AN I MADVE R S I O N E S Resurrection and Biblical Tradition: Pseudo-Ezekiel Reconsidered (1) Ezek 37,1-14 comprises a vision of return from exile and resuscitation of the house of Israel in terms of revivification in a valley of dry bones. The biblical narrative, as we encounter it in the Masoretic Text, the majority of Septuagint manuscripts and a Masada biblical manuscript (2), makes the point that the dry bones symbolically stand for the whole house of Israel (Ezek 37,11) which will be joined together again. The symbolical story is related in Ezek 37,1-10, while Ezek 37,11-14 explain this story in relation to the whole house of Israel as prophecy of return to the land of Israel and settlement in the land. While the biblical text of Ezekiel 37 has been taken to carry a metaphorical sense, one case of manuscript evidence and several cases of later interpretation in Jewish and Christian texts concern eschatological reading of Ezekiel’s symbolical language (3). In Papyrus 967 of the Septuagint, Ezekiel 37 comes after Ezekiel 39 and directly precedes chapter 40-48. The evaluation of this manuscript evidence and its different order of text led Johan Lust to formulate the hypothesis that Ezekiel 37 did originally figure in an eschatological setting, while the Masoretic Text would reflect a de- eschatologising tendency in this respect (4). If this different order of text in Papyrus 967 represents an early literary edition of Ezekiel (5), this could (1) This essay is a reworked version of the paper which the author presented at the Qumran Program Unit of the Society of Biblical Literature 2007 Annual Meeting on 19 November 2007 in San Diego. (2) MasEzek comprises the Hebrew text of Ezek 35,11-15; 36,1-11.13-14.17-35; 37,1- 16.28; 38,1-4.7-8. Qumran fragments of Ezekiel (1Q9 (1QEzek), 3Q1 (3QEzek), 4Q73-75 (4QEzeka-c), 11Q4 (11QEz)) do not preserve (parts of) the text of Ezekiel 37. On the combined Hebrew evidence for the book of Ezekiel in general, cf. M. ABEGG – P.W. FLINT – E. ULRICH, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English (San Francisco 1999) 407: “All of them and the traditional Masoretic Text fairly uniformly attest the same textual tradition”. (3) See 4 Macc 18,17; Apocr.Ezek.; Sib. Or. 2.221-226 and 4.179-82; Barn. 12,1; Apoc.Pet. 4.7-9. (4) J. LUST, “Ezekiel 36-40 in the Oldest Greek Manuscript”, CBQ 43 (1981) 517-533. Recently, ID., “Ezekiel’s Utopian Expectations”, in A. HILHORST, É. PUECH, and E.J.C. TIGCHELAAR (eds.), Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez (JSJSup 122; Leiden 2007) 403-419 has reaffirmed the argument of MT Ezekiel as later re-interpretation as compared to the Old Greek version of Ezekiel in Papyrus 967. (5) S.S. SCATOLINI APÓSTOLO, “Ezek 36, 37, 38 and 39 in Papyrus 967 as Pre-Text for Re-Reading Ezekiel”, Interpreting Translation. Studies on the LXX and Ezekiel in Honour of Johan Lust (eds. F. GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ – M. VERVENNE) (BETL 192; Leuven 2005) 331- 357 leaves this matter open to debate. Cf. E. TOV, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis – Assen 22001), 333-334 who distinguishes between MT, Targum, Peshitta,