The following notes are taken from:
John C. Poirier, The Invention
of the Inspired Text: Philological Windows on the Theopneustia of Scripture (Library
of New Testament Studies 640; London: T&T Clark, 2021)
20.10 And immediately Michael the archangel stood beside him
with multitudes of angels, and they bore his honorable soul in their hands in
divinely woven line,
20.11 And they tended the body of the righteous one with
theopneustic ointments and perfumes until the third day after his death.
(Author's translation)
Nearly everyone who has looked into the matter notes that
translation θεόπνευστος as “inspired” does not fit the context and we are met
with an array of guesses as to how the author used the term. (p. 40)
Theopneustic Ointments
In spite of the primary witnesses he gives for illustrating
the suggested “hagiographical motif,” there are problems with Allison’s claim
for “something close” to the “usual sense” of θεόπνευστος as “divinely
inspired.” Among other things, this reference leaves an important contextual
clue out of its account: the reference in the text to “three days,” and the connection
between that three-day period and the “theopneustic ointments and
perfumes.” While the pairing of θεόπνευστος with θεοφαντος is indeed notable, the function of the
former term in this context more likely has to do with the well-known motif of
a three-day waiting period after the soul’s release from the body. If the soul
is allotted three days in which it might return, then Abraham’s body obviously
must be preserved for three days against the effects of death. What better
preservative than heavenly “life-giving” ointments? The key detail is not that
the ointments are administered by angels, but rather than they are administered
for three days, and three days only. The ointments evidently are not
regular burial ointments, not are they unguentaria. They are something
no longer required after “the third day,” when there is no more need to
preserve the body from decay.
A well-known example of the body being preserved from decay so
that its spirit might return to it appears at the beginning of Plato’s
presentation of the myth of Er in book 10 of the Republic (613-621d).
Plato relates that Er’s corpse was preserved for twelve days, while his spirit
was visiting the heavenly realm. Although the other slain bodies from the
battlefield were all in a state of decay then days after the battle, Er’s body
showed no signs of decay, and indeed his spirit return to his body as it lay on
his funeral pyre:
Er, the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian . . . once upon
a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day
already decayed, was found intact (αναιρεθεντων δεκαταιων των νεκρων ηδη διεφαρμενων, υγιης μεν ανηρεθη, and having been brought home, at the moment
of his funeral, on the twelfth day as he lay upon the pyre, revived, and after
coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond. (Plato, Republic
614b [trans. Paul Shorey, LCL 272, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1980:491-3])
The idea that the spirit cannot
return to its body unless that body had been preserved from corruption
also parallels what we find in Jewish sources: the body's lack of decay is what
makes it possible for the spirit to return. The advantage of this point
of comparison, of course, lies in three three-day period of nondecay . . .That
the body must remain in reanimable condition for a three-day period is implied
in a number of Jewish and Christian sources . . .(1) in the Testament of Job,
Job’s body remains unburied for three days (52.1-2; 53.7), (2) in the Apoc.
Zeph. 4.7, it takes the angels three days to escort the ungodly to their
final abode, (3) in Dormition of the Blessed Mary 48, the angels sing
for three days after the death of Mary, 94) in David, Symeon, and George of
Lesbos 9, the titular David says he will depart “after the third day,” (5) Demachot
8.1 recommends a three-day period of examining a grave to insure that the
interred body was really dead, (6) according to Gen. Rab. 100.7, the
souol tries, for three days, to reenter the body (cf. y. Mo’ed Qatan
3.5; Lev. Rab. 18.1), and (7) in 4 Bar. 9.12-14 a (heavenly)
voice of warning held off burial, predicting the soul’s reanimation of the body,
which happened as promised “after three days” . . . Thus the “theopneustic”
ointments that the angels administer “until the third day” appear to function
as “life-giving” preservatives to keep Abraham’s body in good repair, in case
his soul should return to it. Θεοπνευστος
therefore bears a vivificationist sense . . . The Testament of Abraham clearly
does not use θεοπνευστος to
denote the idea of verbal or epistemic inspiration. A meaning having to do with
the special life-giving properties of the ointments and herbs—properties
like those associated with ambrosia—make far better sense. (pp. 41-42, 43, 44)
