Chapter 3

1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, 3 revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Now we have such confidence in God through Christ. 5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the ministry that produced death—carved in letters on stone tablets—came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face⁠ (a glory which was made ineffective), 8 how much more glorious will the ministry of the Spirit be? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry that produced condemnation, how much more does the ministry that produces righteousness excel in glory! 10 For indeed, what had been glorious now has no glory because of the tremendously greater glory of what replaced it. 11 For if what was made ineffective came with glory, how much more has what remains come in glory! 12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we behave with great boldness, 13 and not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from staring at the result of the glory that was made ineffective. 14 But their minds were closed. For to this very day, the same veil remains when they hear the old covenant read. It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 But until this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, 16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.⁠ 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,⁠ which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Pseudo Philo, Biblical Antiquities 12:1 and 2 Corinthians 3:7

Classical · New Testament

Summary

In Pseudo-Philo, Moses' shining face is even brighter than the sun and moon. In 2 Corinthians, Paul similarly emphasizes the glory the Israelites could not look at, using an expanded account of Moses' appearance in his argument about ministry.

Passages

Pseudo Philo, Biblical Antiquities 12:1

Classical

1 Then Moses came down. He was covered with invisible light, for he had gone down into the place where the light of the sun and moon is, and the light of his face outshone the brightness of the sun and moon, and he did not know it. When he came down to the children of Israel, they saw him and did not recognize him; but when he spoke, then they recognized him. This was like what happened in Egypt when Joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him. And afterward, when Moses knew that his face had become glorious, he made a veil to cover his face.

1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Pseudo Philo, Biblical Antiquities

2 Corinthians 3:7

New Testament

5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the ministry that produced death—carved in letters on stone tablets—came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (a glory which was made ineffective), 8 how much more glorious will the ministry of the Spirit be?

55–57 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Corinthians

References

“... 6.3 Moses’ Luminosity on Sinai: LAB 12:1. In a re-writing of the traditional Sinai account, LAB states that Moses became luminous in his initial ascent of Sinai: ‘And Moses came down. And when he had been bathed with invisible light, he went down to the place where the light of the sun and the moon are; and the light of his face surpassed the splendor of the sun and the moon, and he did not even know this. And when he came down to the sons of Israel, they saw him but did not recognize him.... And afterward, when Moses realized that his face had become glorious, he made a veil for himself with which to cover his face’ (12:1). The commentators note Pseudo-Philo’s shifting of the episode of Moses’ shining face from his second ascent to his first.... Because this is such a noticeable deviation from the traditional narrative, it is certainly important to speculate on the author’s purpose in such a re-writing. It could be that Pseudo-Philo has a particular interpretive agenda: he seeks to confer upon Moses even more episodes of transcendent transformation, due to multiple occasions of access to the divine glory ...”

Kristine Johnson Ruffatto, “Visionary Ascents of Moses in Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum: Apocalyptic Motifs and the Growth of Visionary Moses Tradition” (diss., Marquette University, 2010), 158–159.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

2 Corinthians13 chapters

Compare Pseudo Philo, Biblical Antiquities 12:1 and 2 Corinthians 3:7

Summary

Passages

Pseudo Philo, Biblical Antiquities 12:1

2 Corinthians 3:7

References

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