Ezekiel the Tragedian – also known as Ezekiel the Dramatist[1] and Ezekiel the Poet – was a Jewish dramatist who wrote in Alexandria.[2] Naomi Yavneh dated his work to the 3rd century BCE,[3] while Howard Jacobson estimates the 2nd century BCE.[4] Evidence of the date is not definitive.[5]
His only known work – Exagōgē [he] ("The Exodus") – is the earliest known Jewish play.[6] It survives in fragments found in the writings of Eusebius (PrEv 9, 28-29), Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.23.155f.), and Pseudo-Eustathius (Commentarius in Hexaemeron, PG 18, 729).[7] Nevertheless, the extensive quotations by these writers make possible the assembly of 269 lines of text, about 20-25% of the whole.[8] The only remnant of the Greco-Jewish poets which is more extensive is that found in the Sibylline Oracles.[9]
Exagōgē is a five-act drama written in iambic trimeter, retelling of the biblical story of The Exodus from Egypt. Moses is the main character of the play, and parts of the biblical story have been altered to suit the narrative's needs. These changes probably point to Ezekiel's intention to stage the play, since certain scenes that are impossible to stage were converted into monologue. This drama is unique in blending the biblical story with the Hellenistictragic drama; Erich S. Gruen writes that "the choice itself of that tale suggests an appeal to pride in national history and tradition produced in a quintessentially Hellenic mode."[10]
The main modern edition is a parallel-text English-Greek edition by classical scholar Howard Jacobson.[11] It was adapted by Edward Einhorn as an play/opera/immersive Passover seder, with music by Avner Finberg, for a production at La MaMa in 2024.[12]
References
^Moses' Throne Vision in Ezekiel the Dramatist
by Pieter van der Horst (1983)
^Yavneh, Naomi, "Lost and Found; Veronese's Finding of Moses", in Gender and Early Modern Constructions of Childhood, p. 305, 2016, Eds. Naomi J. Miller, Naomi Yavneh, Routledge, ISBN1351934848, 9781351934848, google books and google books – ebook, with different pages viewable
^R. G. Robertson, Ezekiel The Tragedian (Second Century B.C.). A New Translation And Introduction, in James H. Charlesworth (1985), The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., Volume 2, ISBN0-385-09630-5 (Vol. 1), ISBN0-385-18813-7 (Vol. 2), p. 803.
^Joel Stevens Allen. The Despoliation of Egypt: In Pre-rabbinic, Rabbinic and Patristic Traditions, Brill, 2008, page 59, "First, Ezekiel's Exagôgê, with its extant 269 lines of iambic trimeters, is the most extensive example of the Greek dramatic literature of the Hellenistic period. Second, it is the earliest Jewish play in history, and as such provides important information as how a Hellenized Jew would try to mould biblical material into Greek dramatic forms by means of techniques developed by Greek tragedians."
^John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, Crossroad, 1983, page 224: "Ezekiel the Tragedian - Another early specimen of "mystical" Judaism is found in the drama on the Exodus by Ezekiel, which, at 269 lines, is the most extensive remnant of the Greco-Jewish poets apart from the Sibylline Oracles"
^The Exagoge of Ezekiel, ed. Howard Jacobson, 2009: "Professor Jacobson accompanies the text of the play with a translation. In the commentary he examines the fragments line by line, comparing them with the biblical account and other accounts in related Jewish sources."
J. Allen, "Ezekiel the Tragedian on the Despoliation of Egypt," Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, 17.1 (2007), 3-19.
Kristine J. Ruffatto, "Raguel as Interpreter of Moses' Throne Vision: The Transcendent Identity of Raguel in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian", Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, 17.2 (2008), 121-139.
