accomplish-ments of earlier ages and defining what the technique of literary imitation is andis not (e.g., epitomization, inner-biblical exegesis, rewritten Bible), this articleproceeds to discuss various dangers and disputes in the application of mimesis inthe context of the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., parody, plagiarism). Thearticle concludes that study of creative imitation holds much promise for eluci-dating the significance of parallel laws, poems, lists, and stories in the Old andNew Testaments. Scholars can gain an added appreciation of the literary craftpracticed by the authors of synoptic Scriptures through an acute awareness of thetechniques by which writers reworked, rewrote, and supplemented their sources.

Key Words: antiquarianism, archaism, biblical interpretation, canon, epitome,hermeneutics, inner-biblical exegesis, mimesis, rewritten Bible, scribal educa-tion, Synoptic Problem

A common question put to me by students in introductory OT/HebrewBible classes is “Why does Deuteronomy start all over again and repeat somuch of what is said in Exodus and Numbers?” When we get to theChronicler’s work in our survey, a common question is “Why did theChronicler decide to write another history in addition to that of Samuel–Kings?” Similarly, when I teach a course entitled “Jewish and Christian

Author’s note : An earlier version of this essay was originally delivered as the Old Testament ad-dress to the 2006 annual meeting of the Institute for Biblical Research. I wish to thank WilliamArnold for his insightful remarks in his official response to my paper. Many thanks also to mycolleague Paul B. Harvey Jr. for his many helpful comments on and suggestions about an ear-lier version of this essay. Abbreviations of ancient Greek and Roman works follow those usedby the Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 1996) xxix–liv.

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Bulletin for Biblical Research 19.112

Foundations,” a very common question is “Why are there four gospels inthe NT and not just one?”1

The phenomenon of multiple, parallel stories is neither a uniquely NTissue nor a new issue. There are many cases of parallel stories, parallelpoems, parallel laws, and parallel lists in the OT.2 The number of theseparallels is, in fact, stunning. One thinks immediately of the extensive par-allels between Samuel–Kings and Chronicles, but there are also longparallel sections between books such as Kings and Isaiah, dealing withHezekiah and the prophet Isaiah (2 Kgs 18–20 // Isa 37–38), Kings andJeremiah, dealing with the fall of Judah (2 Kgs 25 // Jer 51–52), and Gene-sis and Chronicles, dealing with universal and Israelite genealogies. Thereare also parallels between some of the Judahite lineages in Chronicles andthe genealogy that appears near the end of Ruth (e.g., 1 Chr 2:9 // Ruth 4:18;1 Chr 2:10–15 // Ruth 4:19b–22). There is an instance in which the samepoem appears both within the book of Psalms and within one of the his-torical books (Ps 18:1–51 // 2 Sam 22:1–51). A list of Levitical towns appearsin both in Josh 21 and in slightly different form in 1 Chr 6. There are, ofcourse, many parallels between laws found in Deuteronomy and thosefound in earlier law collections within the Pentateuch. There is a fascinat-ing case in which a medley of psalms or psalm excerpts appears within anarrative context (e.g., 1 Chr 16:8–36; cf. Pss 105:1–15; 96:1b–13; 106:1, 47–48). There are also cases in which we find significant parallels within asingle book (e.g., the tabernacle accounts of Exod 25:1–31:17 and 35:1–40:33).3 The edict of Cyrus appears both within Chronicles (2 Chr 36:22–23) and within Ezra (1:1–4). There are actually three versions of the Cyrusedict within the book of Ezra itself (1:1–4, 5:13–15, 6:3–5). Similar but byno means identical lists of Jerusalem’s residents can be found in Neh 11and 1 Chr 9. This list of parallels could be extended with other examples,but the larger point seems clear. The Synoptic Problem is not simply an NTissue but also an OT issue.

My concern in this essay is not to attempt to trace the possible lines ofdependence from one particular text to another but rather to explore thesignificance of the phenomenon of parallel stories in the ancient world.Parallels of this sort have been dealt with in a variety of different ways in

1. Discussion of other common questions, such as “Will this be on the exam?”; “Couldyou tell us what is important in your lectures and what is not?”; and “I wasn’t here for classthe last two weeks; did I miss anything?” would undoubtedly take us too far from the topicat hand.

2. A useful (albeit not altogether complete) set of comparisons may be found in AbbaBendavid, Parallels in the Bible (Jerusalem: Carta, 1972).

3. So the MT. The situation is more complicated in the LXX insofar as the LXX account ofExod 35:1–40:33 lacks certain elements found in the MT, sometimes follows a variant orderfrom that of the MT, and is generally shorter than the MT. See J. W. Wever, Notes on the GreekText of Exodus (SBLSCS 30; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990). W. H. C. Propp provides a helpful listof the divergencies between the two accounts: Exodus 19–40 (AB 2a; New York: Doubleday,2006) 631–36.

spread is 12 points short

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Knoppers: The Synoptic Problem? An OT Perspective 13

the history of biblical exegesis.4 In my judgment, the fact that we have somany parallel stories, laws, poems, and lists within the Hebrew Scripturescannot be accidental. To have one or two parallels between OT books orparts thereof would not be unusual. The existence of a parallel or two suchas these could be explained in any number of different ways. For example,there is the possibility that two different writers were each employing acommon source. A hypothesis such as this seems to hold true in somecases.5 But, the more parallels that exist, the less likely it is that the com-mon source hypothesis could be valid in each and every instance. To haveso many clear parallels, word by word, clause by clause, sentence by sen-tence, pericope by pericope, and so forth indicates that at least in some in-stances a conscious process of reuse by one or more authors of olderliterary works was in play. Moreover, given the different genres repre-sented by the parallels in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the variety of datestypically assigned to the books containing these passages, it may be safe tosay that the interest in redeploying, developing, and recontextualizingolder works extended over a long period of time. To be sure, there seemsto be more of an intensified interest in drawing on older writings in thelater biblical books, the apocryphal (or deuterocanonical) writings, andthe Dead Sea Scrolls than there is in some of the earlier biblical materials.But, in any case, the parallels are confined neither to one genre of litera-ture nor to one particular period in the history of biblical composition.

In this study, I would like to look at the literary technique of creativeimitation (Latin: imitatio) or mimesis (Greek: mimesis) in the classical, bib-lical, and ancient Near Eastern worlds to see what the employment of thistechnique may tell us about why ancient writers reused, retold, recontex-tualized, and expanded select older works and how their ancient audi-ences may have understood parallel stories of this sort. The phenomenonof imitatio or mimesis was widespread in antiquity but has not received thekind of sustained attention it deserves in biblical studies. In recent years,

4. M. Patrick Graham, The Utilization of 1 and 2 Chronicles in the Reconstruction of IsraeliteHistory in the Nineteenth Century (SBLDS 116; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990); Kai Peltonen, His-tory Debated: The Historical Reliability of Chronicles in Pre-Critical and Critical Research (2 vols;Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 64; Helsinki: The Finnish Exegetical Society /Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996).

5. For instance, one of the few texts in Chronicles that explicitly deals with the Persianperiod (1 Chr 9:2–18) is partially paralleled by Neh 11:3–19. Both passages list various resi-dents of Jerusalem, mention assorted genealogical connections of Judahites, Benjaminites,priests, and Levites, and follow a similar order. A common source seems to underlie both ac-counts, yet each work contains unique material contextualizing the list in its own way; GaryN. Knoppers, “Sources, Revisions, and Editions: The Lists of Jerusalem’s Residents in MT andLXX Nehemiah 11 and I Chronicles 9,” Text 20 (2000) 141–68. In Chronicles, the list appears asa catalogue of returnees to Jerusalem, whereas in Nehemiah the list is associated with the re-sults of Nehemiah’s efforts to repopulate Jerusalem. The testimony of LXX Nehemiah is alsoimportant for comparative purposes, because this text is significantly shorter than MT Nehe-miah 11.



John Van Seters has written an insightful treatment of literary imitation,and I would like to expand on his brief discussion while touching on anumber of additional points.6 Some of the issues affecting the use andabuse of imitation, such as sycophancy, parody, and plagiarism, were dis-cussed already in ancient times and are still valid today.7 These complica-tions to our understanding of mimesis may be profitably discussed in thislarger context.

I. Old Is Good: An Overview of Mimesis in

the Ancient World

The terms mimesis and imitatio actually cover a broad range of related waysby which later writers made conscious reuse of older material.8 Mimesisbasically designates a later writer’s relation of acknowledged dependenceon an earlier one.9 The models chosen by later writers to emulate werewell-established poems, styles of writing, and prose works that enjoyedhigh standing in the writers’ intellectual community.10

6. John Van Seters, “Creative Imitation in the Hebrew Bible,” SR 29 (2000) 395–409. Forexamples of how Van Seters understands literary imitation functioning within the HebrewBible (not all of which I agree with), see his “The Redactor in Biblical Studies: A NineteenthCentury Anachronism,” JNSL 29 (2000) 12–19; idem, Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in theStudy of the Covenant Code (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

7. These early discussions are abundantly attested, as we shall see, in sources stemmingfrom the classical world. Even though the phenomenon of literary imitation is amply attestedin ancient Egypt and in the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia, the surviving literary evidencefrom these great civilizations does not furnish us with nearly as much information relating tothe intellectual reflections on and the debates about literary imitation as we can draw fromclassical and late antique sources.

8. There is a related but distinct use of mimesis in antiquity. Plato (Respublica 10.595–607) and Aristotle (Poetica) use mimesis to refer to the relation by which language and art rep-resent their objects; Willem J. Verdenius, Mimesis: Plato’s Doctrine of Artistic Imitation and ItsMeaning to Us (Philosophia antiqua 3; Leiden: Brill, 1949). However interesting and philosoph-ically important, this particular use of mimesis lies beyond the scope of my essay. In the con-text of biblical studies, see, for example, Eric Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Realityin Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953); Jacob Licht, “Mimesis in theBible,” in larçy ybxh: Studies in the Bible Dedicated to the Memory of Israel and Zvi Broide (Tel Aviv:Tel Aviv School for Jewish Studies, 1976) 133–42 (Hebrew).

9. The point about the self-conscious reuse of an established literary work (or works) iscritical, because examples of imitation involving two parties may on some occasions be per-ceived by a third party (but not by the second party, the one responsible for the imitation it-self). Some literary critics term the kind of imitation perceived by a third party as comparatio(rather than as imitatio). So, for instance, Peter Green, Classical Bearings: Interpreting AncientHistory and Culture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1989) 194.

10. Hellmut Flashar, “Die klassizistische Theorie der Mimesis,” in Le Classicisme à Rome,aux 1ers siecles avant et après J.-C. (ed. Thomas Gelzer et al.; Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique25; Geneva: Fondation Hart, 1979) 79–97. Whether one should speak of the exemplar as a code,rather than as a model (so Gian Biagio Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memoryin Virgil and Other Latin Poets [Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 44; Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1986] 29–31) is an intriguing proposal the discussion of which lies beyond thescope of this essay.



In mimesis, an earlier writer’s work (or works) served as the exemplarfor one’s own. That is, although a given writer may have learned from avariety of earlier writings, the writer was normally expected to focus onone particular work, one particular style of writing, or one particular kindof genre to perpetuate and extend in his or her own work.11 It was rare,however, for the mimetic writer or poet to cite his or her main sourceovertly. The relationship between the two works was, in this respect, im-plicit not explicit.12 One objective in the process of imitatio was to under-stand and absorb the original model, while another was to develop itskillfully and imaginatively.13 One of the complaints lodged against thesecond-century b.c.e. Roman playwright Terence by his elder contempo-rary and competitor Luscius Lanuvinus was that Terence had added ma-terial from Menander’s Perinthia (“The Woman from Perinthos”) to hisadaptation of Menander’s Andria (“The Woman from Andros”). For Lus-cius Lanuvinus, this was an act of contaminatio, an improper importationof alien elements from one literary work into another.14 To be sure, thereare certain complex genres, such as historiography, that can themselvesincorporate several genres or subgenres. Hence, the Chronicler’s work,which imitates the Deuteronomistic History, or more broadly the PrimaryHistory (the Enneateuch), incorporates a variety of literary subgenres—poems, lists, and genealogies—just like its exemplar does.15

The larger point is, however, that mimesis normally operates not on aglobally intertextual level but more with a view to extending and devel-oping one particular established model. In one respect, mimesis is similarto the fashioning of a summary or “epitome” (epitome) of an older work,because both involve the studious reuse of an older, well-known literarywriting.16 Beginning in the Hellenistic period, it was common for some

11. Nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged that within the ancient world there are nu-merous exceptions to and complications of this common practice. That is, there may be manyintertexts alluded to or cited in a work that develops according to the plan of one older model;C. W. Macleod, “Horatian Imitatio and Odes 2.5,” in Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (ed.D. West and A. J. Woodman; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 89–102; FrancisCairns, “Self-Imitation within a Generic Framework: Ovid, Amores 2.9 and 3.11 and the re-nuntiatio amoris,” in ibid., 121–41. See also section II of this essay.

12. R. A. Derrenbacker, Ancient Compositional Practices and the Synoptic Problem (BETL 186;Leuven: Peeters, 2005) 44–46, 51–76.

13. Flashar, “Die klassizistische Theorie der Mimesis,” 83–95.14. This information stems from the prologue Terence wrote for his version of Andria

(lines 9–14), as well as from the prologue to his play, H(e)autontimorumenos (“The Self-Tormentor”) 16–34.

15. Moreover, the Chronicler’s intertextual allusions are not confined to his selective re-use of Samuel–Kings (cf. n. 5). His work is also informed by a variety of earlier biblical texts.Citations from or allusions to Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah,Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalms appear in Chronicles: G. N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9 (AB12; New York: Doubleday, 2004) 66–71.

16. In the history of early biblical interpretation, this epithet was applied to the book ofChronicles. The Chronicler’s reuse of a wide variety of earlier biblical writings led St. Jerometo comment: “The book of Chronicles, the epitome of the old dispensation, is of such quality



writers to compose convenient abridgements or potted histories of muchlonger works.17 Nevertheless, the literary technique of epitomizing longwritings is substantially different from the literary technique of mimesis.The former simply involves the condensation of an older work but the lat-ter involves the selective reuse, reworking, supplementation, and recon-textualization of older material so that the borrowed material is recreatedas the borrower’s “own property” (privati iuris) in a new work.18

In some respects, mimesis resembles what scholars have called inner-biblical exegesis in that inner-biblical exegesis also involves the consciousreuse and reinterpretation of an older text.19 There is clear overlap be-tween the two phenomena. But whereas inner-biblical interpretation cancenter on the citation and reuse of something as small as a phrase or aclause, imitation usually involves something as broad as the continuationand perpetuation of a genre, the reuse of an older style of writing poetry,a sustained use of archaizing language, or the extensive reuse of dramaticand narrative texts. Moreover, in the process of mimesis a writer is ex-pected to go beyond interpreting and commenting on an inherited literarywork, although an exercise such as this is certainly part of the larger pic-ture. In mimesis, one also actively produces one’s own new and distinctiveliterary work. In literary imitation, the new work may even compete withor rival the established work. As Russell comments, in mimesis one shouldcreate one’s own distinctive work by selecting from and modifying themodel and “at all costs” avoiding “treading precisely and timidly in thefootprints of the man in front.”20

Although mimesis was one technique of literary composition found ina variety of ancient Mediterranean cultures, the best and most fully docu-mented evidence for what ancient writers thought about the literary tech-

17. Derrenbacker, Ancient Compositional Practices, 66–69.18. Horace, Ars poetica 131.19. This phenomenon has received careful attention in recent decades. See, for instance,

Thomas Willi, Die Chronik als Auslegung: Untersuchungen zur literarischen Gestaltung der his-torischen Überlieferung Israels (FRLANT 106; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972);Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985); James L.Kugel, “Early Interpretation: The Common Background of Late Forms of Biblical Exegesis” inEarly Biblical Interpretation (ed. James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer; Library of Early Chris-tianity 3; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986) 9–106; Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and theHermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Isaac Kalimi, EarlyJewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy: Studies in Scriptures in the Shadow of Internal and Ex-ternal Controversies (Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 2; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2002); Joa-chim Schaper, “Rereading the Law: Inner-biblical Exegesis of the Divine Oracles in Ezekiel 44and Isaiah 56,” in Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament (ed. Bernard M. Levinson and Eckart Otto;Altes Testament und Moderne 13; Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004) 125–44.

20. Donald A. Russell, “De Imitatione,” in Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (ed. D. Westand A. J. Woodman; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 16.

and importance that if anyone wishes to claim knowledge of the scriptures apart from it, heshould laugh at himself” (Epistula 53.8). See further Gary N. Knoppers and Paul B. Harvey,“Omitted and Remaining Matters: On the Names Given to the Book of Chronicles in Antiq-uity,” JBL 121 (2002) 227–43.



nique stems from the classical world. In classical antiquity, ancient imita-tion is usually directed to an individual author or to authors groupedtogether by genre.21 In this manner, Herodotus incorporates and developsa series of epic conventions from Homer, even though the genre of He-rodotus’s work differs markedly from that of Homer.22 Virgil also draws onHomer, while Ovid later draws on Virgil.23 In the first century b.c.e., Sal-lust develops a style based on preclassical writers and in particular on thestyle of the elder Cato (Censorius). In later centuries, Arruntius, amongmany others, imitates the style of Sallust.24 In the first century b.c.e., Lu-cretius freely adopts a style patterned after that of the third- to second-century b.c.e. poet Quintus Ennius.25 The third- to fourth-century c.e.

teacher of rhetoric Arnobius, in turn, models his style after Lucretius.26

These few examples reveal that mimesis involves more than simply allud-ing to or borrowing from one isolated feature in an earlier work. Conteand Most write that imitatio is “the study and conspicuous deployment offeatures recognizably characteristic of a canonical author’s style or con-tent, so as to define one’s own generic affiliation.”27 The use by these schol-ars working in classical studies of the term canonical author is deliberate.Mimesis works best when readers or listeners can readily recognize themodel being imitated. To be eligible to serve as a model, a literary workneeds to become well known and established in the writer’s broader in-tellectual community.

In his studies on literary criticism in the ancient classical world,Donald Russell provides a longer definition of imitatio involving a series offive principles.

1. One should choose an appropriate model to imitate (the object must be worth imitating).

2. The imitation should be tacitly acknowledged as an imitation and be recognizable as such.

21. Gian Biagio Conte and Glenn W. Most, “Imitatio,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Si-mon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 749.

22. Kenneth L. Bratt, Herodotus’ Oriental Monarchs and Their Counsellors: A Study in TypicalNarration (PhD diss.; Princeton University, 1985); Simon Hornblower, “Introduction” in GreekHistoriography (ed. Simon Hornblower; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) 65–67.

23. Homer’s widespread influence on later writers is captured in the title of the shortstudy of Willem J. Verdenius, Homer, the Educator of the Greeks (Mededelingen der KoninklijkeNederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, afd. Letterkunde n.s. 33/5; Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1970).

24. Seneca the Younger, Epistula 114.17–19.25. The Annales of the early Latin poet Ennius were closely studied by a variety of writers

including Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan. Ennius himself was very much affectedby past usage, having rendered Euripidean language in Latin for his (tragic) dramatic scripts.Awareness—and heightened appreciation—of what Ennius does depends, of course, on thereader’s knowledge of the Greek original.

26. Philip R. Hardie, “Classicism,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Simon Hornblowerand Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 336.

27. Conte and Most, “Imitatio,” 749.



3. One should avoid slavish copying in content or style; the writer should make his mark on the material and so make the borrowing his own property. This should include providing a new literary setting and meaning to the borrowed material.

4. What should be imitated should not be simply one particular feature of the older work but a sign of the general excellence perceived in the model that could be achieved anew in a fresh setting.

5. One may aspire to compete with the established model and even offer a rival version of the borrowed work.28

At this point in the discussion, one might inquire as to what benefits awriter might gain from so closely studying and emulating a prestigiousliterary work. Would not it make more sense for a new writer simply to be-gin afresh and compose a work with no implicit or explicit ties to previousliterary works? Would not a concentrated dedication to understanding,absorbing, and imitating the achievements of the past detract from one’sown artistic efforts? Questions such as these are perfectly understandableand, as we shall see later, were raised by some ancients themselves. In-deed, some ancient writers did not seem overly receptive to or cognizantof the tradition of mimesis. Yet, at least for some other scribes, the questionsmay assume too much. That is, the extent to which ancient authors, poets,and artists could begin from scratch (or would want to do so) with no tiesto past traditions or styles may be avidly debated. It may also not have beenan easy task for writers, poets, and artists to establish themselves withoutthe support of patrons, teachers, and sponsors, who themselves had ties toor preferences for certain earlier works.29 In any case, the author employ-ing literary imitation could benefit in different ways from exploiting thisform of composition. The association with a well-established and much-admired composition could bring luster to one’s own creation. The idea,according to Seneca the Elder, was “not so much to pilfer, but to borrowopenly in the hope of being noticed.”30 In a world that valued antiquity, aconnection of this sort with a prestigious predecessor could go a long wayto promote the success of one’s own work.

The widespread interest in literary imitation within the ancient worldwas itself intimately tied to the value the ancients placed on learning fromthe past as a necessary foundation for embarking on any successful en-deavor in the present. “One learns (one’s) skill from another, both long agoand now.”31 In a traditional system of education such as this, poets are “lis-

28. This list is compiled from two separate treatments of Russell: “De Imitatione,” 16, andCriticism in Antiquity (London: Duckworth, 1981) 112–13.

29. The system of artistic patronage is defended, for example, by the playwright Terencein his prologue to Adelphoe (“Brothers”) 15–21.

30. Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae 3.7. The comment is made with reference to the use of Vir-gil’s work by Ovid.

31. Baccylides, Paen frg. 5. On the text, see Herwig Maehler, Bacchylidis carmina cum frag-mentis (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana; Munich: Saur, 2003) 87.



teners or readers before they become singers or writers.”32 In Hesiod’sTheogony, one reads that the Muses are the daughters of “Memory” (Mne-mosyne).33 Literary imitation is, therefore, something that was part andparcel of scribal educational systems in a variety of ancient cultures. AsNiditch and Carr point out, in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt,scribal education of this sort would commonly take the form of copying,memorizing, and reciting older texts.34 Translation, paraphrase, and com-mentary were related skills taught to young scribes. Much of this educa-tional training was primarily centered on school texts, letters, and admin-istrative documents. But, at least some students progressed from studyingand copying economic and administrative documents to studying longerliterary texts that were taken to represent the classical or canonical texts ofan earlier age (or ages).35 Texts such as this would be carefully studied,copied, committed to memory, and orally recited. The deployment of im-itatio thus connoted the high esteem of authors for older well-establishedliterary works.36 In an age that prized the past and present continuity withthe past, the careful use of imitatio was a mark of erudition and distinction.

The importance of antiquity within the world of antiquity is a pointthat is often forgotten or neglected in some contemporary discussions ofparallel texts and synoptic Scriptures. Our own contemporary cultureplaces such an emphasis on originality, inventiveness, and creativity thatit makes it difficult for us to fathom the extent to which many of theancients were concerned with antiquity, continuity, and pedigree.37 In ourcultural setting, the word imitation can carry negative connotations ofderivation, counterfeit status, and artificiality. But for many (albeit not all)in the ancient world, imitation was one way by which admired olderworks could be illumined, perpetuated, and improved.38

32. Conte and Most, “Imitatio,” 749.33. Hesiod, Theogony 54. Zeus was the father of the Muses: Theogony 36. Further refer-

ences and commentary may be found in Martin L. West, Theogony (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966)174–77.

34. Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Library of An-cient Israel; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996); David McLain Carr, Writing on the Tabletof the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

35. Yun Kee Too, The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998) 61–69;Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (rev. 3rd ed.;Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006) 38–48; Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Makingof the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007) 51–108.

36. Conte, Rhetoric of Imitation, 23–96.37. So, for example, when discussing the importance of learning from the past, Diodorus

Siculus calls history the “prophetess of truth” and the “metropolis of philosophy,” Bibliotheke1.2.2. See also Isocrates, Contra sophistas 12–13; Cicero, De inventione rhetorica 1.2.1–2; Tacitus,Dialogus de oratoribus 32.5–7; 33.1–34.4; Plutarch, De liberis educandis 1–4; Eusebius, Historia ec-clesiastica 10.2.

38. Manifest in the different ways by which later writers reuse the works of earlier writ-ers (extended quotation, simple quotation, modified citation, refutation, conflation, reformu-lation, amplification, supplementation, and so forth) is a range of literary dependency. This



Moreover, within the world of antiquity there were certain periods inwhich the interest in the past was especially acute. These have been de-scribed by some scholars in Egyptology and ancient Near Eastern studiesas periods of deliberate archaism or antiquarianism and by some scholarsin classical studies as periods of classicism.39 In any case, these were timesin which scribes and artists consciously revived the art, architecture, lan-guage, styles, and tropes of literature in the past, usually some distantpast, and reused these in their own time.

The history of ancient Egypt is replete with examples involving thedeliberate reuse of art, architecture, style, and language to link one’s ownage with the venerated past. Artists, architects, and writers consciouslyimitated scenes, styles, or certain kinds of linguistic usage that they asso-ciated with a particular period (or periods) in the past.40 Although it maybe rightly assumed that the ancient Egyptians constantly revisited the pastwith a view to restoring the glories of the monarchs they most ardentlyadmired, there were also a number of other more practical factors at workin their reuse of older motifs and styles. Antiquarian tendencies were es-pecially prominent in the architecture, sculpture, and painting of the NewKingdom, Third Intermediate, Kushite, and Saite periods.41

39. The modern use of classicism to refer to the art and literature of a particular period(or to the conscious imitation of works stemming from a particular era) as marking a peak inquality or as achieving a state of perfection may be traced back to the work of the second-century c.e. orator, M. Cornelius Fronto, who employed the term classicus (literally, “belong-ing to the highest class of citizens”) to denote the work of those ancient writers whose lin-guistic practices were authoritative for imitators; Hardie, “Classicism,” 336. On the generalphenomenon, see Thomas Gelzer, “Klassizismus, Attizismus, und Asianismus,” in Le Classi-cisme à Rome, aux 1ers siecles avant et après J.-C. (ed. Thomas Gelzer et al.; Entretiens sur l’An-tiquité classique 25; Geneva: Fondation Hart, 1979) 1–41; G. W. Bowersock, “HistoricalProblems in Late Republican and Augustan Classicism,” in Le Classicisme à Rome, aux 1ers sieclesavant et après J.-C. (ed. Thomas Gelzer et al.; Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique 25; Geneva:Fondation Hart, 1979) 57–75.

40. Antonio Loprieno, Topos und Mimesis: Zum Ausländer in der ägyptischen Literatur(ÄgAbh 48; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988); Jan Assmann, Ägypten: Eine Sinngeschichte (Mu-nich: Hanser, 1996); Jack A. Josephson, “Archaism,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt(ed. Donald B. Redford; 3 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1:109–13; DonaldB. Redford, A History of Ancient Egypt in Context (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 2006).

41. For examples, see Richard A. Fazzini, Egypt Dynasty XXII–XXV (Leiden: Brill, 1988);Peter Der Manuelian, Living in the Past: Studies in Archaism of the Egyptian Twenty-Sixth Dynasty(Studies in Egyptology; London: Kegan Paul, 1994); Jack A. Josephson, Egyptian Royal Sculptureof the Late Period, 400–246 b.c. (Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 1997).

means, among other things, as Bill Arnold points out (personal communication), that at somepoint one may have to consider redaction criticism as one model to understand relationshipsbetween certain texts. He helpfully points to the studies of Stephen A. Kaufman, “The TempleScroll and Higher Criticism,” HUCA 53 (1982) 29–43, esp. 34–42; and Paul R. Noble, “Synchro-nic and Diachronic Approaches to Biblical Interpretation,” Literature and Theology 7/2 (1993)130–48. In this respect, there is a connection between the study of mimesis and some tradi-tional forms of historical criticism. On the many past abuses of redaction criticism, see JohnVan Seters, The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism (WinonaLake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006) 244–97. Van Seters proposes, however, to do away with the cate-gories of “editor” and “redactor” in biblical criticism altogether.



The presentation of the Josianic period in the Deuteronomistic Historyis another example of archaism.42 Here, one reads an account of the (re)-discovery of a lost older document (Ur-Deuteronomium) leading to a tem-porary crisis in the affairs of the state. Having heard the “words of thescroll of the torah” read to him, the Judahite king tears his clothes, and,fearing divine wrath because “our ancestors did not heed the words of thisscroll to practice all what is written concerning us,” he orders a propheticconsultation (2 Kgs 22:11–13).43 A deliberate and concerted royal attemptto reform Judahite society and the temple system of worship in Jerusalem(2 Kgs 23:4–14) follows, according to the demands for centralization asspelled out in the older prestigious writing.44 Given that the Torah scrollconcerns Israel as a whole and not simply one part (Judah) of that greatermultitribal entity, it is not too surprising that Josiah also makes an attemptto reform parts of the former Northern Kingdom (2 Kgs 23:15–20). To besure, Josiah’s reforms in Bethel and in the “towns of Samaria” were proph-esied centuries earlier (1 Kgs 13), but the reformer king is unaware of theseold prophecies when he ventures north from Judah.45 He proceeds on thebasis of the demands of the scroll that was recited to him and is only in-formed of the centuries-old prophecies during the course of his campaigns(2 Kgs 23:16–17). The larger point is that, in the story found in Kings, theJudahite king makes a concerted effort to reform his society according tothe dictates of an older, venerable scripture.46

A third example of archaism may be drawn from the history of Greekliterature dating to Hellenistic times onward. Literature from this epochbecame increasing archaistic and classicizing, neglecting earlier Helle-nistic writers and the writers’ own contemporaries in favor of works inthe archaic and classical periods. The literati in the later Hellenistic erawere conscious of the present as being set off from but heir to a great past

42. For a survey of recent scholarly literature, see David M. Howard Jr., An Introductionto the Old Testament Historical Books (Chicago: Moody, 2007).

43. The use of the source citation is certainly significant. See most recently Kevin L.Spawn, “As It Is Written” and Other Citation Formulae in the Old Testament (BZAW 311; Berlin: deGruyter, 2002).

44. See, for instance, my Two Nations under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon andthe Dual Monarchies (2 vols.; HSM 53–54; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993–94) 2:121–228. The ten-ure and reforms of Josiah have been the topic of much recent debate. The literary accounts inKings present certain challenges for interpretation, but I do not see these challenges as suffi-ciently daunting to dismiss completely the historicity of the reforms themselves. A convenientoverview and discussion may be found in Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic His-tory (London: T. & T. Clark, 2005) 67–106.

45. This is true, regardless of whether one views 2 Kgs 23:16–18 as representing a laterlayer in the larger account; Erik Eynikel, The Reform of King Josiah and the Composition of theDeuteronomistic History (OtSt 33; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 278–87.

46. The sequence varies in interesting ways in Chronicles; H. G. M. Williamson, 1 and 2Chronicles (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 396–403; Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Bookof Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (BEATAJ 9; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989)308–24; eadem, I & II Chronicles (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993) 1017–37.



tradition. A distinction was made between the classical and the postclas-sical.47 For these writers, a sizeable gap separated their time from thetime(s) of formative accomplishments in the past. Much of the Greek lit-erature stemming from this period is mimetic, drawing its inspiration notso much from its immediate predecessors as from the works of older clas-sical writers. In this case, the issue was not continuity but revival. Imita-tion, focusing on the greats of the past, was “an imitation of the ancients”(mimesis ton archaion).48 Authors, such as the first-century c.e. Greek criticand historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, championed Thucydides as amodel for historians and contended for the superiority of Attic over Asi-anic rhetorical models.49

A fourth example of a trend to return to the classics occurred in theworld of Latin literature during a number of periods, especially during theso-called imperial age (from the time of Augustus to the reign of Constan-tine).50 One form classicism repeatedly took was reviving and deliberatelyemploying obsolete diction in one’s own work.51 One goal in using such ar-chaizing diction, in line with the general Roman respect for the past, wasto impart solemnity and a sense of importance to one’s own literary cre-ation. This held true even when the usage had not been solemn in its origi-nal context.52 Another goal was to mark one’s own education and erudi-tion. During the second century c.e., writers studied the works of earlierwriters as important subjects in their own right and as sources for vocabu-lary and linguistic constructions to revive.53

One implication of these case studies is to point to the larger impor-tance ancients ascribed to works of quality, authority, and prestige withintheir own tradition(s). There were certain standard literary works thatwriters were expected to master and emulate in form, subject matter, lan-guage, or style. The rhetorical culture of the first four centuries of our erahas been called a civilization of “the books.”54 In one instance, Dionysiusof Halicarnassus even refers to this corpus of model compositions as ta

47. Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hel-lenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 203.

48. Russell, “De imitatione,” 2.49. Dionysius of Halicarnassensis, De antiquis oratoribus 1; Russell, Criticism in Antiquity,

112; Michael Winterbottom, “Asianism and Atticism,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. SimonHornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 191.

50. Russell, “De imitatione,” 3; idem, “Literary Criticism in Antiquity,” in Oxford ClassicalDictionary (ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1996) 870.

51. Occasionally, usage such as this is deliberately eschewed (e.g., Quintilian, InstitutioOratoria 11.1.6).

52. So Leofranc A. Holford-Strevens, “Archaism in Latin,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary(ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996) 143. See, for example, Cicero, De oratore 3.153.

53. Hardie, “Classicism,” 336.54. Russell, “De imitatione,” 3.




biblia, “the books,” a fascinating literary parallel to the term employed inearly Jewish and Christian circles for the Scriptures.55

This phenomenon has another point of relevance for biblical studies.The very existence of a plurality of gospels in the antique era, for instance,tells us that the gospel form was a powerful and popular genre of litera-ture within the early churches. Before mimesis can occur, there has to besomething approaching a consensus as to what important works, literarystyles, or genres are worthy of imitation.56 That the gospel genre was re-peatedly imitated, adapted, and transformed within the space of a fewcenturies is important. It seems evident that not only were the earlygospels carefully read and studied but they also became the basis for thecreation of new and different types of gospels in a variety of later culturaland religious settings.

Similarly, the recognition that mimesis was a widespread practice inthe ancient world sheds some light on the phenomenon of the so-called re-written Bible texts that appear as a prominent type of literature within theDead Sea Scrolls. Works belonging to the broad category of “rewrittenBible” include the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGenar), the Temple Scroll (4Q524;11QTa-c), and the Reworked Pentateuch (4Q158; 4Q364–67; 4QRP).57 To these

55. Ars rhetorica, 298.1. See also his Epistula ad Pompeium 3, in which he describes the workof Herodotus as the best “canon” (kanon) of historical writing in Ionic Greek and the work ofThucydides as the best in Attic Greek. Lists of works comprising the Greek and Roman literarycanons may be found in Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.1.46–84 and 10.1.85–131, respectively.See George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Traditions from Ancient toModern Times (2nd rev. ed.; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999) 132–33;Elaine Fantham, “Latin Criticism of the Early Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Crit-icism, vol. 1: Classical Criticism (ed. George A. Kennedy; Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1989) 286–91. To be sure, the make-up of the canon in the first centuries of our era is notentirely a clear matter. The composition of the canon may have not been so much a fixed con-stant as a constant flux. For example, the literary canon embraced by a circle of rhetoriciansmight differ from the canon embraced by a circle of historians living at the same time, Mc-Donald, The Biblical Canon, 39–44. Moreover, canons did experience some change in accordancewith new settings, the rising popularity of certain works (and the waning popularity ofothers), and new social and historical circumstances; Flashar, “Die klassizistische Theorie derMimesis,” 79–97; Peter Parsons, “Identities in Diversity,” in Images and Ideologies: Self-Definitionin the Hellenistic World (ed. Anthony Bulloch et al.; Hellenistic Culture and Society 12; Berke-ley: University of California Press, 1993) 157–62. For the history of antique and medievalChristianity, see the extensive treatment of McDonald, The Biblical Canon, 190–429 (and thereferences cited there).

56. My concern in this context is not to trace the individual directions of dependence butrather to point to the relevance of the general phenomenon itself. Derrenbacker provides aconvenient overview of recent scholarly theories of the relationships among the Synoptic Gos-pels; Ancient Compositional Practices, 120–258.

57. Works such as these take as a point of departure an earlier biblical book or collectionof books. They select from, interpret, comment on, and expand portions of a particular bib-lical book (or group of books), addressing obscurities, important points, puzzling features,and other issues with the source text. It should be acknowledged, however, that there is nowidespread consensus as to precisely what a rewritten scripture is; Knoppers, I Chronicles 1–9, 129–34.



works could be added other well-known writings, such as the book of Ju-bilees, Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, and Pseudo-Philo’s Liber AntiquitatumBiblicarum (“Book of Biblical Antiquities”). In short, the creation and pres-ervation of these texts may tell us something about the popularity andprestige of the originals on which they were based.

II. Out with the Old, In with the New:

Disputes and Dangers in the Use of Mimesis

The phenomenon of mimesis was widespread in the ancient world and wasitself a topic of study and discussion within classical antiquity.58 Indeed,by the first century c.e., a number of rhetorical schools had developed inthe classical world. The Controversiae by Seneca the Elder and a similar typeof collection ascribed to Quintilian, Declamationes minores (“The MinorDeclamations”), consist of model speeches of various genres—forensic, de-liberative, epideictic, panegyric—that students were supposed to imitate,when assigned a certain topic.59 In other words, the rhetorical schools, asthey emerged in the (Greek) Hellenistic world after Alexander and inRome, were living examples of how mimetic art was explicitly and con-sciously practiced.60

Given the practice of literary imitation in a number of different peri-ods, it is not surprising that one comes across a range of comments aboutthe nature of and standards governing the practice. Certainly, trainingstudents in the art of mimesis was not without its critics. For instance, thepractice of reviving and employing archaic diction and classical style waseschewed by some. Quintilian (ca. 35–95 c.e.) decries the use of antique

58. Thus, for instance, Isocrates, Contra sophistas 14–18; Cicero, Ad Herrenium 1.2.3; idem,De inventione rhetorica 1.1.2; idem, De oratore 1.4.14; Dionysius Halicarnassensis, AntiquitatesRomanae 1.1.1–5; idem, De imitatione; Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 1.6–10; 2.2.8–12; 3 (Pref-ace); Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, II), Epistulae 40, 100, 114; Petronius, Satyrica4; Longinus, Peri hypsous (“On the Sublime”) 13–14; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.1, 2, 3, 10;Horace, Epistula 19.21; Hermogenes, Peri ideon 4.409–11; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 9.9. Seefurther Wilhelm Kroll, Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1924;repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973) 146–78; George M. A. Grube, TheGreek and Roman Critics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965; repr. Indianapolis: Hackett,1995); Tony Woodman, “Self-Imitation and the Substance of History,” in Creative Imitation andLatin Literature (ed. David West and Tony Woodman; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1979) 143–55; Gregory Nagy, “Early Greek Views of Poets and Poetry” in The Cambridge Historyof Literary Criticism, vol. 1: Classical Criticism (ed. George A. Kennedy; Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989) 2–77; Doreen C. Innes, “Augustan Critics” in The Cambridge History ofLiterary Criticism, 246–73; Donald A. Russell, “Greek Criticism of the Empire,” in The CambridgeHistory of Literary Criticism, 299–329. The name of Longinus is often placed within quotationmarks, because the actual author of the first- or second-century c.e. work Peri hypsous is de-bated; Donald A. Russell, ‘Longinus’ On the Sublime (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964) xxii–xxx.

59. D. R. Schackleton Bailey, Declamationes pseudo-Quintilianeae (Minores)/Quintilian: TheLesser Declamations (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006); George A.Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 115–18.

60. In this context, the comments of Quintilian are relevant; Institutio oratoria 2.10; 12.1, 10.



language as unsuitable in many circumstances.61 Similarly, Seneca theYounger (ca. 4 b.c.e.–65 c.e.) complains about those in his own time whoemploy obsolete, unknown, and old-fashioned words as unbecoming toachieving good style.62 He pronounces that archaizing usage of this sort bycontemporary orators is “corrupt” (corruptum) and “mistaken” (peccare).63

These sorts of comments are important because they give us a better senseof the ancient debates about the proper goals, methods, and limitations ofmimesis. One may ask, for example, what is the boundary, if there is sucha thing, between mimesis and plagiarism? Where does copying stop andthievery begin? Are there any cases of plagiarism within biblical litera-ture? Moreover, what is the relationship between mimesis and parody, ifany? Does parody, which presumes close study of a literary work, a par-ticular set of works, or an entire genre, constitute a form of mimesis? Itwill be useful to engage these questions briefly, because they inevitably af-fect how scholars may understand the relationships among synopticScriptures.

Parody

At first glance, parody would seem to be an obvious form of mimesis. Par-ody seems to be a kind of imitation that is designed to amuse and intendedto be recognized this way.64 The success of a parody depends in large mea-sure on readers (or listeners) knowing a good deal about the original thatthe new work parodies. In fact, some audience recognition is essential forallusions to have good effect. An example is the play Ranae (“Frogs”; 405b.c.e.) by the Greek playwright Aristophanes, in which Aeschylus and Eu-ripides deliver bombastic speeches. The humor in these orations depends,in no small part, on auditors having seen and heard plays by the respectivepoets.65 Other examples may be found in Ovid’s work Fasti (“Calendar”).For instance, Ovid’s highly allusive and disjointed relation of the fall of theTarquins and, for that matter, the tradition of Lucretia and Brutus, arepractically incomprehensible unless one knows the received tradition asset out in the Roman history of Livy.66 In short, the concise and witty talesthat Ovid offers in this work often evoke standard texts and are sensibleonly if one knows the standard tradition(s) on which they are based.

61. Yet, he also criticizes the practice of coining many new words and speaking in met-aphorical language; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 11.6–7.

62. Seneca the Younger, Epistula 114.10–11.63. By the same token, he finds fault with well-worn common usage and the employ-

ment of an overly elaborate poetic style; Seneca the Younger, Epistula 114.13–14.64. Kenneth J. Dover, “Greek Parody,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Simon Horn-

blower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 1114–15; VanSeters, “Creative Imitation,” 398–99.

65. Similarly, irony and satire also depend heavily on allusion for their effectiveness.66. Livy, Ab urbe condita libri (“Books from the Foundation of the City”) 1.39–54; 2.2–19;

Ovid, Fasti 2.685–852. I wish to thank Paul B. Harvey (personal communication) for calling myattention to this text.



The primary form parody takes is comedy, but parody also plays a rolein other forms of literature. A striking example is the collection of “biog-raphies” of the Roman emperors from the second–third centuries (c.e.)known as the Scriptores historiae Augustae. Purportedly a continuation ofthe biographies of Roman emperors (De vita Caesarum) written by Sueto-nius (ca. 70–130 c.e.), the individual biographies are cast in a Suetonianformat and are said to be written by no fewer than six different authors.In fact, a wealth of clues suggests that the biographies were written by oneauthor, writing (probably) in the late fourth century (ca. 395 c.e.).67 It isrelevant to observe both that this author has created some fictitious em-perors within his larger work and that his mimesis does not involve anyacknowledged dependence on an older work. The success of the parodydepends on a circle of well-educated readers (cognoscenti) who will rec-ognize and appreciate the author’s sober, echt-biographical mask. The tar-get of parody thus may be an individual author, a particular writing, a setof works, or an entire genre. In line with Russell’s definition of imitatio,parody can involve the principle of competition or rivalry (zelos) with anestablished model. In parody, the model imitated may be even turned intoits mirror image.

Yet, literary imitation normally assumes some admiration on the partof a writer for an older, well-established work, whereas parody may as-sume the opposite scenario.68 Mimesis may involve the veneration of acanonical work, whereas parody may lampoon the older work and under-mine it. To take one example, Aristophanes claimed that Eupolis’ comedyMaricas (ca. 421 b.c.e.) was his own Equites (“Knights”; 424 b.c.e.) “worn in-side out” and that other comic writers were “imitating” (mimoumenoi) hiscomparisons.69 The use of the term imitation by Aristophanes is clearlynegative. Parody is rejected as an illegitimate form of mimesis.70 In this in-stance, mimesis, if this is what we may call it, may have worked too well.The relationship between an older work and a new work was readily

67. Ronald Syme, Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968); idem,Emperors and Biography: Studies in the ‘Historia Augusta’ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971); idem, His-toria Augusta Papers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983).

68. A point stressed by Conte and Most, “imitatio,” 749. On this basis, they view parodyas a neglected art form in Latin literature. But others (with good reason) strenuously disagree:Peta G. Fowler and Don P. Fowler, “Latin parody,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. SimonHornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 1115.

69. Aristophanes, Nubes (“Clouds”) 553–54, 559.70. To complicate matters further, there are several works surviving in the Homeric tra-

dition that are both parodies and advertisements of the (often anonymous) author’s Homericskills. The Batrachomyomacchia (“Battle of Frogs and Mice”), a (probably) 4th-century b.c.e.

work, is a brief “Homeric”-epic parody that does not make fun of the master work as muchas it imitates its depictions of warfare in an amusing fashion. Described by modern scholarsas an epyllion (a kind of miniature epic), the Batrachomyomacchia contains many entertainingepithets, comical terms for armor, and so forth; Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod, The HomericHymns and Homerica (new rev. ed.; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936) 541–63.




acknowledged by the original author himself.71 The deliberate reuse of thecontent, form, or style of an older literary work by a younger playwrightbrought some unwelcome recognition to the new work. In sum, parodymay be regarded as a legitimate form of literary imitation, but it may nothave been universally accepted, much less appreciated, as such in the an-cient world.

Plagiarism

Within classical antiquity, a more fiercely-debated and complicated issuethan parody was plagiarism. But, given that mimesis by definition involvesthe reuse of an older work in a new work, how should one define plagia-rism? What constituted the “theft” (Greek klope; Latin furtum) of another’swriting? The more nuanced and sophisticated of the ancient literary criticsdistinguished between the imitatio of earlier writers’ works and the pla-giarism of those works.72 For these literati, theft constituted slavish andderivative copying and was to be condemned.73 Plagiarism was despised asthievery.74 By contrast, creative imitation was an acceptable and normal re-use of older material that resulted in the borrowed material becoming theborrower’s own property in the new setting within which it was framed.Because the original was presumably well known and informed the newcontext, the relationship between the old and the new was implicitly ac-knowledged, rather than concealed. When Seneca the Elder suggests thatOvid imitated Virgil “not as a pilferer, but as an open appropriator” (nonsubripiendi causa sed palam mutuandi), the difference between mimesis andplagiarism seems clear.75 The same distinction seems evident when Longi-nus praises a whole tradition of writers from Stesichorus and Archilochusto Plato for their clever and informed reuse of Homer.76

Nevertheless, the boundary between the proper reappropriation of anolder work and outright plagiarism is not always clear. Indeed, a boundary

71. It could be argued, in this case, that Eupolis’s mistake was to parody the work of a liv-ing playwright. Perhaps it was a sign of disrespect for a younger playwright to mimic the workof an older competitor. But, as my colleague Paul B. Harvey points out (personal communica-tion), Aristophanes himself parodies two works of an elder playwright, Euripedes’ Andromache(ca. 426 b.c.e.) and Helena (412 b.c.e.), in Aristophanes’ own work Thesmophoriazusae (411 b.c.e.).

72. The following discussion is indebted to Michael S. Silk, “Plagiarism,” in Oxford Clas-sical Dictionary (ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1996) 1188. More broadly, see Eduard Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der greichischenLiteratur (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912).

73. So, for instance, Horace, Ars poetica 132–34.74. In the opinion of Van Seters, the Chronicler employed a form of imitation in writing

his history, but a form of imitation that amounts to plagiarism. Van Seters comes to this con-clusion because he thinks that the Chronicler’s imitation was obvious but not acknowledgedas such; “Creative Imitation,” 399–400. The issues are admittedly complex, but I disagree withVan Seters’s claim and will deal with the matter in a future study.

75. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Suasoriae 3.7. Cf. Cicero, Brutus (De Claris Oratoribus) 76.76. Longinus, Peri hypsous, 13.



of this sort seems to have been unknown to many in the ancient world. Thequestion is very much connected to a related issue, namely, the link be-tween tradition and innovation. Is the ultimate goal of mimesis to learnfrom the excellent minds of the past, to study, absorb, and master much-admired classics, or is it to innovate beyond, compete with, and even sur-pass the originals? Is the highest goal of mimesis the melding of a student’spersonality with his model’s or the production of a new and better workthan that produced by the model?77 When many modern critics speak ofimitatio, they emphasize emulation and competition (zelos), rather thanservile dependence. They speak of the need for critical study and the useof a plurality of models, rather than the uncritical reworking of a singleolder work. It has to be admitted, however, that when many ancient writ-ers speak of “imitatio,” they usually mean (1) the “action of imitating an ex-ample”; (2) the “action of producing a copy or an imitation, mimicking”; or(3) the “result of imitating, a copy, counterfeit, imitation.”78

To be sure, it is important to point out that some ancient commenta-tors speak of the need to go beyond imitating an older model. As Quintil-ian points out, if one sets out to reproduce an older literary work, nomatter how highly esteemed and worthy that excellent model may be, onewill end up reproducing both its strengths and its weaknesses. Moreover,an older literary work, no matter how highly esteemed that work may be,will inevitably exhibit certain oddities and peculiarities that would be un-suitable to reproduce in one’s own writing.79 According to Quintilian, astudent needs to go beyond imitation and aspire to produce a better prod-uct. Better, then, to learn from more than one past master in preparingone’s own literary work.80 Similarly, in the view of Horace, it is importantto learn from the best of tradition but not to imitate it slavishly.81 It is clearthat some of the antique writers were themselves aspiring to produce bet-ter works than those written by their ancestors and peers. For example, incomposing his Life of Paul, the First Hermit, Jerome seems to have been de-termined to upstage the work of Athanasius, Life of Anthony, by creating a

77. In this context, the very definition and meaning of mimesis are at stake. Parsons(“Identities in Diversity,” 162–63) distinguishes among three kinds of mimesis: (1) an externalvariety (a point of debate in philosophical circles) in which the relation between a represen-tation and reality is at issue (see n. 8); (2) an internal variety (a point of debate in rhetoricalcircles) in which the relation between stylist and stylistic model is at issue; (3) another varietyin which the relation between inspiration and technique is at issue. The third intersects withthe second.

78. Oxford Latin Dictionary (ed. P. G. W. Glare; Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 833. See Cicero,Ad Herennium 1.3; idem, De Oratore 3.53.204; idem, Orationes Philippicae 14.6.17; idem, De Officis3.1.1; Seneca the Younger, Epistula 65.3; and the discussion by Green, Classical Bearings, 194(along with further references).

79. Cicero, De Oratore 2.90–91; Horace, Epistula 1.19.15; Seneca the Younger, Epistula114.17.

80. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.2.25–26.81. Ars poetica 119–39.




forerunner to Anthony.82 In so doing, Jerome advertises that he (Jerome)is more knowledgeable than the master Athanasius.

Whether an attempt of this sort “to aspire to compete with the modeland even offer a rival version of the borrowed work” is better termed aem-ulatio rather than imitatio, as Green has argued, is unclear.83 The process ofaemulatio can be not only competitive but also hostile.84 The argument isimportant, but the shortcoming of this view resides in the fact that aemu-latio normally refers to the effort to rival another person (usually a contem-porary) in terms of personal character and above all in public persona.85

This contrasts with the attempt to rival or to suppress another literarywork. In any case, the larger point is that many of those praising literaryimitation were also aware of its inherent dangers. These critics stress theneed to equal or better the accomplishments of one’s predecessors.86 In theview of Longinus, the contest with the greats of the past is itself a nobleone, and in the company of such illustrious figures, “it is no disgrace to beworsted by one’s elders.”87

But the nuanced distinction between mimesis and plagiarism ad-vanced by some literary critics seems to have been lost on many others inthe ancient world. Not a few of the literate in classical antiquity seem tohave deemed any substantial reuse of older compositions as improper.Hence, what might be viewed by one ancient critic as a brilliant imitatiomight be condemned by another critic as derivative copying or the “theft”(klope) of another author’s creation. For some writers, the reappropriationof their work by other writers was a delicate issue. The sixth-century

82. Roy J. Deferrari, Early Christian Biographies (The Fathers of the Church 15; Washing-ton, DC: Catholic University of America, 1952); Paul B. Harvey, “Jerome, Life of Paul, the firstHermit” in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity (ed. Vincent L. Wimbush; Minneapolis:Fortress, 1990) 357–69.

83. Green, Classical Bearings, 194. From Green’s perspective, the literary technique of aem-ulatio can include imitatio as one of its methods but it is not necessary for aemulatio to do so(with reference to Livy, Ab urbe condita 28.21.4; Velleius, Paterculus 1.17.5–7; Cicero, Tusculanaedisputationes 4.3.7, 18.7, 26.1–2; Pliny (the Elder), Naturalis historiae 13.21.70, and other works).

84. Livy, Ab urbe condita 26.38.10, 44.25.2; Pliny (the Elder), Naturalis historiae 13.70; Ci-cero, Tusculanae disputationes 4.26.56. Conte stresses, however, that traditio and aemulatio neednot be seen as diametrically opposed to one another; Rhetoric of Imitation, 37–39.

85. See the Oxford Latin Dictionary (ed. P. G. W. Glare; Oxford: Clarendon, 1988) 64, whichdefines aemulatio as (1) “Desire to equal or excel others, ambition, emulation”; (2) “Unfriendlyrivalry, emulation, envy”; (3) “An attempt to imitate (a person) or reproduce (a thing), imita-tion.” Cf. aemuletus (ibid., 64), “Rivalry, emulation.”

86. Hence, Russell argues that imitatio and aemulatio can be (and should be) complemen-tary literary processes; “De imitatione,” 9–10.

87. Longinus, Peri hypsous 13.4. Similarly, Statius, Thebais 12.816–17; Tacitus, Dialogus deoratoribus 25–27. Quintilian assesses the mimetic plays of Terence and Plautus as only paleshadows of the originals; Institutio Oratoria 10.1.99. But these sorts of pessimistic evaluationsmay be compared with the more optimistic assessment of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De an-tiquis oratoribus (preface); Donald A. Russell, “Greek Augustans,” in Ancient Literary Criticism(ed. Donald A. Russell and M. Winterbottom; Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 305–7; Grube, Greekand Roman Critics, 207–30.



(b.c.e.) Greek poet Theognis purportedly placed a seal (sphragis) on hisverses in an attempt to avert their misappropriation.88 The fourth-centuryb.c.e. Greek orator Isocrates intimates that, because other orators had(mis)used his work, he was free to reuse it himself.89 The first-century c.e.

poet Horace dismissed those poets who imitated him as a “servile herd”(servum pecus).90 The Roman historian Polybius wrote that one should en-gage only in the writing of recent history, lest one repeat or simply plagia-rize the works of earlier historians, as he accused many others of havingdone.91

Some applied the damaging label plagiarism fairly mechanically to im-itation in general. In this context, a number of Greek writers produced dis-sertations entitled “On Plagiarism” (Peri klopes). The earliest known liststems from the third- to second-century b.c.e. scholar Aristophanes ofByzantium.92 The title of his work is revealing: Paralleloi Menandrou te kaiaph’ hon eklepsen eklogai (“Parallels between Menander and Those fromWhom He Stole”). A later and much more extensive list is provided by thethird-century c.e. scholar and philosopher Porphyry.93 In both cases, onecomes across numerous charges of plagiarism. In fact, in the case of Por-phyry, one finds the astonishing claim that the major Greek thinkers andwriters were all plagiarists.94 As serious as allegations such as these maybe, they are rarely complicated by any recognition of the nuanced rela-tionships that existed among some similar texts. Philosophers as eminentas Anaxagoras, Plato, and Epicurus were accused in the third-century c.e.

writing of Diogenes Laertius of stealing other thinkers’ ideas.95 In anycase, it is revealing that such serious charges were leveled, even at a rela-tively late date, against a variety of highly esteemed thinkers from muchearlier times.

In Rome, Terence was accused of theft for reworking older Greek ma-terial already translated or adapted by his predecessors, especially theGreek playwright Menander (ca. 392–344 b.c.e.).96 It may be helpful to dis-cuss his case in some depth, because the actual situation was certainly

88. Some would date him earlier to the seventh century; Martin L. West, Greek Lyric Po-etry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) xiv, 64–73.

89. Isocrates, ad Philippum 5.94 (ca. 346 b.c.e.).90. Horace, Epistula 1.19.20.91. Polybius, Histories 9.2. Yet, as Van Seters observes (“Creative Imitation,” 399), the

fashioning of narratives such as these about past events left a lot of scope for imitating theform, style, and content of the works of previous historical writers. In other words, ancienthistorians did not employ the works of their predecessors merely as historical sources.

92. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 190–91.93. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 10.3.12.94. A charge with which Eusebius and some of the Church Fathers very much agreed;

Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 10.1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 14.95. Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum 3.37 (Plato); 9.34 (Democritus); 10.7, 14 (Epi-

curus). It is very difficult to assess the validity of the accusations registered in the work of Di-ogenes Laertius because the nature and reliability of many of his sources are uncertain.

96. Terence, Eunuchus 1–45; idem, Adelphoe 6.



more complex than his chief critic made it out to be.97 In the prefaces to hisplays, Terence openly acknowledged his indebtedness to the works of pastpoets and playwrights. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he bor-rowed from past literary works and retained many of their original titles.Nevertheless, such open declarations about sources did not stop his eldercontemporary and rival Luscius Lanuvinus from repeatedly accusing himof contaminating and spoiling well-admired older plays.

When evaluating the charges of the little-known Luscius Lanuvinus,it is difficult to make an independent assessment of the degree to whichTerence and another Roman playwright, Plautus, adapted Menander’scomedies for the Roman stage, because only a few of Menander’s playssurvive. Moreover, one would have to examine each instance of borrowingon a case-by-case basis because the extent of reuse may have varied in eachinstance. Study of the fragments of Menander’s Dis exapaton (“The DoubleDeceiver”) suggests that Plautus’ adaptation of this work took more liber-ties with this comedy than previous scholarship had imagined.98

In the case of Terence, he seems to have retained most of the names ofthe plays he took over from earlier Greek and Roman playwrights. Terenceseems to have been generally more conservative in modifying the plots ofhis borrowed plays than Plautus was, yet he also seems to have innovatedin a number of ways, including adding material from other plays intosome of his plays, adding his own material to plays, converting mono-logues to dialogues, changing the endings of plays, avoiding the use of di-rect address, increasing the number of lines with musical accompaniment,and using prologues to combat his critics (as opposed to employing pro-logues to inform his audience about the structure of the plays).99 In sum,

97. Karl Büchner, Das Theater des Terenz (Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissen-schaften, n.s., 1/4; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1974); Sander M. Goldberg, Understanding Terence(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); Elaine Fantham, “The Growth of Literature andCriticism at Rome,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 1: Classical Criticism (ed.George A. Kennedy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 223–27; Evangelos Kar-akasis, Terence and the Language of Roman Comedy (Cambridge Classical Studies; Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2005).

98. Plautus, Bacchides (“The Bacchis Sisters”) 492–562. See David Bain, “Plautus uortit bar-bare: Plautus, Bacchides 526–61 and Menander, Dis exapaton 102–12,” in Creative Imitation andLatin Literature (ed. David West and Tony Woodman; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1979) 17–34; William G. Arnott, “Menander,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Simon Horn-blower and Antony Spawforth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 956–57.

99. Terence, Andria 1–27; idem, Eunuchus 1–45; idem, H(e)autontimorumenos 35–39; idem,Phormio 1–34. The degree of innovation (as opposed to conservation) is somewhat difficult toascertain, both because most of the original plays Terence adapted have been lost and becauseTerence integrated his additions so carefully into his plays that there are few literary seams in-dicating possible insertions or changes; Fantham, “Growth of Literature,” 224–27; Peter G. M.Brown, “Terence,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spaw-forth; 3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 1483–84. In any event, Luscius Lanuvi-nus seems to have expected Terence to create and produce his own plays altogether. He alsoseems to have thought that Terence was not equal to the task. His reworking and combinationof older material was, in effect, spoiling and ruining that older material. Hence, Terence’s reuse



even though Terence presented himself as an honest and open appropria-tor of earlier well-established literary works and evidently left his owndistinctive stamp on the materials he borrowed and developed, this com-pliance with the traditional conventions of literary imitation did not pre-vent his work from being assailed as derivative and counterfeit.

As Silk comments, “The preoccupation with plagiarism over manycenturies serves as a reminder that, contrary to some modern misstate-ments, ancient literature, especially poetry, was expected to be ‘new.’ Cer-tainly many writers, Greek and Roman, are anxious to assert the originalityof their own claim to it.”100 Much of the modern discussion about imitationand plagiarism assumes clearly available and agreed-on rules across thespectrum of ancient scholarship during a variety of times, but no central,universally recognized arbiter of definitions and standards existed in an-tiquity. There was, of course, no such thing as copyright, and, there was nowidespread notion of the sanctity of intellectual property.101 Workingwithin diverse traditions, diverse times, and diverse settings, ancient criticswere sure to disagree. One problem was that ancient authors were employ-ing different, if not competing and contradictory, esthetic principles ofwhat constituted a great work of literary art. For some, clever appropria-tions of the styles, genres, or motifs of earlier, formative works were highlyprized. In this view, the cultured reuse of older literary tradition was itselfa contribution to the continuation and livelihood of that tradition. Imitationwas the sincerest form of flattery.

To a greater or lesser degree, all literary works employing mimesisare, however, by definition derivative. Each borrows from past authorsand each stands in a clear line of dependence on one or more previous lit-erary works. It is precisely the derivative property inherent in imitationthat was acceptable to some ancient commentators but objectionable toothers. For the latter, originality was an essential key to establishing thevalue of a new work. A clear relation of dependence on an older work wasdeemed to be a liability, not an asset. The reuse and incorporation of thestyle, content, or genres inherent in received materials threw into questionwhether works of this sort were actually new works. A demonstrable con-nection to and reliance on older writings, no matter how well establishedor famous, could be viewed as plagiarism and theft.

100. Silk, “Plagiarism,” 1188. Among those asserting the originality of their works arePindar, Olympian Odes 9.48–49; Aristophanes, Nubes 547; Callimachus, Aetia, frg. 1.25–28; Lu-cretius, De rerum natura 1.921–30; Virgil, Georgics 3.291–93; Horace, Epistula 1.19.21–34; Pro-pertius, Elegiorum 3.1.1–6; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheke 40.7.8; Dionysius of Halicarnassus,Antiquitates Romanae 1.2.1, 3.1–3, 4.1–5. Whether, in fact, each of these works was completelyoriginal is another matter.

101. Derrenbacker provides a good overview of the stages in the production and “pub-lication” of books in the Greco-Roman world: Ancient Compositional Practices, 39–44.

(and translation) of older plays, no matter how important and prestigious those plays mayhave been, was unacceptable. Terence, however, had his own pointed criticisms to make of theproductions of Luscius Lanuvinus: H(e)autontimorumenos 3; idem, Phormio 6–10.



These two views (and others) of what constituted excellence in litera-ture coexisted within antiquity, and the inherent contradiction betweenthem was never resolved. Indeed, the two views (and others) still exist to-day.102 Nevertheless, it is surely relevant that some of those practicing mi-mesis continued to do so despite the criticism they received from others.This suggests at least two things. First, it indicates that there were thosewithin the broader intellectual community who could distinguish be-tween derivative copying and creative borrowing and appreciate the dif-ference between the two. Second, it demonstrates that there was areceptive audience for mimesis in the ancient world during a variety oftimes and in a number of different places. In spite of the literary appetiteof some for completely new and original writings, there were obviouslyothers who very much appreciated clever and creative appropriations ofclassic writings.

Conclusions

Study of the ancient practice of mimesis holds much promise for elucidat-ing the significance of parallel laws, poems, lists, and stories in the He-brew Bible and in the NT.103 Given that many biblical writings wereanonymous, undated, and untitled, it would seem that they readily lentthemselves to imitation. Van Seters comments, “What is remarkable inbiblical studies is that scholars can treat intertextuality, source criticism,form-criticism and tradition history and completely avoid any discussionof the presence and significance of literary imitation in the text.”104 In-deed, the recognition of mimesis within the larger context of a variety ofwritings stemming from the ancient world leads one to expect to see mi-mesis at work in the history of the composition of literary writings in an-cient Israel and Judah. That the authors of Deuteronomy, for example,rework the Covenant Code should occasion no great surprise.105 Similarly,that the Chronicler incorporates and rewrites selections of a variety of ear-lier writings within his own work is readily understandable when his

102. In a recent article (“Her Life, His Art, Your Call”) on ever-expanding notions of pla-giarism and the plethora of public lawsuits pertaining to alleged instances of plagiarism,Charles Isherwood asks, “If, in today’s climate, a mere few words corresponding too closelyto a few others in a previously published work can bring you newspaper headlines, will allwritten records of contemporary experience eventually become off-limits to other writers?”New York Times, December 3, 2006.

103. See, for instance, the recent work of Octavian D. Baban, On the Road Encounters inLuke–Acts: Hellenistic Mimesis and Luke’s Theology of the Way (Paternoster Biblical Monograhs;Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006).

104. “Creative Imitation,” 397.105. I am supposing the usual line of literary dependence. Van Seters (Law Book for the Di-

aspora, 41–172) proposes to reverse this, but see Bernard M. Levinson, “Is the Covenant Codean Exilic Composition? A Response to John Van Seters,” in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Pro-ceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. J. Day; JSOTSup 406; London: T. & T. Clark,2004) 272–375.



compositional technique is understood against the larger backdrop of theage within which he lived.

To be sure, Deuteronomy can be read without recourse to the Cove-nant Code as a work of literature in its own right, and Chronicles can beread without recourse to a variety of older, established compositions as awork of literature in its own right. Nevertheless, the authors of Deuter-onomy and Chronicles would likely have assumed that their educatedreaders would know something of their sources and thus would appreci-ate their careful reuse of older literary works. For this reason, a strong casecan be made for the study of mimesis. Scholars can gain an added appre-ciation of the literary craft practiced by the authors of synoptic Scripturesthrough an acute awareness of their sources.106 After all, what one of theancient writers said still rings true: “One learns (one’s) skill from another,both long ago and now.”

106. In addition, the process of rereading the primary sources may be different after onehas read a later writer’s imitatio of those writings; Christine Mitchell, “The Dialogism ofChronicles,” in The Chronicler as Author: Studies in Text and Texture (ed. Matthew P. Graham andSteven L. McKenzie; JSOTSup 263; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) 311–26.


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