The Cursing Project
Over the next two years (2006-2007) I will be chairing a Special Session at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies on the topic of “Curses and Curse Stories in Mediterranean Antiquity.” The idea for the project came as a result of my work on non-canonical Christian literature; some of this literature features stories of Jesus and the apostles cursing their opponents (i.e., using their superhuman abilities to kill or wound others). It struck me in the course of my work that such stories have been neglected in scholarship. Canonical curse stories (as found throughout the New Testament) also have been sorely overlooked—it seems most scholars are more comfortable with stories in which Jesus and his followers bless, not curse.
Since early Christian literature cannot be understood adequately without situating it in its appropriate contexts, I formed the Special Session with the goal of bringing scholars together from multiple disciplines (Mesopotamian and pre-Israelite religions, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Greco-Roman Polytheism, Rabbinic Judaism, and Patristics) to lend their expertise to the topic and ultimately to contribute to a comprehensive study on cursing.
Scholars interested in the topic of miracle in the ancient world would find the resources plentiful, from studies of individual wonderworkers like Jesus, Elijah, Hanina ben Dosa, and Apollonios of Tyana, to sourcebooks allowing for comparison between these figures, to form-critical discussions, to anthropological discussions of the performance and reception of miracles. Studies generally cover the categories established long ago by Rudolph Bultmann: 1. healings, 2. exorcisms, 3. raisings from the dead and 4. nature miracles. Notably absent in this list and in the studies is curses or punitive miracles.
Though not as plentiful in the sources as beneficent miracles, punitive miracles are nevertheless found in literature throughout Mediterranean antiquity. Holy men wield power, and sometimes that power is not used with mercy. Thus, to the ancient mind, it is reasonable for Elisha to call upon bears to maul annoying children, for Apollonios to threaten repressive corn merchants, for r. Eliezer to kill r. Gamaliel, for Paul to blind a false prophet, for Jesus to whither a fig tree, and so on. Of course, the power behind these curses comes from the gods, and sometimes the gods even curse directly—the Hebrew Bible, for example, contains numerous punitive acts perpetrated by Yahweh himself.
Examinations of curse stories lead scholars of miracles into discussions of magic. And curses are certainly plentiful in magical papyri, where even the names of Yahweh and Jesus can be invoked to cause hardship, pain, even death, to others. We need to be cautious, however, of drawing too fine a line between so-called “magic” and “miracle.” Therefore, formal curses should be integrated into the discussion of curse stories. So too should woes, for when a figure of power and authority pronounces woes upon enemies, the reader expects calamity to befall them.
The advantages of a study on curses are several: 1. Curses and curse stories are plentiful in primary literature from multiple disciplines, allowing for meaningful discussion between colleagues within New Testament studies and related fields, 2. Nevertheless, the topic has been neglected in scholarship, leaving a large gap in the study of the religious imagination in antiquity, 3. It is neglected also in modern Jewish and Christian thought (Judeo-Christian curse stories rarely form the basis of a sermon or Sunday School lesson), and 4. This apparent uneasiness with the topic likely will engender a (perhaps guilty) curiosity among scholars and readers of the project’s results.
