The purpose of this paper is to discuss critically the Eurocentric reading of Psalm 91 and then offer the alternative reading in African perspective. This paper is based on the field research conducted mostly in Nigerian indigenous churches, South African indigenous churches and Kenyan indigenous churches. It will also demonstrate the fact that such African approach to the interpretation of Psalm 91 has not only spread across the sea, but it is as legitimate as other Eurocentric interpretation.

This paper is one of three invited papers, including papers by Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Stanley Stowers, for a session on ancient cosmology and the Pauline epistles.

Although often take for grated, the nature and role of education in the ancient world had a profound influence on the literature produced within an epoch and geographic region. Similarly, cultural preferences, from both dominate and subordinate ethnic powers, shaped the development and character of prestigious and low literature alike. Accordingly, investigations into progymnasmatic texts, as well as the educational writings of Cicero and Quintilian provide insight into the educational world in which the New Testament writers were educated and the New Testament documents were penned. Dialoguing with the progymnasmatic works of Kennedy and others, as well as the modern studies on Luke, this paper seeks to re-investigate the enigma of Lukan education and the affect of said education on the Lukan writings. While identifying Luke’s educational influences is an important endeavour in its own right, the results of this investigation provide an important platform into the examination of Lukan style, the relationship of Luke-Acts to extra-biblical texts, and the identification of the genre of Luke-Acts. While these three aspects are important, it is particularly with the later that the application of this investigation will focus on.

In principle, doublets are created in the textual transmission of the Septuagint as a result of comparison with the Hebrew text and consequent new translation or recensional activity. If the alternative translations are different enough – or indeed translate different formulations of the source text – a scribe whose work is confined to the Greek material may copy alternative readings, one after the other, thus expanding the text. In many cases, the emergence of doublets can be observed and traced back to certain recensions. The Greek text of 1 Samuel is, however, rich in doublets that have come about so early in the transmission history that their origin is not visible. Is this phenomenon in 1 Samuel a result of early recensional activity? Or should we perhaps think that the original translator – hesitating between alternative translations – created doublets? _______________________________________________________________________

Pausanias describes the process of consulting the oracle of Trophonius as requiring the inquirer to drink from the Waters of Oblivion (Lethe), in order to purge the mind to receive Trophonius’ communications, and then to drink from the Waters of Memory (Mnemosune), in order to remember what will be communicated by Trophonius. After descending into a chasm where the inquirer purportedly interacts with the god, the inquirer then ascends from the chasm and is seated on the throne of Memory (epi thronon Mnemosunes) and “debriefed” by the priests. Memory plays a key role in the inquirer’s ritual experience at the oracle, but memory also stands as a key intellectual, cultural, and religious category in Greek tradition found as far back as the archaic period. In Mnemosune, epic poets ground their ability to tell authoritative stories of the gods (i.e. through the Muses, daughters of Mnemosune, thus arbiters of memory; Hesiod, Theogony 29-34, Works and Days 1-2; Hymn to Hermes 1, Hymn to Aphrodite 1, et al.). Initiates utilize the Bacchic gold tablets as memory devices to negotiate the afterlife properly, including the choice to drink from the Waters of Memory resulting in a happy afterlife with the memories of their of lives intact (Tablets 1, 2, 8, 25). And Plato formulates an epistemology that includes recollection of things already known (Meno), but he also imagines a process of perfection and ascent through remembering what was beheld by the soul in hyperouranos (Phaedrus 246A-250A). Clearly, memory has a consistent cultural history of facilitating contact between the divine and human worlds, and it taps into authoritative and foundational knowledge of these worlds. The evocation of memory in the oracle’s ritual should be viewed as an indicator that the inquirer assents to memory’s power to facilitate contact with and epistemological transformation by Trophonius.

The predicative imperfects ???? and ???? coupled with the construct clauses ????? ?? and ???? ???? have been difficult to translate with precision (JPS, NRSV, NIV, NJB, etc). The antecedent of the 2/m/s pronominal suffix further raises the question (1) who is the “you” referring back to, which then raises the larger problem of (2) the function of the suffering servant introduced at the outset of the chapter—clearly identified as a single individual. In order to address these problems, I offer as an interpretive key the Judeo-Babylonians who represent the true recipient of the covenant, those that function as “light” to restore all displaced and resettled Judeans (and Israel) throughout the coastlands, Egypt, Samaria, Babylon, and elsewhere.

While the burial practices of second-temple period and first century CE Palestine have been studied, the evidence for mortuary rituals in Late Antique Palestine has not received enough attention. Moving away from approaches that are focused on comparison of theological attitudes or limited to examining one cemetery, the present study seeks to place Jewish burials in the context of the Late Roman Mediterranean. While ancient spectators could likely distinguish between a Jewish and a Roman funeral, upper class Jews and Romans shared the majority of their funerary practices in the diverse cultural atmosphere of Late Antique Palestine. For this reason, the physical remains of burials do not stand out as distinctive products of Jewish culture. It seems that socio-economic considerations primarily determined burial practices. Furthermore, contextualizing the literary and archaeological evidence suggests that the attempt to categorize burials along religious lines in Late Antique Palestine is misleading. Beginning with polemical religious texts of the ancient world frames our studies in terms of the categories of Jewish, Christian, and Polytheistic. Indeed, only such preconceptions may be preventing us from finding mixed burial grounds in Late Antique Palestine. A closer study of the literary and archaeological evidence related to burial practices suggests a shared cultural milieu for the inhabitants of this region in the Late Roman Empire. In support of these assertions, literary evidence about Roman and Jewish funerary practices will be examined alongside archaeological remains from the Roman and Palestinian context.

The “Birth of Christianity” is usually characterized as a single event of extraordinary significance for the ancient world and for future generations, and it is often related to the figures of Jesus or Paul as relevant founders. This interpretation still implies that the „Birth of Christianity“ has taken place somewhere between the historical Jesus and Paul, and is to be identified in the Biblical text. Recent socio-historical scholarship has shown that the “Birth of Christianity” can be located in the overall social practice of the Hellenistic meal, which was not an identity marker for Christianity but a performance for social, political and religious experimentation (H.Taussig). Taussig understands the Hellenistic meal as a semi-private social act, which allowed the participants to experiment with social variables so that they could put new social alternatives into practice. Consequently this interpretation is analyzing not one single “Beginning of Christianity” but many. Considering that the beginnings of Christianity can be found within this social practice, this paper argues to place Christian Origins into ordinary dining practice. For that reason it examines the dining structures of daily life in the Greco-roman culture to focus on the social practice of the Hellenistic meal. It discusses the time and location of these meals to argue for an understanding of cultural codes, which allowed social, political and religious transformations. The analysis is based on socio-historical studies (E. and W.Stegemann) and will examine the features of daily life in the letters of Paul to illustrate how Christ- Believers were able affirm and transform shared values at the same time. It will focus particularly on Romans 14 to study the historical perspectives of the ordinary to serve a social, political and religious transformation. This paper appreciates the ordinary as a place for social, political and religious transformation and the “Birth of Christianity” within the Hellenistic Meal.

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Research into Hebrews’ use of the Jewish Scriptures is a long-standing discipline, and one which is commonly focused around the epistle’s appeal to key characters such as Moses, Abraham or Melchizedeck. A primary figure in this retinue is Joshua; consideration of how Hebrews links him with Jesus is particularly invited by the epistle, partly because of the common name, partly because of the tantalising reference of 4:8, partly because of the deafening silence of 11:29-30, and partly because the mantle assumed by Jesus bears such a strong resemblance to that bequeathed to Joshua upon entry into the land. The association, however, only works up to a point; the Joshua typology sits well with the hortatory aspects of the letter, but less easily with its doctrinal portions. To put it another way, Joshua imagery works well for Jesus’ archegos role, but is less compelling in its insights for his archiereus function. This paper will explore this other high-priestly aspect, and tease out whether Hebrews has a similar OT prototype in mind for the role, beyond the obvious affinity with Melchizedeck. In particular, it will examine the suitability of Caleb for this function; as the one who shares, with Joshua, a leadership role upon entry into the land, to what extent does Caleb inform Hebrews’ portrayal of Jesus? To what extent does Caleb complement, shape or supplement the Joshua typology, and can one even talk profitably about a Caleb typology? As such, the paper will explore the Caleb tradition in more depth, particularly the extent to which he may be said to bear a priestly – or high-priestly? – mantle. Is he indeed one who ultimately deals with “things pertaining to God” (Heb 5:1; cf. 2:17)?

Many have assumed that the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews is the most supersessionistic text in the entire New Testament. Recent studies by Gelardini, Eisenbaum, and Anderson have shown that the socio-cultural context of Hebrews was far more complex than scholars previously grasped, resulting in a very different picture regarding Hebrews’ portrayal of Israel: Jewish-Christian relations were disturbed and disjointed, and the search for religious identity was ongoing (not settled). Such studies have shown the nuance in the anonymous writer’s approach to thinking about the Jewish religion in light of Jesus of Nazareth. This tendency to rethink Hebrews in light of its socio-cultural context might be supplemented by turning focus to another topic (too often overlooked in discussions of supersessionism in Hebrews): the Sabbath. What if the standard supersessionistic reading of Sabbath in Hebrews was wrong (in light of the canonical sequence implied by the quote from Ps. 95 in Heb. 4:3 as well as the formal structure of this section of the letter)? Might this shape our understanding of Jewish-Christian self-understanding in the latter first century? This paper explores these possibilities by offering an exegesis of Hebrews 3:7-4:13 and then attempting to assess the validity of reading Hebrews as supersessionistic. It considers this section within the argument of the whole letter (looking especially to the programmatic comments in the exordium as well as the imitative exhortations found in chs. 11-12). It will be suggested that grasping the relationship of Hebrews to supersessionism involves coming to terms with the nature of typology in this Epistle.

When heaven and earth were created, Enlil was king. The patron deity of Nippur, he presided over the divine assembly at his court in Ekur. He appointed kings and gods over mankind. His name became synonymous with the highest rank (illilu), and his essence was identified with executive power (illilutu). Imperial gods would eventually overtake his position at the top of their pantheons, but Enlil’s reputation and name remained. Little surprise that Assyrian scribes likened their patron deity to Enlil. Šamši-Adad I built Aššur his own “Temple of Enlil” in Assyria, and Shalmaneser I proclaimed it “Ekur.” Tiglath-Pileser I announced Ninlil as Aššur’s consort. Later, Aššur took Enlil’s horned cap, his tablet of destinies, and his city Nippur. More importantly, Aššur’s capital took on Nippur’s toponyms: Ešarra, Ekiur, and even Nippur’s nickname, “the Inner City.” For these reasons and others, numerous scholars argue Aššur and Enlil were syncretized. However, Aššur was not Enlil (nor the Assyrian Enlil) in the Mesopotamian mind as most Assyrian texts distinguish between the two until the 7th century. Neither equated nor syncretized, the Assyrians indentified the two gods typologically. As a hermeneutical tool, typology links the two historical persons or events (or in this case, gods) without dissolving the reality of the type (Enlil) and simultaneously honoring the antitype (Aššur). Through typological presentation, Aššur became not just the head of the pantheon; he became the exalted king and king maker. The Assyrians did not replace Enlil with Aššur nor deny that he was a separate entity; rather, they looked back to the past and found a model for their time and their god, increasingly integrating the names already associated with Enlil to help heighten Aššur’s status as their empire’s ambitions grew.

In Isaiah 13, the prophet utters the oracle against Babylon promising the wrath of God upon the guilty nation. In particular, Isa. 13:6,9 warns of the impending day of the Lord for all of the earth. According to Mark 13:24-25, Jesus alludes to the imagery of this passage and identifies himself with its divine activity, thereby assuming himself as the referent of Isaiah’s prophecy. His self-understanding is as the divine agent of judgment promised on the day of the Lord. Jesus adopts the day of the Lord imagery to identify his own coming, providing the precedent for such NT formulations as “the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Thus, the theology of Isa. 13 provides important insight into Jesus’ understanding of himself as divine, eschatological judge and savior. Connecting the roots of Jesus’ proclamation to the theology of Isa. 13 provides canonical context to the earliest christologies of the NT. In particular, three important correlates from Isa. 13 to NT christology are that 1) Jesus embraces Yahweh’s universal mission of judgment as his own, 2) Jesus embraces Yahweh’s wrath as his own, and 3) Jesus defines himself as equal to Yahweh. By a fundamental embrace of the role of Yahweh, Jesus defines himself as the necessary agent to secure the salvation and restoration of the world, a vital concept in developing a biblical christology.

This paper will outline the recent developments and challenges for the interpretation of eating and drinking in OT/HB texts. Beyond merely identifying the important role of commensality and food and drink metaphors—an important development in and of itself—what are the promises and difficulties involved in understanding these texts and their language? The following issues will be addressed: 1) the role of the practicalities of human biology; 2) modern anthropological insights into the centrality of commensality for identity; 3) identifying faunal and other archaeological remains in relation to particular OT/HB texts; 4) the relationships between eating and drinking in the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East and those of ancient Israel and the OT/HB. The paper will conclude by addressing broader methodological issues such as bridging the gap between social scientific studies and biblical texts.

According to Leela Ghadi, “Texts, more than any other social and political product, it is argued, are the most significant instigators and purveyors of colonial power and its double, postcolonial resistance.”1 My belief is that the Bible contains both texts that promote colonial power as well as texts that contain hidden transcripts that function as texts of resistance. This paper examines Romans 13:1-7 claiming that it falls into the category of resistance literature and its primary purpose is to convey a political message to the oppressed. It is my assertion that Romans 13:1-7 operates as a public and a hidden transcript. Even though, on the surface, it appears that Paul is asking for obedience to the Roman imperial government, I do not believe that Paul is asking everyone to subject themselves to an unjust Roman government. In this regard, I agree with those scholars who believe that Paul was politically conscious and that his gospel opposed the Roman imperial order, not his own Jewish people. Method. Abraham Smith, states, “Generally speaking, postcolonial analysis examines the historical and discursive ways in which the colonial or imperial powers seek to subdue other peoples, and the historical and discursive means available to subjected peoples to resist such domination.”2 Using a postcolonial analysis, my research will show how Paul drew discursively on the Israelite tradition of resistance in Romans 13:1-7 by not only appropriating scripture but also by appropriating the received tradition regarding Jesus Christ. Dividing the text into three parts, I will examine the concepts of "authority" in Romans 13.1-2, the "sword" in Romans 13:3-4 and "tribute taxes" in Romans 13:5-7. Additionally, by citing ancient Greek biblical and non-biblical texts, I aim to show that the "authority" that Paul is referring to is not the Roman political leaders but those who are zealously resisting the Roman Empire.

Much has been made of the harsh words which the prophetic literature directs toward Edom, as well as whether or not these were warranted. This paper argues that there are recurring themes in these oracles which may offer clues as to why Israel’s prophets were so stinging in their critique of Edom. These include the motifs of kinship as well as Edom’s relationship to the land, both its own and that belonging to Israel. As such, Edom’s offenses are against both their kin Israel, as well as YHWH, who has apportioned the lands. Taken together these may help us make sense of Israel’s assessment of its neighbor. Moreover, when read in this way, the prophetic castigation of Edom has resonance with the prophetic critique of Israel, which also is punished for its inability to live up to covenantal obligations to both God and humanity.

The Jacob narratives in Genesis are among the most troubling theological texts in the Hebrew Bible for the way in which they portray characters actively engaging in deception, often of one’s own family. Esau arguably suffers most, losing not only the right of the firstborn (Gen 25:27-34) but also the paternal blessing (Gen 27:1-45) to Jacob’s clever and calculating ways. The response of Esau is clear: he plots to kill his scheming brother. Later in the narrative, however, in the reconciliation scene between the two brothers, Esau’s murderous anger is conspicuously absent and instead replaced with a seemingly affable, forgiving demeanor. Scholarship has traditionally noted that Jacob’s worry at the impending reunion is in vain and highlights all the more his problematic character, especially in light of the nocturnal wrestling match he has with God. It is this contest with the divine that traditional readings of the Jacob cycle will argue leads to a change for the better in Jacob’s character. Such a reading, however, cannot be sustained against a close scrutiny of the text. This study is part of a larger project looking at the role and function of God in Jacob’s deceptions. Here specifically I will argue that Jacob by no means repents of his deceptive ways but rather continues with them, at the expense of his brother yet again. Jacob’s encounter with his besmirched brother will be read in parallel with 25:27-34. Esau again plays the fool, just as he did with the right of the firstborn, on a variety of levels: he accepts Jacob’s ambiguous offer of the “blessing” (33:11, cf. 32:29) and he ends up separated from his brother yet again by means of Jacob’s trickery (33:15-20). The main contribution of this study is the recognition that God is deeply connected with these deceptions (Gen 32:22-32), and a close literary reading of the text will offer new interpretive possibilities for understanding not only the Jacob and Esau dynamic but also the Jacob and God dynamic. I have dubbed this a theology of deception.

For nearly two centuries and spanning the first three quests for Jesus, one judgment has remained largely constant among critical scholars: the quest for the Jesus of Nazareth ought to be conducted untainted by the Fourth Gospel’s potentially distortive influence. While reasons for excluding John from Jesus studies are understandable, they bear new sets of critical problems making such an operation finally unsatisfactory. Despite the Johannine tradition’s highly theological character, its mundane and distinctive features call for the questioning of its historical exclusion bolstered by the following bases. First, the dialogical autonomy of the Fourth Gospel invites its consideration as an alternative Jesus tradition with its own plausible contributions to perspectives on Jesus. Second, a Bi-Optic Hypothesis accounts for major similarities and differences between the Johannine and the Markan Gospels in ways that have literary and critical integrity posing a challenge to the programmatic rejection of the one tradition claiming direct access to the ministry of Jesus. Third, new criteria for determining historicity with John in the mix deserve consideration, potentially leading to a fourth quest for Jesus—one that welcomes all suitable resources for critical analysis, including the Fourth Gospel.

"Love and do what you will" is a famous saying of Augustine in "In epistulam Johannis" 7.8. Read in its context, it is Augustine's defense of the use of force in the service of love. This paper discusses a less pleasant and much-debated episode in Augustine's life: his support of the use of force to convert the Donatists to the Catholic Church. In trying to heal the schism in North Africa, Augustine believed that compulsion is a justified mean to achieve unity. To prove his arguments about he use of force as a way toward conversion and unity, Augustine appealed to the authority that the Church had obtained by the authority of Scripture. As Christ used violence to make Paul a believer and one of his best disciples, Augustine believed that the Church was following Christ in forcing the Donatists into the unity of the Church. This paper shows both Augustine's support of the use of force as well as the role and the function of love in his arguments for unity. According to Augustine, schismatics cannot love outside the Catholic Church. Bringing schismatic groups back into the Church through compulsion meant that their lost ability to love would be reestablished and that their acts of love and good deeds would finally work from the root of love, that is, the Church, the only place where the Holy Spirit works and true Christian love can take place. Thus, in the Catholic-Donatist controversy, Augustine believes that the end justifies the means. This paper shows how Augustine responded to a delicate situation in sensitive times and circumstances. However, Augustine's arguments that the end justifies the means could not be sepparated from the Catholic-Donatist controversy.

Although several linguists working outside of biblical studies have demonstrated that silence is a significant element in human communication, the topic has been largely neglected in biblical studies. There exists only a handful of partial treatments of the silence motif in the Hebrew Bible and just one monograph attempting a comprehensive survey. While each of these investigations makes a contribution, none adequately considers silence as a divine metaphor and explores the cognitive world that gives rise to its use. Such an interpretive course would be especially fruitful for the study of lament psalms in which situations of suffering and distress are so determinative of the petitioner’s descriptions of the deity. The present study demonstrates that the motif of divine silence in selected lament psalms provides useful insight into the cognitive world of the psalmist. After a brief description of the semantic field of silence in the Psalter, the verbal metaphorical expression al teherash (Pss 28:1; 35:22; 39:13; 83:2; 109:1)—which may be translated “do not keep silent”—is considered more closely within the frameworks of cognitive metaphor and mental space theory. In this way it becomes clear that this characterization of God is not only intricately related to the psalmist’s experience, but it also functions effectively as a speech act. By evoking a negative mental space in which God is silent, the petitioner simultaneously and necessarily calls to mind a positive space in which God speaks. It is this implied

History of effect is a recent methodology being used as a means to discover the ways in which readers are influenced by biblical texts. This essay seeks to discover how the early Pentecostals were influenced in their worship by their reading of the Apocalypse. Early Pentecostal literature is filled with references to the worship practices and experiences of the early Pentecostal communities. The literature, which is largely testimonial in nature, indicates that the early Pentecostals were deeply influenced in their worship by the Apocalypse. This essay provides a survey of both Wesleyan-Pentecostal and Finished Work periodical literature from 1906-1916.

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The identity of Paul’s opponents in 2 Corinthians has been a fundamental interpretive paradigm in Pauline studies. Building on a suggestion of Margaret Mitchell that the so-called super apostles may have been a rhetorical construct of a specific Corinthian, this paper will explore the role of honor and shame in understanding the apostolic alternatives to Paul. Specifically, this paper will argue that the Corinthians may have perceived Paul’s shaming language in 2 Corinthians 8 as an inappropriate affront to their honor and, as a result and as dictated by the requirements of honor, sought revenge by similarly shaming Paul. As a result, Paul is forced to address an affront to his own honor when compared to the super apostles in 2 Corinthians 10-13. This is not to suggest that the super apostles did not exist. Rather, it suggests that they existed collectively only as a rhetorical alternative to Paul and as an appropriate reciprocal response to the injury and insult that they believed they experienced when Paul attempted to shame them. Perhaps, the Corinthians misunderstood Paul’s behavior to be a case of hybris, especially if they believed that he was trying to inflict shame through public humiliation.

This paper reflects on the findings of the Wabash Grant awarded to Shaw University on Teaching Exegesis in Historically Black Theological Schools (HBTS). After the initial presentation by the principle recepients, the follwing response and discussion will involve some of the particiants of the three conferences held between 2007 and 2010.

There is much debate in modern scholarship regarding the question of unity in the Song of Songs: Is the Song of Songs one coherent work or is it an anthology of various love poems. I will address this question by a close reading of the 2 poems that are considered by many as dream love poems: 3:1-5, and 5:2-8. A close analysis will show that the two poems display literary affinity, but also as significant differences. It will be claimed that the poems were meant to stand as a pair and only an understanding of the development within the poems can explain the similarities as well as differences between them. The main ideas of progression within the book will be demonstrated.

In the preface to his gospel, Luke promises asphaleia to his readers (1.4). Much scholarly effort has been aimed at answering the ‘what’ question: “What is Luke providing certainty about?” Comparatively little attention has been given to the ‘how’ question: “How does Luke attempt to establish the promised asphaleia for his readers?” This paper represents a fresh attempt to answer the latter question in the light of a variety of verbal parallels both within and outside of the Lukan writings. This study will explore the potential roles played by four suggested epistemological bases for asphaleia in Luke-Acts: the written medium, the arrangement of the material, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the testimony of (eye)witnesses. After evaluating each of these possibilities in light of extra-Lukan usage of asphaleia and its close cognates in antiquity, this paper will assess the significance of such usage for the interpretation of Luke’s preface in light of Luke’s use of asphalõs and asphales in Acts 2.36, 21.34, 22.30, and 25.26. The study will conclude that the primary means by which Luke intends to supply asphaleia to the reader is through a concerted, two-fold appeal to the fulfillment of prophecy and to the testimony of (eye)witnesses, whereas the written medium and the arrangement of the material only contribute to asphaleia in an ancillary way. Furthermore, Luke’s means may provide a clue to his ends. Given that little consensus has been reached on ‘what’ Luke-Acts is providing certainty about, further study on Luke’s use of fulfilled prophecy and eye-witness testimony may help to highlight the key issues for which Luke felt a more robust defense was required.

The Qur’anic claim that the “People of the Book” have corrupted their Scriptures surprises, and even offends, many Jews and Christians. By exploring the means by which Jews and Christians have preserved their sacred texts, I hope to support both this Qur’anic assertion and show how it can foster interreligious dialogue. Once Jews and Christians recognize the problematic textual base of their Scriptures, they cannot criticize the Qur’an as a later inferior revelation that merely copies from their texts. The academic study of the transmission of these writings, moreover, can aide interrreligious dialogue by highlighting those elements common to the Abrahamic faiths. This presentation includes insights from the author’s recent work as a translator for the New English Translation of the Septuagint and his involvement in the Iowa Dialog Center, which is a Muslim-founded group dedicated to fostering interreligious dialogue based on the teachings of Fetullah Gülen. The first portion of this presentation introduces the textual history of the Bible used by Jews and Christians. It highlights the difference between Scripture and Canon, and shows that the Jewish and Christian Bible is a fairly recent creation that postdates the final compilation of the Qur’an. The second section discusses how the textual history of the Jewish and Christian Bible supports the Qur’anic claim that Jews and Christians have corrupted their Scriptures. The conclusion suggests that Jews and Christians, because they cannot claim to possess an uncorrupted Scriptural text, should be more open to Islam’s teachings, and not criticize the Qur’an as a later inferior revelation that merely copies from their Scriptures. The result is the opening up of a dialogue that focuses on those elements common to all three Abrahamic faiths, namely compassion and prophets. The presentation concludes with suggestions as to how an academic study of the sacred Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can facilitate interfaith exchanges.

This paper investigates the social status of Zechariah in Luke’s gospel using Lenski’s social stratification model. While many scholars have vaguely placed Zechariah within a social stratification scale, this paper aims to give a more accurate analysis of Zechariah within the highly stratified Early Roman Empire and Palestinian temple state. Beyond this macro-sociological setting, we will conduct a multidimensional analysis of Zechariah’s social status. Zechariah’s place in the Judean priestly hierarchy is investigated using Lucan narrative presentation and Josephus’ testimonies about social conflicts between various priestly groups within the first century Judea. The narrative clue about “priestly order of Abijah” has been ignored by most scholars but it will be argued that this is an important detail regarding the placement of Zechariah in the social stratification system. Thus, it is posited that Zechariah does not come from an upper stratum priestly class and that placing him in the retainer class is also doubtful. Rather, Zechariah is depicted in Luke’s narrative as a humble, lowly priest with no wealth to speak of, who nevertheless maintained rather high social status due to his priestly pedigree.

One of the most important, intriguing, and difficult features of the palace building account in the Ugaritic Baal myth is the concern over having a window in the palace (KTU 1.4 vi 1-15; vii 14-37), and the relationship this has to Baal’s daughters: Pidray, Daughter of Light, Tallay, Daughter of Showers, and ’Arsay, Daughter of the Wide World (KTU 1.3 i 22-27; iii 6-8; iv 49-51; and esp. the apparent threat to the daughters in KTU 1.4 vi 10-11). The names of these daughters of Baal and the regular sequence of their appearing is reminiscent of the pattern in Psalm 104 and Genesis 1: first, light (Psalm 104:1b-2a; Genesis 1:3-5, day one), second, the sky with its clouds, winds, and lightning (Psalm 104:2b-4; Genesis 1:6-8, day two), third, dry land (’eres//’Arsay; Psalm 104:5-9; Genesis 1:9-10). This correspondence suggests a certain pattern of what the ancients considered to be the primary foundation of the ecological system basic to all other natural functions necessary for human fertility and prosperity, including Baal’s rains. Thus, Baal’s concern about having a window in his palace relates to the maintenance and stability of that basic underlying ecological system. In the end, the inclusion of the window and its opening, although necessary for Baal to function, also opens up threats to Baal and the entire ecological system.

The paper will offer some reflections on the relevance of the Elephantine documents for illuminating the socio-economic standing and legal rights of women in Persian Judah. While the virtual absence of contemporary extra-Biblical sources from Judah justifies the attempts, in recent literature, to use the Elephantine data to fill the gaps, this paper will discuss methodological issues raised by this approach. By focusing on the legal texts, and in particular on the matter of inheritance, the paper will review the nature of the data and the contexts of Persian Egypt and Judah respectively.

Although the last thirty years have seen a significant move away from the classical source-critical model for the composition of the Pentateuch, recent American and Israeli scholarship has seen a renewed interest in the Documentary Hypothesis. This paper will address the problems that developed in the application of the Documentary Hypothesis in the early to mid-twentieth century, as well as the recent trends in non-documentary scholarship. It will then discuss what has come to be termed the Neo-Documentary Hypothesis, the classical theory revised and rehabilitated in current scholarship.

In a discourse notorious for disagreement, the extent to which scholars agree on placing the historical Jesus in and around Capernaum is remarkable: it is his centre (EP Sanders), hub (J Reed), and headquarters (R Horsley), emblematic of his kingdom (JD Crossan) and constitutive of his career (S Freyne). Nonetheless, reconstructions of Jesus routinely privilege other sorts of place (especially social, cultural and religious) at the expense of local geography. In other words, the announcement that Capernaum and environs matters to the quest has yet to be translated methodologically in such a way as to occasion a reading strategy correspondingly sensitive to geographical place. My paper is an attempt to address this lacuna. By analogy with G Theissen’s criterion of historical plausibility and especially in light of the close association of place and memory articulated by such theorists as M Halbwachs and E Casey, I propose something of a geographical criterion- in short, that we make historically significant that memory of Jesus which is fastened resolutely on an experience of local geography of the sort which the quest has found otherwise significant. In the end, I hope to make clear the effect of such a criterion by re-sorting the usual suspects (Q, Thomas, Mark and John) accordingly.

Exegetes and lexicographers are often at a loss with what to do with the particles IDOU and IDE, and the translation of these particles is often stilted or unidiomatic (e.g. behold). In this talk, an integrated analysis of these particles is presented that assumes (at least) five different uses (i.e. ‘grammatical constructions’ in terms of Construction Grammar, a current linguistic theory developed by Fillmore, Kay, Lakoff, Goldberg, Lambrecht). Although each of the five uses are cognitively related to each other, they nevertheless differ significantly in function and syntax such that no one use can be entirely predicted from the others. The differences in the five uses is reflected in their functional differences in information structure and deixis. This analysis serves as a major refinement of the entries of these particles in the standard lexicons (e.g. BDAG).

The biblical notion of corpse-impurity, i.e., the idea that the dead body is highly polluting, presented the rabbis of the Mishnah with the task of defining what a dead body actually is. More specifically, since the paradigmatic rabbinic corpse is “a body in ruins” which is in a constant process of disintegration, decay, and coalescence into its human and non-human environment, in discussing corpse-impurity the rabbis were confronted with the question at what point the corpse can no longer be seen as human, and can be regarded as mere organic matter and thus as devoid of impurity. A careful reading of the second chapter of Mishna Oholot reveals the rabbinic struggle to invest the corpse – and thereby, the materiality of the human body in its most bare manifestation – with humanness and meaning. In this paper, I try to decipher the principles that underlie the mishnaic text and to analyze the intricate negotiations between limits and limitlessness, unity and fragmentariness, separateness and infusion that constitute the rabbinic discourse of corpse-impurity. My argument is that for the rabbis, the way of dealing with the fragmentariness and fluidity of the corpse is by devising a system in which bodily elements are considered ‘impure’ only inasmuch as they can function as signs or symbols of a presumed corporeal humanness. In contrast, body-parts that cannot be ‘translated’ into an abstract image of a human body are considered ritually pure, i.e., they are not seen as ‘a corpse’ any more. The most fundamental principle in this system is the corpse’s ability to signify life. Paradoxically, I argue, for the rabbis the ultimate corpse is the living body.

This paper will consider how ethical character is being formed in the book of Job.

The study of reciprocal constructions received much attention over the last decade, especially in the recent publication of the five volumes of the seminal typological study by Nedjalkov in 2007. Despite this abundance of information, not many studies have focused on the diachronic aspects of this topic. The hesitation to deal with this issue from a historical point of view is explicable in light of two facts: 1) We rarely have a good synchronic description of reciprocal constructions for a given period of a language, making the consequent historical discussion practically impossible (in fact at the moment there are only very few studies dedicated to an examination of this issue in Semitic languages); 2) The study of reciprocal constructions involves the intersection between morphology and syntax, an area rarely touched by classical historical linguistics, and consequently the usual methodological tools are not as useful for this endeavor. In my paper I examine the various constructions evident for the expression of reciprocity in all periods of Hebrew (Biblical, Mishnaic and Modern) and analyze the changes that occur over time. On the one hand, I will demonstrate how a single construction may occur with different elements in different periods (such as changes in the reciprocal pronouns) and yet function in a similar way. And, on the other hand, I will show how similar forms (such as the t-stem) may have different semantics in different periods. I will also describe the developments from one period to another, both at the syntactic and the semantic level, while discussing how such diachronic processes should be portrayed and analyzed, methodologically speaking.

The correct understanding of verbs is indispensable for historians as they rely heavily on written sources. In dealing with texts in ancient West Semitic languages we struggle with the peculiarities of their verbal systems. However, in spite of the imperfections of our linguistic theories and grammars, we assume that we are able to translate verbs correctly and even render their nuances properly. Our feeling of security stems from the fact that the flow of a narrative and the general context of texts usually allow a reasonable interpretation of verbal forms. The goal of this paper is to challenge our self-confidence and remind us that we must always remain open-mined. The discussion will cover three case studies in which the proper understanding of the verb is difficult: the Old Aramaic Tel Dan inscription, Amarna letter no. 161 and the Phoenician Karatepe inscription. It will be argued that common interpretations of these texts are based not only on the grammar but they are also influenced by other factors. Certain interpretations are favored because of their historical implications. In other cases we are faced with objective difficulties because of the poor or fragmentary state of preservation of an inscription and because of the imperfect knowledge of the context which hinder the reconstruction of a coherent narrative. These observations indicate the need for a re-examination of the methodological principles of reconstructing the verbal systems of Ancient West Semitic languages.

Response to papers on 'Philo and the Roman World'

The analysis of Mesopotamian influence on midrash halakhah is warranted by two pieces of evidence: 1) parallels between midrash halakhah and Mesopotamian law which do not appear in the Bible; and 2) the parallel use of particular interpretive methods in both midrash halakhah and Mesopotamian texts.

Matt 22:34-40 reports Matthew's version of Mark 12:28-31 (cf. Luke 10:25-28), in which Jesus cites part of the Shema (traditionally Deut 6:4-9 plus other scripture passages), an ancient prayer central to the Jewish liturgy and to the confession of monotheism. This paper will argue that Matthew's redaction of the Markan pericope, and the way the evangelist "alters" the OT citation itself, misses the christological implications of the Markan Shema.

The exclusivity demand for followers of YHWH and the associated overwhelming punishments for disloyalty emphasize the extreme importance of understanding what is meant by following other gods. Unfortunately, such apostasy is often described within the biblical literature in only the most general terms: having, following, turning to, clinging to, or worshiping these other gods. In this paper, I survey the book of Jeremiah and describe the particular activities that are subsumed under these general headings in order to clarify what exactly the text understands to constitute following other gods.Some of the activities are acceptable when offered to YHWH while others do not display such verbatim parallels. This suggests a distinction between practices that are condemned because of what they are and those rejected only when they are directed toward gods other than YHWH. This textual approach to exploring the differences between YHWH-worship and its alternatives simultaneously relieves somewhat the difficulties of historically reconstructing actual religious practices and illuminates the differences that most exercised the biblical authors. Building such a catalog is, however, only a first step toward understanding the difference between what is approved and condemned within the literary world of Jeremiah.

Building upon his own previously published proposal, Robert Jewett in his recent commentary on Romans (Hermeneia, 2007) has put forward the suggestion that Paul received an early Christian confessional formula which he placed at the head of Romans in the exordium. Jewett has argued that Paul did not passively receive this creed, but actively redacted it by adding clauses to the proto-creed in order to promote reconciliation between "the strong" (predominately Gentile-Christians) and "the weak" (predominately Jewish-Christians). This paper will evaluate the Jewett's proposal and find it wanting. Although Paul does obviously desire reconciliation between these two groups, it is unlikely that he redacted a received confession in order to achieve this aim.

In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, political identity is a dynamic interplay of forces such as kinship, economics, ethnicity, religion and, of course, politics. Imperialization and decolonization are additional forces salient in the process of identity formation that is evidenced in these two biblical books. After recognizing the complexity of identity formation in the political world of Ezra and Nehemiah, this paper focuses on distinct social entities, or groups, that populate this world and provide something of a window on Yehud in the 5th century. Specifically, there is analysis of three accounts of covenant making by groups prominent in Ezra or Nehemiah. An initial conclusion that covenant plays a significant role in forming each group’s political identity leads to further considerations. Incorporated into the study are the phenomena of Jewish nationalism, as it is conceived by David Goodblatt, and proto-sectarianism, as Joseph Blenkinsopp has described it. The paper concludes that covenant making was likely a crucial exercise for political groups in Yehud. For a given group, covenant making can mediate the tension between nationalism and nascent sectarianism and thereby serve as an index of the group’s political identity in the postexilic period.

This paper investigates the place of Enoch and Jubilees first in the Ethiopian canon and then in the literature and life of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Since very few western scholarly sources have explored these issues, the paper works not only with such traditional Ethiopian texts as the Fetha Nagast, Kebra Nagast, Mashafa Berhan, Mashafa Milad, and Mashafa Mestira Samay wemedir, but also includes interviews with Ethiopian scholars, clergy, and average church members.

The present paper will take into consideration the study of language ideologies, a branch of linguistic anthropology, and the impact that it may have on biblical research. Language ideology has been defined as “the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests”: the contemporary work on language ideologies has been profoundly influenced and shaped by neo-Marxist theorists (Gramsci, Althusser, Bourdieu) and by their reflections on cultural hegemony. Correcting an early Marxist tendency to conceptualize cultural phenomena as mere superstructure, neo-Marxism has recognized the key role played by cultural constructs in strengthening domination and in disciplining dissent. Linguistic anthropology has transferred such theoretical insights to the study of speech performances and grammatical structures on the assumption that there one may see the most significant intertwining of cultural and socio-political phenomena. The study of language ideologies offers two obvious advantages to biblical criticism: first, it is perfectly designed for those scholars who have only written sources to deal with, but who nevertheless recognize the role of power relationship in shaping the very texts they use and their audiences, ancient and contemporary. Second, focusing on language ideologies avoids the pitfalls of “agency” and “awareness” (so prominent, for instance, in James Scott’s model of hidden/public transcripts), since linguistic domination can be exercised and it is effective both above and under the threshold of consciousness. After this theoretical section, the paper will end with a case study, the Lord’s Prayer, a text that has been frequently considered a primary example of cultural and social counterculture for its idealized representation of divine kingship over against human sovereignty. However, a close examination of the syntactic structure of the prayer will reveal that it upholds an authoritative ideology originating in the Hellenistic notions of basileia.

While academic feminist biblical scholars and theologians have focused on the role of Mary Magdalene as a disciple and leader in the kingdom of God movement, popular culture and scholarship have been more adventurous. Not only has Mary been identified as the wife of Jesus and mother of a messianic heir, but she is widely regarded by contemporary devotees as either a “temple priestess of the goddess” or even as a goddess herself. This paper will document the development of these radical, popular understandings of Mary, and probe the reasons for their appeal.

Both Israel and the Nations are depicted differently throughout the Book of Micah. Israel is seen both as the object of divine wrath and punishment and as the object of divine love and grace. The Nations are at some instances cast in the role of the executors of divine wrath. In othre texts, however, they are depicted as coming to Jerusalem to seek God and his justice. These anomalies have often been solved by assuming a process of redaction of the text of Micah in various stages. I would like to embark on a different solution: Could it be possible that the Book of Micah is referring to two different stages in times to come?

The Kephalaia of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani is an as yet unpublished anecdotal narrative about the life of the 3rd century founder of Manichaeism, fragmentarily preserved in a 4th century Coptic codex in the collection of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. An international collaborative project of which I am a part is currently editing the text for publication. One of the major themes that serve to structure the work is encounters between Mani and other sage-like figures, through which Mani demonstrates his superiority and establishes his authority. While overawing one’s opponent in real or imagined debate on core ideological differences is a common polemical literary device, the Kephalaia displays little of such oppositional sharpness. The wide-ranging conversations in which Mani engages, typically ending in a meeting of minds, are more akin to the exchanges in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius. Through an examination of comparative examples from both texts, this paper explores their common narrative strategies. Both works assert the superiority of their respective heroes, and in this way establish the authority of these remarkable men. Yet they share a universalizing ideology that gives qualified acknowledgment to prior traditions of authority, rather than demonizing the less remarkable figures with whom they engage as representatives of falsehood. Both heroes are positioned as charismatic reformers in continuity with ancient traditions that have become corrupted in the hands of routinized authority. In their dialogic demonstration of mastery of those traditions, they assume control over them, framing religious innovation in terms of restoration of the tradition’s original form.

A common approach to analyzing Scripture in Paul’s theology is to identify explicit texts and implicit allusions or “echoes” and to consider their impact on Paul theological thinking. The underlying assumption is that Paul's theological Sitz im Leben was primarily if not exclusively that of the Hebrew Scriptures. This assumption results in a leap-frog hermeneutical approach that overlooks the rich tradition of theological traditions and interpretations in which Paul stands and the impact of these “other voices” on Paul’s theology. This paper will focus on the “other voices” and their contribution to some of Paul’s most distinctive theologizing and re-reading of Scripture.

The importance of sites such as Hazor lies in their dense stratigraphy, ranging throughout the Iron Age II. The thick accumulation of Iron Age II remains—a direct consequence of the uninterrupted occupation—points to the intensive settlement at Hazor. This sequence, which is estimated to have lasted approximately 200 years, is of great significance in any consideration of the relative chronology of the first Israelite city at Hazor, particularly with regard to the time of its construction. The archaeological remains suggest that Hazor became a well-planned, fortified settlement in the early stages of the Iron Age II (Strata X-IX). Its fortification system included a six-chambered gate and a casemate wall. In addition, parts of the residential quarters of this fortified city were unearthed. The information that has accumulated in the course of the renewed excavations suggest that the first Israelite city at Hazor belongs to a group of settlements with “peripheral planning”, in which the buildings were arranged in large 'belts' around the perimeter. The outline of the outer fortification wall is not elliptical, as in most Iron Age settlements, but is composed of sections built in straight lines. Such a plan was often preferred in settlements of social, political, or military importance, as it made the settlement more prominent in relation to its environs. This well-planned fortified city served certain administrative purposes and played an important role in the crystallization of urban life in Iron Age Israel. Sometime during the ninth century B.C.E. the casemate-walled town of Strata X-IX was replaced by a new city. Stratum VIII witnessed a completely new architectural complexes built over the remains of the former city. The domestic nature of the Strata X-IX buildings is now replaced by some monumental structures of public characteristics. These large-scale architectural units are centered together and occupy almost the entire excavated area. Once the layout of the new city was established and defined its general plan and principal buildings continued to serve, although with several changes, throughout the ninth and well into the eighth century B.C.E.

A well-rooted misunderstanding of 1 Enoch 77:3 has led scholars to deduce a sevenfold division of the world from this passage. This notion led to a presumed connection with the so-called ‘Babylonian Map of the World’, a connection discarded since then. While word šb‘, ‘seven’ in the Aramaic copy 4Q209 23 9 was considered strong evidence for the sevenfold division, this word appears exactly where the three(!) parts of the Earth are designated. The crux can be solved and the division of the world sorted out by suggesting a new interpretation for the problematic word šb‘. This interpretation requires some text-critical work with regard to the Ethiopic versions of 1 En 77, where many textual variants are to be found. The new interpretation results in a clearer separation of heaven and earth. In chapter 77 heaven is divided into the four winds, which are strictly to be seen as rwhy šmy’ ‘the winds of heaven’. There is no fourfold division of the earth in this passage! In contrast, the earth is divided into three parts according to the dwellings of human beings and other worldly entities. Finally, the cosmological background for the divisions into four (heaven) and three (earth) will be further explored. The fourfold division of heaven concords perfectly with the interests of the Astronomical Book elsewhere as well as with its Mesopotamian forerunners. The tripartite division of the earth, in contrast, is far more difficult to account for.

Situation aspect plays a role in the Biblical Hebrew binyanim, but the extent of its role is not yet clear. In my previous work I have demonstrated that situation aspect, the semantic distinction between states and processes, helps distinguish the function of the Niphal and Hitpael, as well as the Pual (Benton 2008, 2009). We can see evidence of situation aspect in Jenni's study of the Piel and Hiphil (Jenni 1968). He defines the Piel as the stem that causes the state indicated by the root (1968:275). On this point IBHS explains, "[T]his state can be expressed in terms of an adjectival construction" (24.1f). For those roots that are intransitive in the Qal, Jenni refers to them as "factitive" in the Piel, while Qal transitives are "resultative" in the Piel (1968:275). At the same time, the Hiphil, in Jenni's system, expresses causing a process ("Vorgang") or action ("Handlung"), as opposed to a state in the Piel (1968:276; see also IBHS 27.1b). Since Jenni's terminology coincides closely with that of situation aspect, but without formal linguistic analysis, my paper will examine whether the observations Jenni makes about the Piel-Hiphil distinction can be attributed to situation aspect in the modern, linguistic use of that category. One problem with Jenni's work, as stated by Hillers is that, "[T]he grammatical and semantic categories with which he operates are ill-defined, and used in an arbitrary and insonsistent way" (Hillers 1969:212). Situation aspect has been defined by scholars such as Comrie (1976), Smith (1991), and Dobbs-Allsopp (2000). Thus situation aspect offers a more widely accepted category for analysis of the Piel and Hiphil, one that appears well-suited to Jenni's observations.

In the tradition of the longue durée principle, it has become a customary practice to reconstruct the sociopolitical landscape of the Levant during the Late Bronze Age in order to understand better the origins and nature of early Israel. Common to many of these reconstructions is the idea that this landscape was dominated by small city-states in the lowlands of the coast and valleys, and larger territorial kingdoms in the eastern highlands. In both cases, the sociopolitical structure was defined by a particular urban center from which power was administered by a small cadre of political elite over and against the large sedentary population. This backdrop is frequently made a foil for the phenomenon of early Israel. A number of critical dichotomies have come to represent this reconstruction, including sedentary v. non-sedentary; tribe v. state; hierarchical v. egalitarian; and ultimately, “Canaanite” v. “Israelite”. This study will argue that the sociopolitical landscape of the Late Bronze Age Levant as attested in the Amarna letters was quite variable. Rather than being dominated by hierarchically organized, city-centered states, there was a strong collective political heritage throughout the region. In addition, political relationships between urban centered polities and polities that did not identify themselves with a particular urban center are attested. A comparison of this variability with the biblical depictions of early Israel will suggest that though elements of early Israel certainly consisted of geographic, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical outsiders, a strong contingent was continuous with the landscape of the Late Bronze Age, constituting a group of geographic, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical insiders.

One strategy for comparing the Dead Sea Scrolls to the literature of the New Testament has been to look for genetic connections—places where the Scrolls have “influenced” some feature of a New Testament text. But increasingly scholars are recognizing the fruitfulness of making comparisons between the Scrolls and the New Testament that do not depend on genetic connections but rather on broader similarities in patterns of thought. This paper proposes to explore just such a similarity. The so-called community hymns of the Hodayot portray humans in a striking way. Prior to God’s intervention, humans are in a state of sinfulness and ignorance due to the vulgar raw materials from which they are constituted (dust, clay, etc.). Only by receiving a spirit (or spirits) from God are they able to overcome the limits of their natural state in order to achieve knowledge of God and therefore obey and praise God rightly. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, humans are also portrayed as universally sinful and unable to achieve communion with God without God’s initiative and intervention. The paper will examine what theological and rhetorical effect is achieved in these texts by asserting universal human sinfulness and ignorance. How does such an assertion relate to the broadly apocalyptic Jewish context that these texts share? It will be argued that while each text develops and deploys the notion of universal human sinfulness in unique ways, there is nonetheless an underlying sectarian goal in portraying all of humanity as estranged from God. It creates the possibility for an author to articulate his own vision for how humanity overcomes that separation.

As with Muslims, Mormons, or more correctly, Latter-day Saints (as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prefer to be called) recognize that the Tawra and the Injil form only part of God’s written word to mankind. Latter-day Saints accept the idea expressed in Luqman 31:27: “And if all the trees on earth were pens and the Oceans (were ink), with seven Oceans behind it to add to its (supply), yet would not the Words of Allah be exhausted.” With this willingness to receive all God’s word wherever it be found, Latter-day Saints interpret biblical expressions such as Ezekiel’s “stick of Judah” and the “stick of Joseph” (see Ezekiel 37:15-20) as referring respectively to the written record of Judah (the Bible---Tawra and Injil) and the written record of Joseph (The Book of Mormon---a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible, recounting God’s dealings with some of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas). As more Latter-day Saints become familiar with the Qur’an, they are asking themselves the question, “How does the Qur’an harmonize with other revelation?” This paper will discuss one LDS perspective of this question, and propose that like its sibling scriptures, the Qur’an---or “the stick of Ishmael”---is yet another sign of God’s revelation to mankind, witnessing to the truth that God “shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it” (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 29:12).

In this paper I will re-articulate certain recent trends within scholarship on Second Temple Jewish monotheism and early Christology in dialectical terms, wherein structurally the divine is poised in opposition to the human and so-called “mediator figures” are understood to serve as spaces wherein ancient Jewish thought could mediate the tensive relationship between these opposites. I will further argue that what Hurtado calls “the Christian mutation” in Christology was the unprecedented identification of this mediatory space with a specific historical figure of recent memory, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth. Finally, I will argue that this transcoding from the historical critical methods of “New History-of-Religions” school to those of dialectical analysis constitutes a necessary base towards a genuinely historical materialist study of early Christology.

In Matthew 2, after the opening verse Jesus is referred to only as “the child” for the remainder of the chapter. By the end of chapter 2, Matthew has constructed an image of who “the child” is in his Gospel: the child is vulnerable, threatened with death and dependent upon others (especially God.) This image is then illustrated by means of several narratives about children. By the end of the Gospel, Matthew’s adult Jesus takes on the characteristics of the child. Thus, the child and Jesus become intertwined images in Matthew's Gospel. In 18:1-5, Jesus sets a child before his disciples, telling them that they must become like children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Drawing upon the Greek concept of mimesis -- imitating or representing someone or something in action, speech, art or literature -- I will demonstrate that for the disciples to become like a child is at the same time to become like Jesus.

Ever since modern critical Exegesis has detected the importance of text-critical and text-historical studies, the Book of Jeremiah counts as a test case for the relevance and efficiency of these methods. Especially the Jer-LXX and some biblical evidence of Jer from Qumran lead to a discussion about the earliest textual form of the Book of Jeremiah – in German speaking scholarship, Georg Fischer and Hermann-Josef Stipp among others are involved in this discussion. Within this debate, Jer 52 (MT) is of special interest. As opposed to recent developments, especially in German scholarly discussion, this paper understands all different "variants" of Jer 52, and also of 2 Kings 24 – 25, as different autonomous texts that represent various historiographical and theological interpretations of "Exile."

In discussing the fulfillment of the Law of Moses by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ as found in 3 Nephi 9, Hugh Nibley alludes to the Mosaic law of sacrifice being fulfilled, but not the eternal law of sacrifice. Nibley quotes Christ as saying he no longer desires sacrifices or burnt offerings, but wants instead a sacrifice of “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (3 Ne 9:20). He goes on to identify this “new” sacrifice Christ desires as being a verbatim quote from Psalm 51:17 (which is a plea for expiation) and thus exemplifying a non-blood requirement associated with every sacrifice. Leviticus 17:11 is often taken as the scripture explaining how the expiatory sacrifices worked and the role of blood in the effectuating of them. The result is a mistaken belief that it was solely the blood of the sacrifice that effected atonement on behalf of the offerer. This paper will examine the Mosaic law of sacrifice and elucidate factors outside of blood that were requisite for expiation to take place. For example, Leviticus 5:5 necessitates a confession prior to expiation; without that confession, the ritual would not have been complete, therefore no expiation could have been effected. In addition, Leviticus 5:11-13 permits flour to be offered as a sacrifice of expiation. That blood is not the pivotal requirement in either of these examples suggests that something else fulfills that essential role. Through analysis of the Hebrew Bible and Book of Mormon, this paper will demonstrate that it was the material offering of the Mosaic law of sacrifice which was fulfilled by Christ, whereas the intimate offering brought by each offerer was never rescinded.

Despite the early recognition by Eusebius that Irenaeus quoted Hebrews in works which are now lost, scholars have been less willing to see the Letter making its mark in Adversus haereses. Although there are exceptions, some, for example, acknowledge the presence of Hebrews 1:3 in book 2, views to the contrary are stated plainly. It is difficult to find contemporary confidence in Irenaeus’s use of Hebrews in his extant writings and most deny it a place in his “canon.” Even if recognized, the place of the Epistle in Irenaeus’s constructive theology is minimized. In this paper, an analysis of Irenaeus’s knowledge and use of Hebrews, I hope to begin a challenge to such opinions. I don’t intend here to insist that Irenaeus revered Hebrews as a sacred text, the same way in which he sees the Spirit speaking through the prophets, the evangelists, and Paul. But I do wish to demonstrate that his thought is dependent in important degrees upon its language and teaching. Hebrews 1:3, 8, 9, 2:10, 3:4, 5, 5:9, 14, and 8:5 contribute in important ways to his view of creation as the act of the Father with his Son and Spirit; the uniqueness of the Father and Son; his notion of martyrdom; the contrast between the true God and the idols; Mary’s recapitulation of Eve; anthropological immaturity and need for progressive growth to maturity; and a hermeneutical framework for his understanding of the relationship between the two economies, between prophecy and fulfillment, between the Law and grace, the earthly and the heavenly. I will conclude, that although perhaps in a different manner than Eusebius knew it, Adversus haereses also provides evidence of the important place of Hebrews in the work and possibly the canon of the bishop of Lyons.

This paper considers the multi-positionality of lament discourse via a reading of Psalm 137, "By the Rivers of Babylon." The psalm's play with ideas of place and space suggests a useful heuristic for thinking about the ways that lamentation intersects with different, often conflicting, interests, particularly those of insiders (exiled) and outsiders (enemies). Discussion will be framed against Caribbean hermeneutics and the experiences of present-day insiders and outsiders, that is, exiles and immigrants. The psalm serves here both to explore the contours of the Caribbean immigrant experience and some of the benefits and failings of Caribbean hermeneutics.

In preparation for the writing of her controversial 1998 play, The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler invited more than 200 women to answer the question, "If your vagina could talk, what would it say?" The result is a collection of about a dozen monologues that have now been translated into 45 languages and performed in more than 100 countries around the world. It is also performed on numerous college and seminary campuses across the country, sometimes every year. This paper begins biblical exegesis of the Hagar-Sarah narrative with Eve Ensler's provocative question. Such an interpretation necessarily involves not only the imagined responses of these two women, but also the centuries of women and men who have sought to understand the painful interactions and hopeful consequences of their story.

By now several crucial nineteenth century associations about biblical scholars and biblical scholarship tend to go unremarked, naturalized, and undertheorized. Here I will provide a genealogy of the way this field and its laborers came to be called ‘critical’ and, as a further determination, ‘historical-critical’, these terms standing in for something about the ‘modern’ which could be relinquished only at the peril of academic biblical scholarship. As an act of clarification and (re)politicization of these designations, this paper will trace the academic and political history of these terms. I am particularly interested in the way 19th century biblical scholarship appropriated these names from other cultural fields, often working them over to produce shrewd politicizations of their own work, investing biblical scholarship with that elusive object of desire: relevance. As part of the astonishing de-politicization of this academic field over time, biblical scholars began increasingly to praise the idea of subtracting themselves, their interests, or their ‘own time’ from their representations of ancient religion and society. This triumph of positivism resulted in a now standardized procedure of looking ‘back’ to 19th century scholarship, pointing out its interpretive investments, and then declaring that some new interpretation overcomes or finally forgets the modern investments of the interpreter. As a model of disciplinary self-description, the history of the term ‘critical’, however, invites other thoughts: it is not that the nineteenth century ‘invested too much’ or that, by the same token, contemporary interpreters should finally overcome their own desiring gazes (whether we name this affective comportment as “prejudice” or “theology”). Instead, I want to argue: in relation to the ‘critical’, we should learn a 19th century trick we have since forgotten: how to politicize biblical scholarship.

Many pragmatic particles are used only or differently when used orally. For instance, if someone tells a story in Sissala (a Niger Congo, Gur, Language) he might use 'ha' from time to time to hold the addressee's attention. In translation they would be only used in audio or audio visual scripture, but they would have to appear. Other particles are used in writing, as for intance the intensifier 'de'. However, tests have shown that they are used much more often orally when there is an audience. Again audio scripture would divert form written scipture. Again other particles are usually used in colloquial speech which is normally not written, while there are alternatives particles for the written version. My claim will be that translators have to be very much aware of the oral use of particles in translation and choose what is appropriate for audio translation and written translation.

As previously shown, biblical anthropology defines human being as thaumastos, body and soul. However, throughout sacred history, the families of God have had only one other thing in common: conflict. Conflict is inherent in the sacred history, as God repeatedly chooses the younger child over the older, and invites the Gentiles into the People of God. The result is a continual re-forming of the sacred line, but what of the people who are injured, psychologically and socially, in the process? Does it negate, after all, the basic thaumaturgical makeup of the human soul? We propose that thaumaturgical humanity is also a social healer in God's image, specifically, a mediator. Mediation is an urgent social topic today, with our overloaded courts. Finding a model that addresses essential humanity will be of great consequence. Given that much of our legal system derives from biblical law – particularly regarding family relationships – it is appropriate to look to the Bible for such a model. The Bible does in fact offer such a model, one that is not so much Jewish or Christian as consonant with human nature. Yet legal scholars, while looking for a spirituality to support their work, are largely unaware of the connection. Mediation remains unaddressed as Bible scholarship, as well. A careful but nontraditional analysis shows that the role of mediator is a thoroughgoing aspect of biblical anthropology. This conclusion is paradoxically present in a prevalent misunderstanding of God's own nature: the most complete and accurate translation of "Paraclete" is neither "comforter," nor "judge" (as in the OT), but, in fact, "Mediator." Mediation is not a concession, but a design and gift, as God exercises this role, with a specific twist: God mediates teleologically, not solely to end dispute, but to approach ever closer the ultimate design of humanity, including its social self-healing capacity. A corollary is that the human mediator is never alone in the task. It is an essential aspect of humanity's relationship with God.

With the discovery of Manichaean texts from places like Kellis, Oxyrhynchus, Lycopolis, and Medinet Madi there has been a growing interest in Manichaeism in Egypt in late antiquity. In light of such finds a few recent studies have made attempts to reclassify certain documents as “Manichaean,” which were formerly thought to be “Christian,” since both groups share a number of similarities and tended to identify themselves using similar terminology and vocabulary. This paper will therefore seek to consider the issues that are of central importance in the classification of both Manichaean and Christian texts in the documentary papyri. More specifically, this paper will consider such issues by reference to two fourth-century letters from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. XXXI 2603 and P.Oxy. LXXIII 4965) where a Manichaean context has recently been proposed.

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In ancient Near Eastern literature one finds a number of texts describing ritual defecation. References to acts of defecation are examined in various texts in chronological order: in two Mari OB texts, in a Hittite text, in a NB Akkadian text dealing with ritual practices related to the Ištar festival, in Hebrew biblical texts, in an Aramaic incantation, in a Greek text from a temple in Athens which throws light on the presence of excrement in temple precincts, and finally in the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud mentioning pagan acts of worship implying ritual defecation. Scholars are divided about the way these texts should be understood. Should they be taken simply as metaphors, symbolic gestures or as actual rituals? This article first analyzes the texts where defecation is mentioned and then attempts to suggest which texts should be taken either as metaphors or symbolic gestures and which might refer to definite ritual acts. One has first to determine the meaning of the act of ritual defecation and then trace the transformation of its original meaning and its reutilization as a metaphor in subsequent ancient Near Eastern literature.

By any measure there are some bizarre stories in the Deuteronomistic History, episodes that feature strange characters and unusual plot twists. For instance, in a JSOT article of a decade ago, Thomas Römer has drawn attention to the chilling story of Jephthah’s daughter and postulates a number of possible reasons as to why this story is included and how it was shaped over time. Taking my cue from that intriguing article, I turn to the equally odd account of 1 Kings 13, a chapter that features a torn altar, a withered hand, two unnamed prophets, a bewildered donkey, and a dangerous lion that manifests startling self-control. After the dramatic confrontation with Jeroboam, the story of the man of God from Judah and the old prophet of Bethel in the second half of 1 Kings 13 seems oddly placed at first glance, as it apparently interrupts the Jeroboam narrative. In light of recent debate over the composition of the Deuteronomistic History (and here I am also using Römer’s 2005 book on the subject), it seems that the time is right to investigate this account afresh: what are some possible reasons why this story is included in the received tradition? This presentation has two parts. First, I will survey some recent scholarship on this episode, and include a number of studies that deploy several different methodological perspectives. Second, as the paper draws to a conclusion, I will argue that 1 Kings 13 makes an interesting contribution to the debate over the composition and provenance of the Deuteronomistic History, and I will consider the role of this account both in the Jeroboam narrative (where it is embedded) as well as the larger contours of Joshua-Kings.

Economic Theory

2 Maccabees presents biblical scholars with a conundrum. It is a very late text that makes no claims to authority, and was eventually kept out of the Hebrew canon. Further, in an appended epistle, it specifically states that it is an epitome (redaction?) of a longer work by Jason of Cyrene. However, despite this less-than-glorious textual history, a significant portion of the diaspora community seems to have accepted this text as authoritative. This paper investigates particularly the evidence of the appended epistle and searches for suggestions of how the sender intended the text to be read and received. Using rhetorical and historical-critical models, we hope to show that unaffected by the recommendations of the epistle's author, the 2 Maccabees gained status that was never imagined for it. This raises questions not only concerning the function of Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in antiquity, but also about all books eventually accepted into canons.

In the Fourth Gospel God is referred to as “He who sent me,” etc. Jesus is seen as being this emissary, but also John the Baptist refers to “the one who sent me.” Another phrase includes those who receive the emissary: “he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him,” etc. There may be a chain of agency: “he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.” Similar and corresponding phraseology and ideas are to some extent found in the Old Testament (LXX), Philo, Josephus, Rabbinic writings as well as in the Synoptic Gospels. In the Fourth Gospel the authorization may refer to Jesus as Son, Prophet (like Moses), Messiah, the Son of Man, Logos, etc. The perspective ranges from the divine level when Jesus says “I and he who sent me” to the situation when the people were about to force Jesus to make him king, and he withdrew from them. How can this judicial agency motif in the Fourth Gospel cast light upon the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, as he may have been seen by various people, and even as Jesus may have seen himself?

In this lecture, I focus this question on the songs of the servant of the LORD in Second Isaiah (Isa. 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12). The question is: How do we preach on these four poems in a Christian context? First, I set the general stage of the hermeneutical issues involved in the practice of preaching the Old Testament in a Christian context (§ 2-3). Second, I take a look at the way apostles and evangelists apply the four songs of the servant of the LORD in the New Testament. Even though we cannot copy the practice of their hermeneutical and homiletical methods, I still think that their theological attitude and hermeneutical strategies can inspire present day preaching. I will therefore take a closer look at how apostles and evangelists apply these four songs (§ 4-6). And thirdly, I will give some hermeneutical elaborations and some suggestions of how this can work out in the practice of preaching (§ 7-8).

In 1992 Bezalel Porten noted thirty-five legal expressions in the Aramaic documents from Elephantine, to which I was able to add a few more, which have Demotic equivalents. He offered four possible explanations for these equivalents: 1) the Aramaic borrowed from the Demotic, 2) the Demotic borrowed from the Aramaic; 3) both borrowed from a third source; or 4) each evolved independently, if coincidentally. In this paper I offer a wider comparative approach to the complex history of legal terms, legal formulae, and legal clauses that lie behind those Demotic-Aramaic equivalents. Focusing on methodological criteria developed during my own research on Aramaic-Demotic legal interactions, and data from Mesopotamian, West Semitic, and Egyptian legal traditions a very complex picture emerges that precludes uni-directional or simplistic understandings of the dissemination of legal terminology in the ancient Near East.

The experience of trauma raises the theological question: Where is God in this? The book of Ezekiel is an effort to answer this theological question in regard to Jerusalem’s destruction and exile. However, sometimes the answer may do further harm. This paper explores some of the ethical and theological difficulties of Ezekiel's answer in light of current theories of trauma and PTSD. Among these are blaming the victim and God as abuser and war criminal.

In this paper I will give a brief (and perforce incomplete) survey of the online biblical studies community including resources for biblical studies, but primarily focused upon the community itself. We will look at the "biblioblogs" and chat rooms, online journals and iTunesU. Finally, we will discuss how online productivity may and may not be considered for promotion and tenure.

An examination of methodological introductions to recent text-critical projects reveals that the stemmatic concept of the Urtext still frames scholarly work. In these examples, text critics tend to classify variant readings according to an ethico-ontological hierarchy even in light of the textual pluriformity attested in the Dead Sea scrolls. Since it is clear that biblical texts are the layered products of many centuries of tradition and the result of many creative hands, biblical scholars must jettison their theoretical preference for locating a "pristine" Urtext at one specific point along the complex genealogy of production. Scholars who admit the shortcomings of the Urtext theory, however, continue to find it difficult to conceive of the text as something other than a singular ideal "work." On the other hand, too much reliance on the materialist shift to codicology and bibliography can unwittingly isolate specific manuscripts from their larger traditions of textual production and reproduction. In sum: manuscripts of a given biblical text may exhibit clear differences originating from an early, pre-"final" stage, but these differences between manuscripts do not necessarily sever the relationships between them. How can biblical scholars conceive of the ontology of biblical texts in a way that admits both differences and shared identity without privileging one supposedly "pristine" version? Cerquiglini's work provides a helpful concept for this very problem: variance. Cerquiglini asserts that variance is a part of the identity of any traditional text; rather than positing one particular (or ideal) form as the "correct" text, scholars should note the elements of the text that change over time, and take these changes into account when formulating its identity. Thus, text critics can study the genealogical relationships between manuscripts without creating a reductive axiology.

Despite various scholarly attempts to define midrash, there seems to be no consensus about precisely what should and what should not correctly be included in the category midrash. In order to address this issue, this presentation begins with a brief discussion of the etymology and evolution of the term midrash, followed by a short survey of what some scholars regard as inner-biblical midrash and midrash in writings of the Second Temple period. In order to clarify what the rabbinic sages period regarded as midrash, various attempts to limit interpretive creativity in the Talmudic period are analyzed. The classical rabbinic view of what constitutes midrash is compared and contrasted to later medieval views. The presentation concludes with a brief discussion of the linguistic status of the loanword midrash beyond Hebrew.

In the ancient world, documents were characteristically enacted orally by trained lectors. As with those engaged in oratory, lectors relied upon a variety of conventional gestures to ensure a rhetorically effective delivery. The employment of non-verbal signals by the lector during a performance communicated a visual “text” coterminous with the recited text. This visual text (1) served to evoke particular emotional responses from the audience; (2) underscored and clarified the spoken text, functioning as a quasi-independent interpretive commentary; and (3) in some cases completed the sense of the inscribed text when a lacuna was apparent. Drawing on the works of Roman rhetoricians as well as modern research on gesturing, this presentation will examine a critical aspect of ancient reading which is often overlooked in our silent reading culture: the visual dimension of lectorial performance. It will feature brief prerecorded videos of reenacted performance scenarios of selected, representative passages that present interpretive challenges. By applying the emerging methodology of gesture mapping to specific texts, including Mark’s ending, the account of the Jewish exorcists in Ephesus (Acts 19:13–17), Paul’s apostolic defense (Galatians 1), the disputed seam occurring at 2 Corinthians 10, and John’s response to the exalted Christ vision (Revelation 1:17), we will not only attempt to reconstruct plausible first-century performance scenarios but consider how “restored” visual discourses dynamically interface with corresponding recited texts. For each New Testament passage treated we will offer at least one alternative gesture map in an effort to show how the perceived meaning of the written text may be dramatically altered when accompanied by a different set of non-verbal signals. This exploratory study, which highlights the power and significance of non-verbal language vis-à-vis written texts, is intended to contribute to and further encourage the investigation of lectorial reading in antiquity.

Wisdom literature develops a range of portraits of the wise or virtuous character. One way of assessing such wisdom is to look at the portrait thereby constructed. But another is to ask after what is being supposed with regard to the reader who is to be able to read their way towards such a portrait. This approach to virtuous character in the Old Testament is particularly suited to the case of OT narratives - and is the subject of my own book The Virtuous Reader: Interpretive Virtue and Old Testament Narrative (Baker 2010), as well as being found in the work of such scholars as John Barton and Gordon Wenham. In this paper I propose that such an approach might shed light on one of the striking features of OT wisdom literature, viz its narrative setting, or the way in which the vast majority of OT wisdom literature is presented in narrative terms. Rather than ask 'how should one read it?', a virtue-ethic approach asks 'Who must one be in order to see what it wants to say?'. The narratives of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes offer three different portraits of such an implied reader: they range over such virtues as the willingness to entertain a variety of questions and perspectives; the desire to grow toward maturity; and the ability to laugh at the difficulty of holding it all together in one coherent vision. These virtues are not the subject matter of these wisdom texts - rather they are implicit in the manner of presentation of the texts. As such they are 'implied virtues', and perhaps allow us to get closer to the estimation of what the books commend in practice, rather than what they wish to be seen to commend.

For several decades the sense of Mark’s text has been moving from clumsy or unliterary (unliterarisch) to literary. This paper presents reasons indicating that a corresponding shift is imminent regarding Mark’s origin: it is largely literary—based on verifiable writings. These reasons come from the recent emergence of greater clarity on several factors: (1) orality, meaning oral rhythm—essentially a feature of all ancient writing, not an indicator of dependence on oral tradition; (2) ancient writers’ methods of composition; (3) Old Testament writers’ methods of composition; (4) New Testament use of the Old Testament; (5) the diversity of methods used in rewriting or transforming texts—unlike most gospel synopses; (6) criteria for judging literary dependence; (7) specific instances of Markan dependence on verifiable writings.

This paper will begin with the three categories of reading, searching and blessing (qr', drsh, brk) as listed in 1QS to suggest that each term reflects an etic approach to authoritative texts that assists in the modern understanding of what the yahad members thought of genre. It will be argued that 'reading' was appropriation rather than verbal repetition, 'searching' was a reflection of hellenistic analogical thinking for ethical purposes, and 'blessing' was a particular performative speech-act in which pastiche permitted a corresponding functional identity formation. In paying primary attention to function, rather than form or content, this paper will open up some alternative possibilities for genre construal for the compositions from the Qumran caves.

From the classical era to the present, rhetoric and philosophy have been in conflict. Their opposition has typically been expressed in terms of “words” (form) versus “things” (content), respectively. Since, in antiquity, both of these “arts” laid claim to wisdom (s?f?a), commentators have often understood Paul’s discourse on “wisdom” in 1 Corinthians 1-4 in the context of the Greco-Roman philosophical and rhetorical traditions. The question has been, does the divisive “wisdom” of the Corinthians pertain to form, content, or both? Recently, several important studies have argued that Paul opposed, not philosophy (“content”), or philosophy and rhetoric more generally, but simply Greco-Roman rhetoric (“form”). Challenging some of the assumptions of these studies, the present paper looks anew at the primary sources, seeking to provide a more nuanced “philosophical-rhetorical” framework for interpreting these chapters. From a fresh look at the primary sources, a certain tension arises. It is shown that, on the one hand, rhetoricians and philosophers tended to disassociate from each other, but that, on the other hand, the separation was far from absolute. The basic thesis of the paper, as regards 1 Corinthians 1-4, is that the tendency of certain studies to polarize rhetoric and philosophy, and an inclination towards the rhetorical side, has resulted in a questionable preference for a rhetorical explanation even in places where the evidence may strongly suggest otherwise. The conclusion regarding the relation of rhetoric and philosophy is two-pronged: (1) one must respect the first-century categories (i.e., “rhetoric/rhetorician/sophist” versus “philosophy/philosopher”); and (2) the categories, in turn, must be qualified by the evidence. That is, the categories should be employed, but with the realization that they are artificial, theoretical constructs reinforced in a polemical situation by the most stalwart proponents of each. It cannot be assumed that “eloquent words of wisdom” (2:4) didn’t involve the philosopher.

The minor midrashim abound with anti-Christian polemics. While the dating of most of these texts is precarious and difficult, there is widespread agreement that these texts may very well carry threads of traditions which go back to the 1st century and earlier. This paper will address examples of early Jewish-Christian relations within the minor midrashim, and particular focus will be brought upon an unusual text entitled Aggadat deShimon Keyfa. This minor midrash presents some unexpected details concerning Jewish-Christian relationships which seem to be set in a context of the first century. This text is one of many minor midrashim included in Micha Joseph bin Gorion’s landmark work, Mimekor Yisrael. Bin Gorion culled together many minor midrashim from popular literature that had circulated in Jewish communities for over a thousand years, and the Aggadat deShimon Keyfa is included in a section of stories which focuses upon persecution in the land of Israel during the Roman period.

Theologically, Jude belongs to what I have elsewhere called Alpha Christianity: it relies on repentance and good works for salvation, and knows nothing of the Atonement or Resurrection doctrines. Its authorities are orthodox Jewish tradition plus more recent Jewish texts such as Enoch and the Testament of Moses. This doctrinal stance links it with the Epistle of James, which has the same view of salvation, and which only cites Jewish tradition. Jude indeed links itself explicitly to James in its introduction. Its view of salvation is also compatible with that of the Two Ways document which now forms part of the Didache. Chronologically, Jude refers to James in its author statement, and thus comes after James. The same kind of explicit reference links 2 Peter vertically to the earlier 1 Peter. Besides these two vertical relationships, there are clear lateral relationships. Jude has been absorbed, and in the process somewhat rewritten, in 2 Peter. Another lateral relationship, pointed out by Harnack, is that the evil doctrine denounced in Jude is denounced in similar terms by the author of Revelation. Jude is thus probably contemporary with Revelation, and its area of geographical concern is the same as that of Revelation. Like the Two Ways, which was absorbed (in rearranged form) into the Resurrection-based Epistle of Barnabas, Jude was incorporated (in revised form) into the Resurrection-based 2 Peter. In both cases, the useful teaching of the original was brought into the context of emerging orthodoxy. In the case of Jude, references to extracanonical works were largely reduced, in 2 Peter, to canonical Old Testament allusions. Separately, the Two Ways tract was extended by baptismal and other catechetical material to make the present Didache. The history of both texts thus ends with one or more absorption phases. This seems to be part of the process by which the eclectic orthodoxy of later ages was achieved, and salvageable parts of heterodox teaching were brought under the orthodox umbrella.

Among the many malevolent activities charged to the figure of the devil (or Satan) in ancient Judaism was the giving of diseases, illnesses, and other sicknesses to people. At times this is accomplished using demons as agents and at other points no agency involved. This paper will consider this motif in ancient Judaism and, to a lesser degree, in early Christianity. In particular we will be concerned with the following questions: why was the devil associated with the giving of sicknesses and diseases in Judaism? What sort of diseases were given by the devil and to whom did he give them? And what are theological implications for the belief that the devil causes illnesses (e.g., theodicy)?

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This paper, as per assignment, will offer a theological exposition of the narrative of Jerusalem’s “final days.” Attention will be given to the felt inadequacy of the dominant explanatory strategy of “Deeds-Consequences” (Disobedience-Curse). The result of such an analysis is the notice of the shrewd and sustained way in which theological claim and Realpolitik are inextricably interwoven. The “displacement,” per the narrative, requires both theological claim and Realpolitik, and cannot do without either.

The refrain, ‘to pluck up, to plant’ runs through Jeremiah like a double helix of textual DNA encoding the book’s proclamation of exile and return. But while the book may attest to the reality of exile in the present, it can only proclaim return as a reality yet to come. The fulfillment of hope lies beyond the book’s conclusion; the conclusion itself (Jer 52), detailing the destruction of Jerusalem and the patronage of King Jehoiachin in Babylon, however, lies beyond the book proper since it is composed of material from 2 Kings 24-25. Thus Jeremiah is both structurally and textually open-ended: exile is never really brought to a close since the words of planting must give way—for the time being, at least—to replanting elsewhere; the book itself, although held together by the headings words of Jeremiah, and word of Yhwh, contains texts from non-Jeremianic sources. In effect, Jeremiah’s centripetally oriented vision of hope—centered on Jerusalem and in the prophetically mediated word—is challenged by the centrifugal forces of an apparently ongoing dispersal. This paper will consider the deconstructive effects that depictions of life in exile have on the proclamations of a Jerusalem-based restoration. In doing so, it will engage with writers who have studied the relationship between periphery and center (often in terms of the West and the Rest) such as Frederic Jameson, Homi K. Bhabha, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

All too often, Pauline and Synoptic scholars seem to live in different worlds, all the while forgetting that their subjects of study did not. Moreover, because of the lack of verbal agreements between Paul and the Synoptics, many dismiss a direct relationship between the two. However, many students of Paul, myself included, comb his letters looking for allusions to the OT based not only on shared language, but also on shared themes and the availability of texts, among other criteria. Since it is unlikely that Paul knew the Synoptics in their final form, a fundamental difference lies between identifying allusions to the OT and identifying allusions to the Jesus tradition in the Pauline epistles. However, nearly all Gospel scholars would argue for the active transmission of the Jesus tradition during the lifetime of Paul. Some scholars, such as Michael Thompson, have suggested methods for finding this tradition in Paul (Clothed with Christ: The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12:1-15:3 [JSNTSup 59; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991]). However, Thompson and others have not fully reckoned with the possible influence of eyewitnesses to Jesus' career. Whether or not one accepts all of the arguments recently offered by Richard Bauckham, it is likely that eyewitnesses to the historical Jesus were members of the Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean during Paul’s life. Moreover, it is also likely that Paul would’ve heard and interacted with such eyewitnesses. Therefore, in this paper, using a modified version Richard Hays’ method introduced in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, combined with Bauckham’s recent work on eyewitness testimony, I will introduce a new method for finding possible allusions to the Jesus tradition in the Pauline epistles. I will test this method by examining the possible relationship between Philippians and Matt 5, based on the shared themes of joy, suffering, and Christian maturity. Using the criteria of recurrence, thematic coherence, and historical plausibility from Hays, along with the added criterion of eyewitness availability, I will argue that it is possible that the Sermon on the Mount lies in the near background of Philippians.

Some years ago National Gallery in London curated an exhibition called the ”Stuff of Life”. Instead of focusing on the person’s history or the painter’s style and technique, attention was paid to the objects that surrounded the person in the composition. The “Stuff of Life” referred to the narratives that the various objects represented and by which the person wanted to be recognized. In fact, the person could be absent and his-or-her narrative still present. One painting from 1520 illustrated an introverted woman absorbed in a book with an alabaster jar adjacent to her. The painting is just one in a series of paintings from a workshop in Bourges in which the women had themselves represented by Mary Magdalene’s symbol. Decently dressed, they differ from Tizian’s contemporary painting of Mary Magdalene with her hair let down, exposed breast and heavenly upturned eyes. The two traditions refer to an exegetical conflict about whether Mary Magdalene should be identified with the repenting woman of Luke 7 as claimed by Gregory the Great in his dogmatic narrative of "Unica Magdalena" or with Martha’s contemplative sister. During the 16. century, Mary Magdalene’s figure became the battlefield on which the Church Schism was played out: was Mary Magdalene to represent the Reformation’s ‘Sola Scriptura’ or the pope’s Sacrament of Penitence? Whereas the Counter-Reformation’s Mary represented bodily desire, the Mary of the Reformation became a liberating figure that legitimized women’s intellectual capacities. Although rejected by modern feminist scholarship as historically incorrect and a literary misreading, Gregory’s "Unica Magdalena" represents an empowering figure to other women. This is the case of the Alabaster Girls, a church based reach-out project working among the sex-workers in Las Vegas. The paper argues that in order to understand the ‘truth’ about Mary Magdalene, an intersectional approach to feminist scholarship is needed.

What does a tour of hell from Elijah, copious references to the book of Revelation, and an imminent appearance of the Antichrist have to do with a group of ascetics? Quite a bit, if you read the (Pseudo) Epistle of Titus, a late antique Christian Latin text written to encourage its audience to maintain their solitary ascetic practice. In this paper, I propose that this apocalyptic material, combined with language opposing the cohabitation between ascetic men and women, functions to identify holy and unholy relationships and works to establish the proper social boundaries between the male audience members and women. In the Epistle, all scripture, including material now considered “apocryphal” or “non-canonical,” is written for the ascetic audience who “have ears to hear.” Therefore, the Epistle text should be read as a commentary on how scripture is the instruction and guide for right-living. The Epistle text reveals an additional rhetorical move—through their practice, the ascetics themselves are the sign and the interpretation of the true meaning of the scriptures. By maintaining proper boundaries, the ascetics live a life of purity, which is the correct interpretation of the scriptures. Integrally entwined with the scriptures, they are living symbols of God’s presence and holiness, like the Sabbath and holy tabernacles, required to remain pure, free from Satan and desire. Apocalyptic texts function to reinforce that symbiotic relationship between the ascetic and the scripture by presenting a vivid juxtaposition between two options: the carnal unions with each other or a spiritual union with God. This is the contrast between life in heaven and life in hell, which the Epistle author so vividly outlines in promises of an angelic life in heaven based on John’s Revelation and references to Elijah’s punishments in the underworld. .

At first sight, this line in the Byzantine funeral service invites a connection with Genesis 1:26. However, even though the allusion to the story of creation, Eden, and the Fall is undeniable (and underscored by various other hymns in the same service), this hymn does not speak of the human being as kat’eikôna, but straightforwardly as the eikôn of God's glory. The first step in interpreting this line should therefore be the consideration of another set of biblical references, dealing not with "image" but with "glory." The second step is, necessarily, to make sense of the resulting interpretation within the context of the service's numerous references to creation kat’ eikôna, and within the larger theological context of Byzantine Christomorphic anthropology.

The devastation wrought across the ancient Near East by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires during the Iron Age has received considerable schrift in Near Eastern studies. Yet, no systematic effort has been made to assess the archaeological and historical data for what must have been a tidal wave of refugees that fled opposite these approaching threats, as is amply documented for modern conflicts. Attention has been focused instead on the victims rather than the survivors of imperial aggression, a fact largely due to the historical sources preserved and the ensuing archaeological inquiry based on these narratives. From the ninth century BC it is, however, possible to identify examples of likely refugee communities in the archaeological record and to correlate them with specific historical campaigns by the Assyrians and Babylonians as they sought to expand their territories in the Levant. Archaeological data from sites in Judah, Philistia, and Egypt, for example, taken in combination with historical-geographical evidence and textual sources serve as case studies permitting the creation of a set of criteria for the identification of refugees in the archaeological record that can be applied to different periods and regions.

A structure in the west residential area of Priene, Turkey, was identified initially as a church by Wiegand and Schrader in their initial excavation report of 1904. A menorah plaque found at the site led Sukenik subsequently to identify the structure as a synagogue. No further excavation of the synagogue occurred in the century following. The first half of this presentation will summarize briefly the two seasons of excavation work done at the synagogue in 2009–10 by the University of Frankfurt am Main. Initial investigation has shown that the Hellenistic prostas House 24 was radically transformed in the late Roman period with part of it comprising the courtyard of the synagogue building. Two phases of the synagogue have been clearly distinguished: 1) a large east/west-oriented basilica probably without a narthex, and 2) a slightly smaller hall with a narthex to the west and a walled bench along the north wall. The second half of the presentation will reassess the Priene synagogue in light of the fresh archaeological data. There will also be a discussion of published works on the Priene synagogue and what reconsiderations must be made to scholarly understanding of its form and function in light of the new discoveries.

No abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline a new approach toward assessing the documentary qualities of the earliest surviving Jewish witnesses to Christianity. Since the early nineteenth century, scholars have generally treated the classical rabbinic reference to Christianity as witnesses to the same basic narrative of Christian origins thought to be attested in the early Christian literary tradition. The tendency of Jewish and Christian scholars to weave the rabbinic evidence into the dominant critical discourse on the Jewish-Christian schism culminated in the so-called “parting of the ways” model introduced by Parkes in his 1934 monograph The Conflict of the Church and Synagogue. Although still the dominant historical model, recent challenges to some of the analytical presuppositions supporting Parkes’ theory have cast doubt over its continued viability. Of particular interest to the present study, several scholars (e.g., Kalmin, Boyarin, Schremer) have persuasively demonstrated the anachronism of imposing Parkes’ model upon rabbinic texts evincing no clear distinction between the ideas of Jewish and Christian identity. Consequently, the critical value of these texts as witnesses to the schism between Judaism and Christianity is no longer self-evident. It is with this observation in mind that I would like to revisit the question of how the authors of the early rabbinic tradition perceived the developments that would ultimately contribute to the schism. Where most surviving Christian media of the period construe the emerging divide between Jew and Christian as a confrontation between competing theologies, the early rabbinic sages, I argue, knew or cared about Christian belief only insofar as it affected the ability of its adherents to identify as Jews. As such, the earliest surviving Jewish witnesses to Christianity can be said to speak to different concerns than those underlying the conventional narrative of Christian origins without surrendering their intrinsic documentary qualities by comparison. While not a functional alternative to the Parkes’ model, I believe that the proposed historiographical approach offers a means of recovering the classical Jewish epistemology of Christianity and therefore represents a vital contribution to current discussion of the Jewish-Christian schism.

After a preliminary explanation of terms employed, this paper evaluates four interpretations of Romans 8:18-23 and their ethical implications for human life in an ecologically-fragile world. The attempt is made to understand the factors at work in the interpreters’ exegetical and theological decision-making. Attention is given to the interpreters’ definitions of Paul’s terms, the interpreters’ arguments about what “symbolic worlds” or interpretive contexts are supposedly at play in Paul’s reasoning, and the interpreters’ depictions of the wider literary and theological contexts that give shape to this passage. By drawing on the methodological strengths and exegetical insights of the four interpretations, the paper will conclude with an eco-ethical interpretive proposal and a few recommendations for future study.

[[The SBL program software does not yet accept unicode. The Greek part of the presentation will be available online before SBL, at http:SBLALBL.wordpress.com]] After a 5 minute introduction delivered in Koine Greek, I will discuss how having to present my thoughts orally in Koine Greek has enhanced my Greek reading skills and has helped me to gain a better grasp of certain aspects of the language. This may be anecdotal evidence that cultivating an oral fluency in Koine Greek may be an important component for making advances in our knowledge of Koine Greek. More studies on this are justified.

The ancient site of Colossae is not overburdened with discoveries of material evidence that might help us to understand the fortunes of the city in any historical period. The site has never been excavated. To date, twenty-six inscriptions have been published. These might be expanded beyond thirty if one adds Byzantine lead seals belonging to ecclesiastical and civic officials of Chonai. Accordingly the discovery of a new inscription of some length is to be prized, especially for what it might tell us of the Roman Imperial period and earlier. The paper offers a full transcription and critical analysis of a 37 line inscription which honors Korumbos for the repair of the baths at Colossae. The inscription is important for its disclosure of valued architecture, the pattern of public honors and the revelations that come from 66 names that are inscribed on the columnar bomos. Most significant, though open to potential contestation, is the ornamentation and possible dating that have been included on the white marble stone. Not only does this have the potential to deliver a precise time for analyzing the significance of the inscription but it also provides further clues to the religious and cultural landscape of the city and its surrounding environment.

The ‘recognition formula’ and related expressions present one way by which the prophet constructs his understanding of God. The puzzling nature of these texts has been construed as “portray[ing] YHWH as a deity with an ego problem” (Habel 2004). Joyce more soberly assesses such texts as signifying a ‘radical theocentricity’ (Joyce 1989, 2007). Proceeding from Joyce’s concept of radical theocentricity, this paper will explore the Ezekiel’s sensibilities regarding the nature language and symbol in establishing his conception of God. I will explore how emphasis on the name of God is expressive of concern with the linguistic dimension of the problem. I will also discuss how the frequent evaluation of the name as “holy” or “profane” further engages the name as linguistic symbol. Finally, I will investigate the significance of how Ezekiel frames his construct within the context of destruction and deliverance through an analysis of other relevant biblical traditions – particularly the Divine Warrior tradition, name theology, and kabod theology – to demonstrate Ezekiel’s ultimate interest in creating a God who is no mere abstraction—a potentially lifeless linguistic construct—but a matter of vital, orienting experience.

An important component of the study of The Acts of the Apostles is the construction of a religious and social identity for Christianity over against other groups through the use of insider/outsider language. Through the course of the narratives, ambiguous groups are either pushed into the category of “other” or adopted into the “we” of insider group. This type of language has mainly been used with reference to “the Jews” as the group most directly and vehemently opposed to the growth and spread of Christianity. However, there is one group within Judaism that does not get painted with this same negative brushstroke, the God-worshippers/fearers—those Gentiles who are not fully converted to Judaism but still adhere to at least some of its tenets and practices. Although this group lay on the fringes of Judaism, according to six stories in Acts it is this very group that is found to be most fruitfully converted to Christianity. In the story of Lydia (16:13—15) Paul does not approach the leading citizens of Philippi, nor even the Jews in the established synagogue, but he instead goes outside the gates of the city and finds a foreign woman who as a sebome,nh to.n qeo,n represents the boundary line between Gentile and Jew. While Lydia may begin the narrative represented as an outsider, through the direct intervention of the risen Christ who “opens her heart (a unique phrase within the biblical text),” she ends the narrative as a baptized member of the Philippian Christian community. Then, when Paul accepts Lydia’s hospitality, the division between the two dissolves and they become a “we” within the cult of the risen Christ.

TBD

Since Herman Gunkel’s delineation of the lament in 1933, exploration into the OT psalmic lament has broadened significantly, practically forming a field of study in and of itself. As lament studies gained steam, NT scholars began noting and investigating the references to this genre in the Synoptic Gospels. These scholars (such as C. H. Dodd, Barnabas Lindars, Joel Marcus, and others) primarily emphasize thematic trends shared between the psalmic laments and the Synoptics and/or investigate the histories “behind” the Synoptic texts. That the Synoptic writers parallel Jesus’ Passion with themes found in the lament literature is practically unquestionable. What has only been recently explored by Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, however, is the degree to which Mark understood the core theological function of the lament genre. Ahearne-Kroll’s insightful monograph ("The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Passion," SNTSMS 142, 2007) argues that Mark, aware of how the psalmic lament functioned, appropriated it in his narrative by portraying Jesus as, among other things, the Davidic lamenter par excellence. In this paper, I substantiate Ahearne-Kroll’s demonstration that Mark recognized the core theological function of the psalmic lament by more narrowly focusing on this issue and by more specifically defining/applying a methodology for the task. I then build upon Ahearne-Kroll by exploring the degree to which Matthew and Luke recognized Mark’s appropriation of the core function of the psalmic lament. In essence, I conclude that Matthew recognized and appropriated Mark’s understanding of the psalmic lament while Luke did not. This conclusion validates an extension of Ahearne-Kroll’s work on the theological role of the psalmic lament in Mark's gospel to an investigation of the theological role of the psalmic lament in Matthew's gospel.

Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, ruling in the ninth century b.c.e., is credited with offering to share his army, particularly his chariotry, with the King of Israel to further his expansionist goals in areas east of the Jordan River. His slogan, “My horses are your horses. . .” is roughly contemporaneous with the prophet Elisha’s visions, real and imagined, of the “chariots and horsemen of Israel,” always portrayed as a serious threat to enemy armies. What do the archaeological and architectural records of ancient Israel and Judah reveal about the strength of their equestrian forces during the Iron Age? How large was the chariotry of the combined armies of Judah and Israel? Where were the horses stationed and trained? Does the archaeological record support the textual evidence for the existence of “chariot cities” in Israel and Judah? How did chambered gates and tri-partite pillared buildings enhance the horse processing capabilities of Iron Age fortresses? This presentation will address these questions and explore the archaeological and textual evidence for horse compounds at various sites, such as Megiddo, Jezreel, Hazor, Beersheba, Gezer, and Lachish.

This paper will analyse the parallelism between the life of the temple of Elephantine and the foundation, or re-foundation, of the Jewish temple of Onias at Leontopolis in the Maccabaean period.

Social media, blogging, and online collaboration technologies are changing the way the world communicates. Likewise, the rise of for-profit and online university instruction is drastically changing the way information is disseminated. Unfortunately, the academy has fallen woefully behind in adopting these technologies for the benefit of educational instruction and research. This paper surveys new technologies available to educators and makes recommendations about how the academy can benefit from innovations in peer-review, collaboration, crowd sourcing, student research, and public education. Recommendations are also offered to universities seeking to balance online and distance education with their traditional university classroom offerings and the overall university experience.

In the words of the psalmist, “wine gladdens the heart of people” (104:15), and viticulture—the art and practice of growing grape vines—was of central importance in the ancient Near East. It should then come to no surprise that viticulture in the eschaton would also be important. This study looks at three of the most prominent instances of eschatological viticulture in early Judaism and Christianity, namely 1 Enoch 10.19, 2 Baruch 29.5, and Papias in Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 5.33.3, paying particular attention to their tradition histories and intertextual relationships. All three of these texts imagine that the grape vine will be fantastically productive in God’s renewed creation, but they develop this image in different ways based on different biblical texts. First Enoch uses the trope in conjunction with its use of the account of Noah’s renewal of the earth after the Flood in Gen 9. Second Baruch uses it to present an eschatological banquet feasting upon the primordial beasts of Leviathan and Behemoth in a return to the paradise of Gen 2. Papias, in contrast, applies the trope to the Blessing of Isaac in Gen 27. Though these accounts are all different in their application, they all feature the same sensibility: what gladdens the heart in this world will also gladden the heart in the age to come.

J.L. Martyn has suggested that Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, is arguing against religious tradition rather than Judaism. At first sight, this may seem to be an answer to the problems of disunity which the letter seems to foster. However, psychological studies have suggested that religion and religiosity are important components of what it is to be human. In this paper we will look again at Martyn's understanding of Paul's dualistic language and, using ideas from Allport's psychology of religion as a hermeneutical lens, suggest that this letter, rather than polemicising against religion in general, is arguing for a more mature religiosity in which flexibility and tolerance are acceptable, and unity easier to maintain.

It is common knowledge among scholars who come to early Christian art by way of the text that the ox and ass at scenes of the Nativity of Christ are reflections Pseudo-Matthew 14 (or vice-versa) and that Isaiah 1:3 underlies the presence of the animals in text and visual art. On the other hand, many art historians argue that it was common that images on children's sarcophagi contained animals and that this was the leading cause of such images in the nativity scenes in early Christian art. We will discuss this. What is more important, however, is that we try to discern what the early artists did with the animal's images--there is theology in images.

Abstract to be made available by date of meeting.

The catenae on Paul’s epistle to the Romans (ed. Staab 1933), contain several fragments that are ascribed to Apollinaris of Laodicea (ca. 315-391). Although appearing in catenae on the New Testament, these scholia are quite useful for textual critics of the Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible. They contain Hexaplaric readings of Psalms and Isaiah that have escaped the attention of previous editors (Field 1875 and Ziegler 1939). The present paper aims to discuss the Hexaplaric readings in question in order to pass judgment on their authenticity. In addition, it will address the question what these (rather lengthy) readings of Aquila and Symmachus can tell us about Apollinaris’ access to Hexaplaric data. In conclusion, it wishes to formulate some thoughts on the circulation of the Hexapla in the Antiochean school, to which Apollinaris belonged.

Respondent to papers in session.

In Jer 4:13, an unidentified enemy is described as having horses that are “swifter than eagles” (qallû minnešarîm). This description, in turn, is part of a larger unit (vv. 11-13) that pairs avian and meteorological imagery in announcement concerning Jerusalem’s imminent destruction. These dramatic images, all of which describe threats from the air, elicit a cry of despair from the Jerusalemite audience (4:13b-14). How could these images evoke such terror? Answering this question requires considering how such imagery would have been perceived by inhabitants of the ANE, who were familiar with its various symbol systems. Unfortunately, little attention has been given to the ANE background of the military bird of prey image in general and to the bird of prey imagery in Jer 4:13 in particular. As a result, interpreters tend to understand the avian reference in v. 13 naturalistically, that is, as simply a comparison with the natural activity of a bird of prey (i.e., birds of prey are fast, just as horses are fast). This interpretation leaves unconsidered the bird of prey’s use in the larger symbolic, mythological, and propagandistic discourse of the ANE. In this paper, I will examine the ways in which birds of prey are used in the ANE to describe the realities of military engagement, paying particular attention to ANE parallels found in literary and visual forms of royal propaganda. I will argue that the bird of prey imagery in Jer 4:13 draws upon a common cache of royal, military symbols with which Jeremiah’s audience would have been familiar. Further, the fact that Jeremiah utilized imagery and literary motifs common to ANE royal propaganda may have contributed to the disdain among some Jerusalemites for his apparently “pro-Babylonian” position.

This paper examines the expansive retelling of the Eden narrative attributed to the memory of the elderly Eve in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (GLAE). Specifically focusing on the transgression narrative of Genesis 3:1-6, which becomes a six-chapter, thirty-verse tale remembered by Eve (GLAE 16-21), the paper argues that the author(s) of GLAE seeks to correct real and perceived speech-related problems in the Massoretic Text (MT) version. The key speech-related problem that elicits midrashic, gap-filling dialogue is the MT’s pronouncement of the divine punishment of the man for “listening to the voice of his wife” (Gen 3:17). Because the woman never uttered anything to the man in the temptation scene or in any part of Genesis 2-4, the author of GLAE clearly felt compelled to “retrieve” the missing speech of the woman to the man. The insertion of a speech of Eve to Adam at the time of transgression, therefore, can be understood as clarifying a genuine ambiguity in the MT. The author of GLAE, however, crafted the content of Eve’s speech such that it also corrected a perceived inappropriate association of Eve with speech, wisdom, and the power of discernment. The cumulative result of the expanded version of the transgression narrative in GLAE gives the prerogative for authoritative, god-like speech to Adam and the proclivity for dangerous, devil-inspired speech to Eve. Moreover, the woman’s pursuit of wisdom and her desire to be “like gods” is removed from Eve’s remembered tale and becomes instead Adam’s possession of wisdom and the knowledge of good and evil such that he can label his wife and her thoughts evil. By attributing this expanded and corrected version of the transgression event to the memory of the elderly Eve, the first transgressor, the author of GLAE lends authenticity and authority to his retelling.

John’s apocalyptic work is an ambiguous de-colonizing text that has been oppressively interpreted in order to oppress others. In the context of Haiti, John’s Apocalypse has been used as a (Re-)colonizing text by many missionaries and Christian leaders to pacify a population that is otherwise known for its resistance to hegemonic forces. The oppresive interpretation of this text can be observed in the ways in which the combat myth mentality and horizontal violence, as portrayed in the Johannine text, is usually not far from the mentality and actions of many Christians in Haiti. John’s language of “synagogue of Satan,” with its particular ideology of silencing the religious realities of others perceived as diabolical, has inspired many pastors and preachers in Haiti to use violent language against those perceived as belonging to the “synagogue of Satan.” The horrific anti superstitious campaign of 1942-1944, the horrible acts of stoning or burning alive those perceived as belonging to the “synagogue of Satan” shortly after the departure of the dictator baby Doc in 1986, and the unleashing animosity against some practitioners of the Vodou religion after the January 12th earthquake, testify to the point where education, tolerance, love and dialogue is necessary and urgent in Haiti today. My paper presents a deconstructing reading of John’s Apocalypse in order to liberate the text, not only from the traditional debilitating readings that have been so prevalent for most Haitian Christians, but also to liberate John's apocalyptic message from its own ambivalence.

More than one-third of texts found in the Judaean desert were written in Greek, and of these documentary texts outweigh literary by just under 4 to 1. This encourages the conclusion that Greek was actively used by those who deposited the texts. However, the archives of Babatha (110-132) and Salome Komaïse (125-131) confirm that in many cases Greek documents were produced by professional scribes. Therefore, the comparative percentage of Greek papyri cannot provide an accurate indication of written literacy. Instead, the papyrological evidence must be: (1) closely examined for indications of individual (non-scribal) written literacy; and (2) supplemented by the inscriptional evidence. The combined evidence shows that Aramaic and Greek were in much wider use than Hebrew. One of the letters of Bar Kokhba suggests that he found Greek easier than the Hebrew he promoted for nationalistic reasons. But all of his preserved letters were also written by scribes. Most people with ability in Greek would have had a kind of oral/aural bilingualism; i.e., Greek could be spoken, understood, and perhaps read, but not written. By way of conclusion, the relevance of Greek literacy for the transmission of early Christian oral and written tradition will be discussed.

The religious poetry composed by members of the Yahad community exhibits distinctively sectarian terms, ideas, and motifs while, at the same time, drawing upon biblical tradition and a common extra-biblical Jewish heritage. This paper will explore the adoption and adaptation of traditional liturgical elements in sectarian religious poetry composed by the Yahad. Key examples include the use and deployment of blessings and penitential formulae (e.g., the proclamation of divine justice and the list of divine attributes) in hodayot hymns. The examples will be studied in their own right and for the light they shed on larger issues of literary composition, rhetorical strategy, formation of sectarian identity, liturgical tradition, and the network of connections between the Yahad and the world outside of Qumran.

The current study uses comparative studies of the Mesopotamian and biblical flood stories as a case to examine how comparative studies should be done, and to explore the roles of the comparative method for the study of the composition and transmission history of Mesopotamian and biblical traditions. Upon reviewing some of the conclusions reached by previous comparative studies of the Mesopotamian and biblical flood stories, it is observed that some of these conclusions are tenuous due to the lack of a fuller access to or usage of cuneiform sources and because of the lack of due attention to the diverse and composite character of both Mesopotamian and biblical sources. Similarities and differences can be relative depending on the texts involved in comparison. By analyzing the methodologies of Lambert & Millard’s study of Atra-hasis (1969) and Tigay’s study of the Gilgamesh tradition (1982), this study points out that it is important for comparative studies to go as far as possible to include all relevant and available sources for comparison, to analyze data in a historical framework, and to employ a combination of criteria (e.g., stylistic, formal, structural, conceptual, and ideological) for establishing intertextual and historical relationships between traditions and for identifying and classifying continuities and changes in transmission history. It is clear especially in Tigay’s study that the role of the comparative method is more than just comparing or contrasting several texts of related motifs or themes in order to observe their similarities and differences, or commonalities and distinctiveness. The method is seen as a crucial part of the procedure through which complex mechanisms and particularities of the composition and transmission of ancient texts may be revealed, and the traditions behind the texts may be recovered.

This paper proposes to investigate Paul’s opponents in 1& 2 Corinthians in light of Gnostic features of Paul and his Epistles. When scholars study Paul and his opponents, they often regard Paul as the anti-Gnostic due to church tradition. However, the Gnostic characteristics present in Paul indicate that he may have been influenced by Gnostic ideas, and his opponents are anti-Gnostics. This paper will provide coherent identification of Paul’s opponents in both 1 and 2 Corinthians and present a method for understanding the situation of 1 and 2 Corinthians as well as the “historical reconstructions” of Paul’s life. Walter Schmithals and Gunter Bornkamm argue that Paul wrote his letters to refute the Gnostic Christians. If they are right, Paul is fighting not against an attack from right-wing conservative super-apostles, but against left-wing radical Gnostics. Interestingly, instead of repudiating Paul, the most famous Gnostic groups, the Naassenes and Valentinians, revered Paul as a Gnostic master. The Valentinians even alleged that their secret tradition came from Paul’s own teaching. The reason that Paul seems to be anti-Gnostic is based on the descriptions of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hyppolytus, who consider the Valentinian view an insult to Paul. Elaine Pagels argues that the Gnostic interpretation of Paul’s writings is not the false doctrine that Irenaeus harshly insisted it was, but that the Valentinians distorted Paul’s views. As G. Strecker argues, some ecclesiastical sources that refer to Paul often express hostility, indicating that Paul is associated with Gnosticism. I, along with other scholars, argue that Paul was influenced by Gnostic ideas. Gnostic terminology, such as “knowledge,” “wisdom,” “pneuma,” “pleroma,” and “the elect” are apparent in the Pauline corpus. A better reading of the Pauline conflict is to read a Gnostic Paul against the pillar apostles. Therefore, the opponents of 1 & 2 Corinthians are anti-Gnostic Jewish Christians whom the pillar apostles influence.

The theme of unity in Ephesians has been considered in terms of a “summary of Paul’s gospel.” The reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles presented in Paul’s letters as a future hope had become a present reality by the time Ephesians was written. Then why does the author of Ephesians still stress the unity of the church? I would argue that the author of Ephesians presents a construction of the unifying body in relation to the formation of a new identity, which is different from the construction of the Christian body and identity that Paul sought. The author’s claim for this new emerging Christian identity, particularly his stress of a status shift from ksenoi and paroikoi into sympolitai and oikeioi, displays how Christians’ earlier universalizing discourse embodying a sense of displacement or otherness was transformed into another type of discourse signifying trans-imperial identity, a new type of theo-political entity. I will examine this imperial configuration of the communal identity with regards to three aspects of power dynamics: the relationship with the empire; construction of Self and Other; and inner group dynamics. I will investigate these aspects from an imperial-critical and gender-critical perspective, focusing on the metaphor of body and the rhetoric of unity, maturity and fullness presented by Ephesians. Such a critical approach will reveal that Ephesians is not merely an abstract interpretation of Pauline tradition but seeks to reinscribe and even extend the dominating imperial ideology regarding body and identity in domestic, political, and universal levels.

This paper seeks to reconsider Matthew 28:16-20 in order to overcome the imperial and colonial interpretation of the Great Commission from a perspective of an Asian reader. Additionally, it has become increasingly necessary to decolonize the scriptures for Christians in Korea and elsewhere in Asia. Asians have inherited not only from Christian traditions, but also from their own culture and literature—in this paper, the Korean myth of Tangun. First of all, this study will conduct an exegesis of the above passage, while acknowledging the manner in which Biblical scholarship has emphasized the inclusive (universal) and exclusive (particular) attitude of the Gospel of Matthew toward the gentile mission. Yet this focus of Matthean scholarship has not fully explained why and how the text has influenced the aggressive and at times even violent method of mission in the history of Christian church. Next, with the help of an intertextual reading between Mt 28:16-20 and the myth of Tangun, a post-colonial reading will be proposed as a more relevant interpretation of the text for readers with flesh and blood ties to the Korean church who have been missionized and colonized for the past century by the western missionaries. The post-colonial perspective will enable Korean readers to recognize the horizontal, humanitarian, theo-centric aspects of the Great Commission, rather than follow the hierarchical, doctrinal and Christ-centric interpretation imposed by the missionaries. After making it possible to reconstruct ‘another meaning’ for the Great Commission in a Korean context, a postcolonial reading will help the colonized to reform the church and society by abolishing the social class system, enhancing the status of the oppressed, reducing hierarchical inequality, and encouraging egalitarian relationships.

This paper seeks to reconsider Matthew 28:16-20 in order to overcome the imperial and colonial interpretation of the Great Commission from a perspective of an Asian reader. Additionally, it has become increasingly necessary to decolonize the scriptures for Christians in Korea and elsewhere in Asia. Asians have inherited not only from Christian traditions, but also from their own culture and literature—in this paper, the Korean myth of Tangun. First of all, this study will conduct an exegesis of the above passage, while acknowledging the manner in which Biblical scholarship has emphasized the inclusive (universal) and exclusive (particular) attitude of the Gospel of Matthew toward the gentile mission. Yet this focus of Matthean scholarship has not fully explained why and how the text has influenced the aggressive and at times even violent method of mission in the history of Christian church. Next, with the help of an intertextual reading between Mt 28:16-20 and the myth of Tangun, a post-colonial reading will be proposed as a more relevant interpretation of the text for readers with flesh and blood ties to the Korean church who have been missionized and colonized for the past century by the western missionaries. The post-colonial perspective will enable Korean readers to recognize the horizontal, humanitarian, theo-centric aspects of the Great Commission, rather than follow the hierarchical, doctrinal and Christ-centric interpretation imposed by the missionaries. After making it possible to reconstruct ‘another meaning’ for the Great Commission in a Korean context, a postcolonial reading will help the colonized to reform the church and society by abolishing the social class system, enhancing the status of the oppressed, reducing hierarchical inequality, and encouraging egalitarian relationships.

This essay will explore some of the potential of the growing field of Translation Studies for the study of Paul’s use of Scripture, including elements of descriptive translation studies (e.g., polysystem theory), functionalist approaches (Skopostheorie), postcolonial approaches to translation, and the understanding of translation as cultural mediation. Particular approaches will be considered that may broaden the scope of issues that inform our understanding of Paul’s use of Scripture including seeing that usage as part of his role as one of the key translators of the message of early Christianity for the Gentile communities to which he ministered.

Within the conversation regarding “The Bible and Rights,” I argue that the notion of human dignity offers a fruitful avenue to explore the interrelated themes of justice, vocation and human responsibility in the biblical traditions. Human dignity is most evident in the image of the Imago Dei, i.e., the claim in Gen 1:26-27 that humans, both male and female, are created in the image of God. This powerful theological claim has led to some rich theological reflection by Christian and Jewish interpreters who have argued for the inherent worth of every human being whose dignity is a gracious gift bestowed by the Creator God. Nevertheless, in the Hebrew Bible there are numerous instances where this dignity of individuals and groups are threatened, obscured and violated. And yet, it is exactly in the midst of these situations of dehumanization that the conversation on what it means to be human becomes most urgent. For instance, in prophets like Amos and Isaiah, it is within the depths of the social justice violations that threaten the wellbeing of the society’s most vulnerable members that one encounters the prophet’s persistent critique that upholds the dignity of each member of the society (cf e.g. Amos 5; 8; Isaiah 5). In conversation with recent works by Nicholas Wolterstorff (Justice: Rights and Wrongs), and Beverly Mitchell (Plantations and Death Camps: Religion, Ideology and Human Dignity), I argue in this paper that the theme of human dignity may help ground the discourse on justice and human rights within the narrative framework of the biblical traditions. Focusing on a few selected examples from Amos and Isaiah, I will show how despite the appalling portrayal of dehumanization we find in the prophetic traditions, one finds a counter narrative that resists this dehumanization, rooted in the belief that humans as created in the image of God are to be valued and respected.

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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the diachronic method goes hand in hand with proper textual analysis including occasionally, when absolutely justified, the textual emendation of the Masoretic text (even when no alternative Hebrew version is extant). Four individual cases (each illustrating a different principle of proper diachronic textual analysis) will be briefly discussed and some general methodological conclusions will then be drawn. These four cases include two individual words in ABH. one for which a new textual emendation will be proposed (Gen 49:15—MT twb w't is emended to twbh z't),the other, a hapax legomenon, for which an accepted textual emendation, knws, will be rejected in favor of the attested kms(Deut 32:34; see BHS). The third case involves the linguistic variation of a common root ts-c-q which occurs in its original form in more than one third of its occurrences in the Torah (27 times out of 76 occurrences), while the clearly later form, z-c-q occurs only twice in the Torah (out of 91 occurrences). This exemplifies diachrony in BH lexicography. The fourth case involves a common morphological form which is considered almost universally as an identifying feature of LBH (because it is so common in Aramaic), but is almost as common in ABH and SBH (and is just as common throughout Akkadian beginning with the Old Akkadian period): the -wt (ut) suffix for abstract nouns in BH. It should not be considered as an identifying feature of LBH.

Garden of Eden imagery is ubiquitous in fashion magazine advertising in North America, particularly in advertisements directed at women. These popular biblical reconstructions commonly conflate a sexually seductive Eve with the Serpent. The highly eroticized Eve-Serpent figures in these ads also commonly suffer further conflation with the Garden of Eden itself, resulting in a composite Eve-Serpent-Eden character. As we read the narrative of this composite character, the voyeurism of the camera lens lures us, as readers, to adopt the position of Adam, to be seduced by the charms of Eve. At the same time, the advertisement’s message invites us to become Eve ourselves, and to seduce in turn. In this paper, I trace the conflation of these characters in the Genesis/Fall reconstructions found in fashion magazine advertising. Through a feminist narrative analysis of the process of characterization, I examine the role of the reader in the construction of this new Edenic narrative, and the ways in which the reader becomes a second implicit character in the story.

In the 5th century CE, barbarian invasions into North Africa resulted in the rape of a number of virginal nuns. In light of these attacks, women and their communities did not know who they were now or where they belonged: Were these women still virgins because they were not complicit in their attacks? Since these women’s bodies no longer reflected virginity, should they (how could they?) continue to be called “virgins”? Why were some virgins attacked and not others? Both Augustine, in De Civitate Dei book one, and Pope Leo I, in a letter to the bishops of Caeserea Mauritania, grapple with the questions proposed above, in an attempt to reestablish personal and social identities that have been dismantled and blurred by rape. Augustine, in De Civitate Dei I, assures these women that as long as they did not consent to the rape in their animi, they were blameless in their animi and thus remained virgins even if their bodies bore witness to their loss of virginity (i.e. their hymens were torn). And while Pope Leo I, like Augustine, does not necessarily blame the women for what happened to them, he tells the virginal victims of barbarian rape that they should not dare to compare themselves to virgins who were not raped. Instead, victims are now categorized, personally and socially, between undefiled virgins and chaste widows; these women now occupy an entirely new, liminal space as a result of their attack. In this paper, I will explore why Augustine and Leo I have similar reactions to these violent and unsolicited attacks but come to very different conclusions concerning how these attacks have changed the identity of the victims. This will entail a discussion of the roles and the relationship between the animus and the body in personal and social identity formation in this period, as well as a discussion of Augustine and Leo I’s doctrines of free will and grace.

The Gospel of Luke contains some of the most positive affirmations of early Christian Sabbath observance. Jesus attends synagogue on the Sabbath “as was his custom” (Luke 4:16), and some of his closest disciples “rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). Yet, as the text of the Gospel of Luke was copied, passages such as these were reworked in order to distance Jesus and his disciples from Jewish Sabbath observance. Bart Ehrman has demonstrated that early Christian controversy affected the transmission of the text of the New Testament, in particular with regard to the impassioned Christological debates in the earliest centuries of Christianity. Controversy surrounding Sabbath observance was no less impassioned in this early period, and I would argue no less influential on the transmission of the New Testament text. For instance, in two manuscripts, Luke 4:16 is altered so that Sabbath Synagogue attendance becomes the custom of the townspeople rather than of Jesus (see 2643, 2766, and l211). The changes to Luke 23:56 are even more dramatic. One manuscript in particular (MS. 579) moves the particle de backward by three words, from 24:1 to 23:56. With this small alteration, it is the women’s visit to the tomb on Sunday morning that becomes “the commandment,” instead of the Sabbath rest. These and other variants (e.g., Bezae-Luke 6:5) reveal a dynamic relation between contemporary Sabbath controversy evident Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian and the transmission of the New Testament text. Reading Lukan variants in light of early Christian Sabbath polemic contributes to our understanding of the debate, and evinces openness toward altering the text to correct the commandment.

This paper examines the politics of ethnically malleable bodies in Corinth. I compare Favorinus’ “Corinthian Oration” with Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 to “be all things to all people.” Paul and Favorinus sought to influence Corinthians in the first and second centuries CE by prominently displaying their own bodies as able to negotiate multiple ethnic and cultural identities. In presenting himself as one who, though a Roman from Gaul, has become Greek, the orator Favorinus challenges Corinth’s ability to claim Greek identity. Favorinus presents his Corinthian audience as Roman rubes, unable to appreciate his own role as the embodiment of a Greek identity open to all through training and education. In 1 Cor 9:19-23, Paul claims to be able to “become (as)” others for the sake of the gospel. Paul’s interest in this characterization serves both to underscore his authoritative position in the Corinthian ekklesia and to encourage his audience to imitate his example by changing their social, religious, and dietary practices. In so doing, Paul presents his body as both malleable and authoritative under the contradictions of a free slave, an honorable flatterer, and an athlete who seeks a prize for others. Both authors present their boundary-crossing selves to Corinthian audiences as arguments for their authority. By moving between ethnic identities, and the cultural and religious practices that constitute them, Paul and Favorinus show how deployments of the adaptable body could be used rhetorically in Corinth to defend their authority and honor before an audience of Corinthians.

The meaning of being “clothed with Christ” and the corresponding creation of a corporate “oneness with Christ” in Gal. 3:27-28 was most commonly expressed and interpreted in the ancient Christian East through the association of this verse with New Testament baptismal texts and imagery, especially Romans 6. But could the idea in v. 27 of being “clothed with Christ” and the related concept in v. 28 of “oneness” with Christ be extended far beyond the sphere of sacramentology and Christian ethics to support a variety theological conclusions, even about the nature of God? In fact, these verses were utilized in surprising and unexpected ways in many early theological debates and controversies. At times they were employed in opposition to certain theological constructs and arguments, for example against Monotheletism (John of Damascus), Priscillianism (Leo the Great), and Manicheanism (Augustine). And in other instances these verses were applied in support of key theological positions, such as Trinitarian theology (Basil the Great), the divinity of the Holy Spirit (Ambrose), and for communicating conclusions regarding certain qualities of the afterlife (Leo the Great, Gregory the Great and Chrysostom). Multiple uses for these verses indicate not only the valuable elasticity of the concept of oneness through corporate clothing in Christ, but also the ingenious application of an authoritative Christian text by numerous interpreters for variety of purposes.

Gary Anderson has recently proposed that the Judaism's adoption of Aramaic after the Exile as a vernacular was a key moment in the history of Israel's thought about sin. Sin passed from being regarded as a weight (in Hebrew) to a debt (in Aramaic). This thesis is examined in the light of the development of Aramaic vocabulary for sin and salvation up to the Second Temple period and beyond.

The inclusion of Gilgamesh and, apparently, Humbaba in The Book of Giants (BG) known from Qumran has intrigued and puzzled scholars since the names were noted by J. Milik in his publication of the Aramaic Enoch fragments. Since then, several theories have been suggested to explain the king’s survival and the reason for his inclusion in that text. Scholars such as J. Reeves, D. Jackson and M. Goff have maintained that Gilgamesh is featured polemically in this late text as a deliberate representative of foreign traditions. Further, they argue that the way in which Gilgamesh is utilized in the BG demonstrates that the author had some knowledge, either direct or indirect, of the contents of the Epic of Gilgamesh. A. George, on the other hand, claims that Gilgamesh’s survival and inclusion is based solely on the king’s legacy in Babylonian mantic and exorcistic traditions which were widely circulated outside of Mesopotamia. As Jackson has discussed, in Enoch and Jubilees, forbidden antediluvian knowledge is one of the reasons for the Flood. Further, he argues that Gilgamesh is used in the BG primarily as an agent of foreign knowledge. Thus, for Jackson Gilgamesh serves as a representative of a demonic culture. In this paper I assert that Gilgamesh is employed in the BG because of his identity as a tradent of secret knowledge from the time before the Flood (e.g. Tablet I 1-8 of the SB epic), rather than merely as a symbolic agent of such knowledge. Furthermore, this adds to the case that the author of the BG had specific knowledge of the Gilgamesh tradition outside of his mantic and exorcistic associations, as George contends.

It is well known that the strange biblical law prohibiting the seething of a kid in its mother's milk is the basis for the general Jewish prohibition of combining meat and dairy. Despite two millennia of commentary, however,there still is no general consensus about the meaning of the proscription in its biblical context. Most ancient and modern commentators have explained it on the basis of humanitarian and/or cultic concerns. In the first part of this paper, I will examine those lines of interpretation systematically, with special attention to the traditional hermeneutics that inform them. In the remainder of the paper, I will focus on interpretations that classify milk and meat among the "forbidden mixtures," from an extraordinary seventeenth-century Jewish commentary to Nicole Ruane's recent work on the role of gender in biblical law. I will argue in favor of this line of interpretation, while acknowledging the difficulty inherent in deciding which of the possible antinomies are most salient (life/death,nurture/destruction, licit/illicit sex, male/female, etc.).

“Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8.” In the fall of 2009, this seemingly kind-spirited slogan was printed on bumper stickers and t-shirts in what seemed to be an expression of goodwill for the new president. Of course, when one reads Psalm 109:8, one can no longer assume that this encouragement of prayer was an offer of goodwill for President Obama; Psalm 109:8 says, “May his days be few in number, may another take his office.” What seemed to be an expression of support was in fact a violent prayer for, at the least, the end of President Obama’s presidency, and at the most, the end of President Obama’s life. Though the bumper sticker does not explicitly call our attention to the rest of Psalm 109, the verses immediately following are the psalmist’s prayer to God for further violence to fall upon the psalmist’s enemy. In fact, this particular psalm is one of the most infamous in the Psalter because of its extended fifteen-verse curse against the enemy. This particular use of Psalm 109 in public political discourse raises important questions for students of the Psalms interested in ideological criticism. Though we may reject the use of this psalm in this way as undemocratic hate speech, this bumper sticker isolates a particularly violent voice within the Psalms that scholars have not adequately discussed. Recent ideological criticism recognizes that texts do not speak with one unified voice, but are sites of ideological struggle and contention. Psalms scholars have treated violent psalmic language as a whispered voice in the text, but the bumper sticker demands that we examine the violent wishes of the psalms as a loud voice, one capable of overwhelming other voices. This paper analyzes the psalms as sites of ideological contest, a rhetorical location of struggle between voices of violent rage and resistance to violent theology.

The oracle against Moab in Isaiah 15-16 poses many challenges to the interpreter, including textual and philological difficulties, historical uncertainties, and the reuse of portions of the text in Jeremiah 48. In their preoccupation with these admittedly important issues, scholars have not often paid sufficient attention to the literary features of these chapters, with a few notable exceptions. The oracle is a striking and powerful composition, however, and many of the apparent difficulties may in fact be integral features of the poetry. The poem evokes a palpable sense of disaster but withholds key pieces of information from the reader or hearer, thereby evading a complete description of what has befallen the Moabites. In this paper, I will examine some of the stylistic features of the text that help to achieve this effect, most notably ambiguity, wordplay, and imagery. With these factors kept in mind, a richer and more coherent reading of the poem and a better understanding of its place in Isaiah's oracles against the nations are possible.

This paper examines the foundation for current approaches to and conclusions about the relationship between the Wilderness Tabernacle and the Jerusalem Temple. After a brief summary of the history of scholarship on the question from Wellhausen to the present, a reanalysis of the comparative data is proposed, with special attention to questions of structure and iconography. Tentative conclusions as to the nature of the relationship between Tabernacle and Temple, whether experiential or textual, are put forth on the basis of the analysis. It is suggested that this view not only agrees with Haran’s dating of P, but that one might also suggest a narrowing of the pre-exilic date of the current Tabernacle texts. Finally, implications of these hypotheses for the understanding of the sociopolitical context of the Priestly School are discussed.

This paper will look at evidence for the scribal transmission of the Pentateuch (Torah) in the Qumran scrolls. In particular I will discuss the proto-Samaritan texts and the Reworked Pentateuch texts as a window into scribal activity and culture in the Second Temple period.

Purchased in Egypt in the eighteenth century by the Scottish traveler James Bruce, the "Books of Jeû" are, with the "Pistis Sophia" and the "Untitled Text" of the same Bruce Codex, among the first direct Gnostic texts known to European scholars. However, the "Books of Jeû" are also among the least studied text of "Gnostic literature". The only critical edition of the text goes back to 1892, there is no literary, philological or historical commentary of the text, and no serious and detailed codicological analysis of the Bruce Codex has been done so far, despite sixty years of studies on the Coptic Gnostic Nag Hammadi Codices. By giving us a precious insight on the provenance and making of a codex, codicology is today an intricate part of any scholarly work on a text, particularly when it is preserved in only one manuscript. As a way to contribute to the study of this text, this paper will examine in detail the various codicological elements relevant for the study of the Bruce Codex. With the help of the two oldest descriptions of the codex, and on the basis of a close new examination of the manuscript, we will seek to retrace the primitive state of the codex. The study of the material aspects of the manuscript will allow us to address the following points: the arrangement of the three different sequences of pages of the "Books of Jeû"; the place of the three fragments ascribed to the "Books of Jeû"; the relationship between the so-called two "Books of Jeû"; the relationship between these two "Books of Jeû" and the "Untitled Text" of the Bruce Codex; an estimate of the number of missing pages; and finally an approximate and preliminary dating of the codex.

Miracles -- from insignificant ones such as walking on water to significant ones such as Jesus raising and being raised from the dead -- are such a key feature of Christianity's self-understanding, it is perhaps not surprising to find that their treatment in introductions to the New Testament is complicated. In this paper, I shall compare how several such text books, ranging from the explicitly evangelical to the allegedly secular, deal with the question of miracles. In order to draw broader conclusions, I shall compare these to introductory textbooks on other religions.

This paper is an examination of how Deutero-Isaiah uses the principle of lex talionis to persuade his audience that Yahweh still has control over the military activities of the nations, despite the defeat of Judah's king in 587. Deutero-Isaiah does this principally in Isa. 47, the oracle against Babylon, by characterising the forthcoming fate of Babylon in language connected to the description of the fate of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians in Isa. 3:24-4.1. By so doing, Deutero-Isaiah connects the fate of Babylon to the Babylonians' own actions: what the Babylonians did to Jerusalem, so will Babylon now suffer. The recognition of Deutero-Isaiah's use of lex talionis in turn enables the reconsideration of the well-known connections between Isa. 47 and the descriptions of Zion's restoration.

Popular Reading among U.S. Latinos/as: Mexican American Cultural Productions

In this paper I will discuss how insights from cognitive science and network theory can explain the migration of ancient cults. In the first part of the paper, I will outline four channels of inheritance that underlie the evolution of religious traditions. In the second part, I will describe two, complementary aspects of the success or failure of religious innovations: the cognitive structure of religious beliefs and narratives, on the one hand, and the nature of social networks, on the other hand. The cognitive structure of religious beliefs predicts their potential to become widely accepted. Ideas that are better remembered in the long run have a better chance to be transmitted. Relevant cognitive factors include counterintuitiveness, emotionally laden details, and magical reasoning. The success of religious innovations also depends on the social networks in which they try to spread. I will especially consider the effect of weak links in social networks on the spread of innovations. Weak social ties are ones that connect individuals who spend very little time together and/or invest very little, both in material and emotional terms, into their relationship. I will use the success of Early Christianity as a test case to illustrate the explanatory power of these concepts. In the final part of my paper I will discuss computational models of these theoretical propositions.

This paper examines the cognitive capacities of the human mind that underlie the early Christian concept of resurrection. We will start our discussion with the review of empirical data about human expectations regarding the continuation of life beyond death, focusing especially on Jesse Bering’s psychological experiments and Rita Astuti’s fieldwork on Madagascar. In the second part of the paper, we will have a closer look at early Christian afterlife imagery and the cognitive mechanisms that explain such images. We will pay special attention to the representation of the human body after death and connect it to a particular moral tradition, expressed in Synoptic tradition. In the third part of the paper, we will examine the phenomenon of metamorphosis, which is well-attested in different cultures in the world, introducing the notion of cross-culturally shared, or maturationally natural, ontological categories. We will suggest that regular patterns of crossing boundaries between ontological categories provide better explanations for various features of metamorphoses than previous hypotheses. From the cognitive point of view, resurrection will be considered as a special case of metamorphosis traditions. In the final part of the paper, we will examine how different types of violations of ontological categories influence the memorability and transmission of ideas. We will use empirical results about the propagation of counterintuitive ideas to characterize the differences between various types of Christological concepts, and propose a cognitive explanation of the emergence of the proto-orthodox view of Jesus’ death and resurrection in early Christian thought.

Readers of the New Testament’s gospels are understandably attuned to the words and deeds of Jesus and relatively less concerned with how other characters in the narrative talk about him. Yet, the amount of talk about Jesus in the Gospels is striking, and when considered from the perspective of gossip, even more so. Indeed, many of the reports in John’s gospel describing gossip reflect this social phenomenon intricately operative along with a number of other social-cultural processes in constituting a person’s identity in the first-century Mediterranean world. The aim of this work is to suggest how gossip is operative in the process of constructing Jesus as a social personage in the Fourth Gospel. To do this, a viable framework for identifying gossip texts is constructed from modern socio-linguistics and ethnographies of both ancient and extant traditional Mediterranean cultures. Utilizing the method of abduction, the cross-cultural social type of a shaman is used against which a selection of gossip texts from John is read in order to see more clearly gossip’s part in the social construction of Jesus. Springing from inquiry into the sort of man who was the generative cause of the emergence of oral and eventually written stories about Jesus that come to us in John, this project involves linking literary features about oral phenomena in the text to a social personage thoroughly embedded in his social, cultural, and historical world, thus, underscoring gossip’s vital role in the construction of a culturally plausible historical Jesus.

Ancient religious representations challenge modern viewers who do not share the same temporal or cultural context. Archaeological location and artifact assemblage can help, but the challenge is even more pronounced when a piece of “religious art” is found in mundane contexts—contexts often associated with “popular religion.” For Judean Pillar Figurines, their contexts are often ignored or simplified. Moreover, archaeological contexts may be labeled “religious” for no other reason than the figurines, themselves. At the same time, Judean Pillar Figurines partake in a long standing “religious” iconography. Unfortunately, few interpreters investigate the entirety of the female image. Instead, many interpretations depend solely upon the figurines’ breasts or pillar body, forgetting the importance of other figurine elements, like the varying head styles or the technological properties of clay molding and firing. As a result, much of the iconographic tradition is ignored, as are the significant design variations from one style of figurine to another. By evaluating the archaeological context of figurines in Judah’s Central Hill Country, in combination with a thorough investigation of figurine iconography, this paper analyzes the most common female image from southern Israel/Palestine in the Iron II. Only when these two types of data are combined can interpretations be informed by the complexities of context and design, including possible contradictions as well as correspondences. Finally, by grounding these results in the dominant figurine traditions of the Near East, the female “religious” images of Iron II Judah are revealed as the complex nexus of ritual and social interactions that comprise them.

In a recent book titled Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal (Notre Dame, 2009), Paul Kolbet argues cogently that Augustine drew heavily upon the classical rhetorical tradition called psychagogy. This ancient philosophical theory espoused the use of words to “order the emotions” (and so to “cure the soul”) of one’s audience. Augustine skillfully adapted this philosophical rhetoric to a wide array of theological tasks. Taking a cue from Kolbet’s work, I propose here that aspects of Luke’s discourse can profitably be understood as narrative psychagogy, that is, as an endeavor to shape audiences’ attitudes, emotions, and values through a variety of rhetorical strategies. My case in point will be the issue of anxiety, references to which appear repeatedly in the Third Gospel (most prominently in chapters 8, 10, and 12). Utilizing psychagogical and audience-critical insights, I will trace how, in the sequential actualization of Luke’s text, hearers are led to adopt certain understandings of and attitudes toward anxiety. Finally, I will raise the issue of the applicability of this new approach to other New Testament narratives.

Most postcolonial approaches to the Bible simple interrogate individual texts that may deal with constructions of empire. However, a full interrogation of the Bible itself as a canon and its growth as a book has yet to take place. This paper seeks to ask definitional questions of what constitutes the Bible in a postcolonial world and if “Bible” is a suitable placeholder for the texts that have been traditionally read, taught, and enforced in postcolonial contexts. Similarly, the paper engages the typical genre and section classifications of the Bible, probing whether a postcolonial approach can accept these classifications and how a postcolonial reading might reframe texts that have been labeled as historical, wisdom or prophetic, for instance. Ultimately, the paper offers a reconsideration of what a postcolonial engagement of the texts called “Bible” would look like from different starting points.

This paper will explore how ancient “pagans,” Jews, and Christians interpreted and contextualized the cursing prowess of Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Drawing on sociologies of memory—and examining sources including Celsus, the Talmud, and the manuscript tradition of the infancy gospel itself—I will show how such early readers made sense of such stories of a young Jesus via their own cultural memories connected with cursing as a ritual practice in late antiquity.

Invited Paper

Iconography and iconographic exegesis is a growing field. Simultaneously, more and more pictorial material is made accessible through internet collections and databases. Despite these developments hard copy collections are still indispensable. In order to facilitate “Communicating and Educating through Ancient Near Eastern Images", I provide a guided tour through the landscape of image resources. Important hard copy sources will be surveyed and internet resources will be introduced (especially Bibel+Orient Museum Database Online, BODO, with an online presentation). Practical issues of how to employ images in the classroom and in publications will be addressed, ranging from the choice of images and the information which needs to be provided about images to the quality of the images and publishing houses’ policies regarding copyright on images.

As many scholars have noticed, the noun herem is related to entirely different semantic fields. On the one hand, it is strongly connected with the root qadaš in Priestly texts where it denotes a ‘holy thing’, while the cognate verb hrm means ‘to consecrate’ (Lev 27,21.29-29; Num 18,14; Ezek 44,29). On the other hand, herem is situated in the semantic field of destruction in Deuteronomy (Deut 7,2.4.25-26; 13,14-15; 20,16-18) and is combined with roots like nahah. Brekelmans (1959) and Lohfink (1982) developed a diachronic semantic model to explain this double nature of the term: originally related to the domain of war in which herem has religious overtones, the term underwent a diachronic change to a ‘profane annihilation’ due to important historical and social changes in society. Not satisfied by this account, Stern (1991), Schäfer-Lichtenberger (1995) and Nelson (1997) devoted attention to the conceptions of the world underlying the concept, but did not come to an adequate description of its semantic structure which accounts for the double nature of the term. In this paper I will offer a new perspective on the meaning of the concept herem informed by the semantic models of ‘Prototype theory’ (Rosch:1975) and the ‘Radial Network Model’ (Lakoff:1987). Prototypically, the term herem could best be labeled as ‘taboo’. The term is used to describe what is separated from the ordinary sphere of life, either because it belongs to the sphere of the sacred (qodeš) or because it is defiled (halal). The two meanings of holiness and defilement – which seem mutually exclusive to our conceptual understanding, thus form the polysemous core of the term’s semantic structure. Once this is established, I will develop a ‘radial network’ of the concept, showing that in particular the meaning of ‘defilement’ gave rise to new meanings by means of metonymy and generalization.

The Book of Joshua is often studied in relation to the Deuteronomistic Literature. Most of the studies use the Masoretic Text of the Book of Joshua for their analyses. The Old Greek text of the Book of Joshua, however, is at times different from the Massoretic Text: it sometimes is shorter, sometimes longer and even having some difference in sequence of episodes. The question now arises whether the Old Greek translation is older than the Masoretic text, and then, it certainly must be used when studying Deuteronomistic theories, or younger, or whether the two versions are parallel to each other. Moreover, the important witness from Qumran, 4QJosh a and b need also be taken into consideration. This paper aims at reconstructing the history of the Book of Joshua using especially the Septuagint and Qumran witnesses.

The Acts account of Saul’s Damascus road experience can be interpreted as a ritual process of boundary breaking and “recruitment”/“conversion”. This paper will analyse the events described in Acts 9:1-19, developing existing studies of this subject by taking the two later repetitions of this experience (22:1-21 and 26:12-23) into account. It will be suggested that consideration of the later reports alongside the first causes a shift in our understanding of the ritual process as it is presented in Acts. When we take these later reports into account, we find that the process of ritual transformation and boundary crossing is perhaps not as complete and irreversible as has previously been implied. In the second report, for instance, boundaries are re-crossed as part of S/Paul’s attempt to affiliate himself with the Jewish pilgrims. For example, the negative implications of S/Paul’s blindness as part of the liminal phase of his transformation are re-interpreted as a mark of special access to the divine (22:11). Furthermore, his claims to status and authority are those that originate from the old group (22:3); they have not been discarded in the ritual process. This paper will also suggest that the process of transformation of status and boundary crossing continues as S/Paul re-tells his experience. While his reports fail to convince his immediate audience, it is through these rejections that his solidarity with the Christian believers is fully established. He embodies within himself the group as a whole, and his personal defence becomes an apologetic on behalf of the wider Christian community. We find that the idea of evocation of memory within ritual is turned on its head as it is through a process of recalling the memory of the ritual itself that Luke’s Paul finally finds his place as a representative of the Christian community.

This paper introduces some of the psychoanalytic theories of Christopher Bollas to the SBL community, and offers practical applications to our work with the bible. Bollas argues that 'to be' and 'to appropriate' are the same thing. The idiomatic way we experience and live out our true self is synonymous with the way we appropriate ‘objects’ (both the human and cultural kinds). Each person’s object relations are quite idiomatic and constitute no less than the expression of the true self. Bollas coins a term: destiny drive. He says the destiny drive is the inherent instinct we have to live out our idiom. And since our use of objects IS the way we live, it is vitally important that our idiomatic ways of relating to objects are nurtured from the earliest age. We need this proper handling for our destiny drive to 'kick in'. With a knowledge of how important it is to help a child discover his own idiom of relating to the world, religious educators can make learning what each child’s idiom is the first step in their work. And *then* they can offer each child the bible *in such a way* that each can relate with the bible as the child’s inner nature guides them to do. In this way the bible is ‘unlocked’ to be what we know it can be and what Bollas speaks of: a transformational object. In idiomatic relationship with the bible, a child can grow into an adult, discovering and living out her or his destiny. Bollas points us to the dialectic nature of our relationship with objects. As we choose and use them, both they and we are transformed. This paper also explores the significance of this dialectic for the way pastors ‘preach’ the bible and the way we as scholars approach it.

This presentation will discuss two projects that should flow out of the Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP). The first considers the need for a comprehensive digital database of Ethiopic manuscript images, including images from collections beyond those of the EMIP. The second describes work that we are already doing to analyze typologies and historical developments in Ethiopic scribal practices.

The central character within the Hebrew Bible is God. Who was this "God" for the ancient Israelite community, and how are communities of faith today to make sense of Israel's God? This paper explores the writings of the prophets in relation to God and the rhetoric of metaphor. The paper considers the theological implications of how God is portrayed in various prophetic texts and brings into conversation the recent work of Julia O'Brien (Challenging Prophetic Metaphor: Theology and Ideology in the Prophets, 2008), Carleen Mandolofo (Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets, 2007), and Eric Seibert (Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God, 2009).

Since the issue of righteousness is essential for group identification, the long-noted emphasis of Matthew on a new form of righteousness, one that exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes, may play a fundamental role in forming a new group identity for the community and constitute an element in "the birth of Christianity," as it differentiates the group from Jewish communities with particular attention to its practice of Torah in line with cultural situation. While often noted as a polemic directed towards rising Formative Judaism, the use of the Pharisees as the advocates of another righteousness also seems to oppose the influence of Jews among the Jesus following-Christ-worshippers in Matthew's community, countering their interpretation of the Law and the Prophets. This occurs through critiquing the Pharisees on issues involved in the Matthean community, as well as his presentation of them furthering their teaching, potentially within the community. Matthew responds to their endeavors through this polemic by showing the destructiveness of their teaching, as they prevent entrance into the kingdom and lead people to judgment. Furthermore, he associates them with the Jewish leaders who helped cause the death of Jesus, as they too distort the truth and elevate themselves; thus, their ideas correspond to Jewish groups and not Jesus, making his community a non-Jewish one. In contraposition, Matthew constructs a "new" form of righteousness based on the person of Jesus, as the Matthean Jesus teaches the true meaning of the Law and the Prophets. Therefore, Matthew lays claim to the Old Testament, demonstrating that the community has an ancient standard of righteousness, while also dissociating them from "mainstream Judaism" and grounding their identity in Jesus Christ and his teaching of righteousness. Thus, this gospel may help provide the "how" and the "why" of ideas that would later become characteristic of "mainstream Christianity."

The prominence of the language of “patient endurance” (makrothymia, hypomone) in James 5:7-11, thematic also throughout T. Job 1-27, together with the explicit mention of Job as exemplary in this regard, typically invite some comparison between the two texts. The connections between the passages, however, are more intricate than scholars usually discern. The passage from James is a well-constructed argument promoting the virtue of endurance, specifically with an eye to God’s future intervention, as in the Testament. Job’s example serves directly to support the call to “patiently endure” (Jas 5:7), as it does in Job’s commendation of this virtue to his children (T. Job 27:7). James adds a rationale to explain the cause of the happy outcome of Job’s endurance: “because the Lord is very sympathetic and compassionate” (Jas 5:11), qualities of God that also promote endurance in T. Job. 26.4-6. Both – and, as far as I can tell, only – James and the Testament invoke these qualities of God specifically as a rationale for endurance and an assurance of the better consequences that attend endurance in connection with Job’s story. James and Testament of Job, unlike canonical Job, do not raise the problem of suffering without knowing why. Both texts prepare readers to interpret sufferings and challenges as “trials” by means of which virtue can be tested, proven, and eventually rewarded, even crowned with victory (Jas 1:12; T. Job 4:10). This fundamental orientation runs throughout both texts. While the difficulties arriving at consensus regarding the date of Testament of Job give one pause in arguing for direct literary dependency, the linguistic, rhetorical, and thematic connections between James and the Testament suggest some kind of close relationship between the two documents, with the former presupposing the traditions expressed – and the formulations in which they are expressed – of the latter.

When, where and on which grounds can Early Christianity be considered to be autonomous from Judaism, or from one of the various Judaic tendencies of their time? Two or more religious systems can be considered autonomous if they are rooted in different social groups, and experience separate religious practices and worldviews. A Christian community should be considered distinct from Judaism when it consciously differentiates itself in all these three fundamental elements.

Since the discovery of RIH 78/20 (=KTU 1.169) at Ras Ibn Hani in 1978, many have worked on the text. Indeed, at least a dozen scholars have published translations of it, many of these differing in their understanding of precisely what the text describes. Despite this diversity in opinion, the current general consensus is that it is a Ugaritic incantation designed to treat an individual who has been afflicted by a demon (or demons) resulting in an “affliction of the penis.” Most scholars understand this “affliction” as sexual impotence. A cultic officiant presided over the ceremony to treat the malady, speaking the effective words of the incantation and probably performing ritual actions described in the text. Although it has a clear utilitarian function, the incantation is composed in a poetic style, making heavy use of parallelism and figurative language. Building on the work of previous scholars, this study suggests a new understanding of several key portions of the text. Most significantly, this paper argues that the victim was not suffering from sexual impotence but rather from a sexually transmitted disease. Further, it demonstrates that the incantation explicitly describes the symptoms of the disease, including fever, chills, and penile discharge. In addition to presenting a new edition of the text to support this argument, this study turns to other ancient texts, especially Greek and Egyptian medical texts, in order to demonstrate the existence of such a disease in the ancient world. Finally, in order to justify labeling the disease “gonorrhea” this paper compares the symptoms described in the text to those of the modern disease bearing same name.

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Judges 9 recounts a brutal tale of fratricide, demagoguery, and retribution. When Gideon dies, a power struggle ensues as his concubine’s son Abimelech garners the support of his maternal kin and the Shechemite elite and kills his 70 half-brothers to become the sole leader of Shechem. Wholesale slaughter results as his right to rule is later contested, apparently also on the basis of lineage. Ultimately, the challenge to his authority, and the subsequent deaths of Abimelech and his supporters, is described as being incited by the deity as retribution for their evil actions. Based upon a reading of the final form of the Abimelech narrative, this paper explores the bases for establishing the legitimacy of political authority by considering the relationship between kingship and kinship, the effect of violence directed both outside and within the social group, and the role of religious belief and practice. Utilizing narrative analysis and a sociological methodology that draws on understandings of kinship-based social organization and concepts drawn from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the text will be interrogated in the follow ways: What conditions or actions establish or undermine the legitimacy of authority? How does rhetoric advance or denigrate each character’s authority? What might consideration of the political and religious fields and their concomitant forms of capital reveal about the social realities behind the story? How does Bourdieu’s concept of doxa influence appraisal of the text’s messages?

This paper is an attempt to read the narratives recounting the fate of Saul’s bones in 1Sam 31:1-13 and 2Sam 21:1-14 in light of what is known about heroic relics—specifically the bones of the hero—and the politics of hero cults in the western Iron Age Mediterranean. Specifically, I attempt to draw together several lines of thought regarding the existence of an Israelite “heroic culture” and “heroic age” that parallel similar developments in ancient Greece and elsewhere, and I argue that Saul’s status as an Israelite “hero” is an appropriate and hitherto underexplored lens through which to explore the meaning and power of Saul’s dead body. First, I review Greek concepts regarding the battle for the body of the hero and briefly demonstrate the notion that divine favor is bestowed upon the possessor of the heroic body as an important part of Greek hero cult, evident in the movement of Theseus’ bones from Skyros to Athens (recorded in Plutarch’s Life of Theseus) and the transfer of Orestes’ bones from Tegea to Sparta (in Herodotus’ Histories), as well as the religious dynamics evident in Oedipus at Colonus, among many other examples. Second, I explore the biblical passages regarding Saul’s death and bone transferal with specific attention to the religio-political drama culminating in the burial of Saul’s body in his home territory of Benjamin, only after which a deadly conflict is settled and a famine ended. The attention given to the power of the bones and the dead body in this biblical account is, I argue, analogous to certain Greek accounts in important and revealing ways, as both contexts reveal situations in which the location of a hero’s body has significant implications for either blessing or disaster for the possessors of that body.

Jewish letters have often been studied within the boundaries of individual language corpora: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. However, as the Bar Kokhba letters show, this linguistic separation is not useful, since here all three languages were employed, and some of the addressees even received letters in any of these. Another problem with the corpus approach is the gap in documentary letter finds in Hebrew between the 6th century BCE and the Bar Kokhba revolt and in Aramaic between the 3rd century BCE and the first Jewish revolt. Have Hebrew and Aramaic letter writing had to be re-invented? This paper argues (1) that letters in the literary tradition of Second Temple Judaism (particularly in Ezra and Daniel MT, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the ‘Septuagint’ as well as other Greek versions) are important witnesses for an epistolary praxis in Aramaic and perhaps in Hebrew; (2) that some of the evidence for this comes from letters preserved only in Greek translation; and (3) that some features of literary letters benefitted either from crossing language boundaries proper or from linguistic cross-fertilisation. Among these are the deployment of the letter as a literary macro-form (see Epistle of Jeremiah, later: Second Baruch) and the shape and semantic potential of epistolary formulae. What is required, thus, is an ‘inter-corpus’, cultural approach to ancient Jewish letter writing. Such an approach will also pay attention to the frequent use of letters to address communities rather than individuals.

Approximately 2.7 million people were infected with HIV in 2008, with 1.9 million of them living in sub-Saharan Africa. Among the available or potential preventative interventions-- including microbicides, postexposure prophylaxis, condom distribution, and vaccines -- one of the most effective is male circumcision (MC). Three large randomized controlled trials have shown that MC reduces the risk of HIV transmission among heterosexual males by about 60%. Yet in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where the burden of the HIV/AIDS crisis is greatest, the level of acceptability and rates of practice of MC are quite low. In the Mwanza region of NW Tanzania, for example, less than 20% of Christian adolescent males are circumcised. Many factors contribute to the low rates of MC among Christian males in this region, including tribal practices (i.e., the Sukuma people, the dominant tribe in the region, are traditionally non-circumcising), religious identities (i.e., Muslim males in the region are circumcised at much higher rates), and the fact that the medical procedure is not readily available in the area’s hospitals and health care centers. Moreover, claims that the Bible— particularly the Apostle Paul— prohibits circumcision for Christian males also figure prominently in the low rates of MC in NW Tanzania. Drawing on recent work on the Pauline writings that has emphasized the apocalyptic dimensions of the new eschatological community created in Christ (e.g., J. Louis Martyn, Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul [Abingdon, 1997]; Love Sechrest, A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race [T&T Clark, 2009]), this paper will explore the possibility of a contextual and theological reading of Galatians in light of MC as a public health issue.

For most Western scholars working in the historical critical tradition, and indeed for most Western Christians, the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-18 is of little interest. The main point of contestation is whether it has any historical credibility and whether it can be reconciled with the genealogy in Luke 3:23-38. However, for African readers, for whom the role of the ancestors is of crucial theological significance, this passage can play a key role in the interpretation of the Gospel. Matthew seems to affirm the importance of biological ancestors for a theological understanding of Jesus, and yet subtle yet significant signals in the genealogy simultaneously challenges it. This ambivalence recurs in the passage in Matthew 22:23-46. On the one hand, Jesus makes the “living dead” ancestors of Israel the pivot point of his argument for the resurrection of the dead (22:31-33). On the other hand, the Davidic ancestry of Jesus, which is the guiding principle of the genealogy, is problematized in 22:41-46. This simultaneous affirmation of the importance of the ancestors and the problematization of their importance for understanding who Jesus is, signals that ancestors are important for understanding Matthew’s Christology and opens up a fruitful narrative gap for an African contextual reading of the text.

The only piece of extra-biblical evidence regarding Shalmaneser’s conquest of Samaria is preserved in Neo-Babylonian Chronicle 1 (BM 92502). This tablet reports that Shalmaneser destroyed the city URU.šá-ma/ba-ra-‘-in. Some Assyrologists, however, have hesitated to identify this city with Samaria. The reasons proposed are twofold: first, the handwriting of the scribe is unclear and therefore the third sign can be either ma or ba; second, the spelling of Samaria in this tablet is different from the spelling used in other Akkadian sources. Despite these problems, many modern historians use Chronicle 1 for the reconstruction of the fall of the Northern Kingdom. In this paper I will present a detailed analysis of the cuneiform signs based on enhanced digital photography of tablet BM 92502, which can help us to resolve the question of whether the city mentioned in this tablet can be identified with the city of Samaria.

The paper pinpoints three questions related to the use of the Gospel of John as a potential source for the historical Jesus, and reviews how these questions have been addressed in the John, Jesus, and History Project (JJH) thus far: 1) The figure of "the beloved disciple," not mentioned in the synoptic gospels, appears in John in passages that have clear synoptic parallels. It has even been suggested that these passages in John are dependent on the synoptic gospels (Neirynck, Thyen, Kügler etc.). How does the alternative perspective emerging from the JJH respond to this view? How does it explain the absence of the beloved disciple in the synoptic parallels? And what does this perspective make of the fact that we find similar figures of authentication in other early Christian gospels and revelation dialogues? 2) How does the new perspective explain Jesus' secret dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3, where scholars have previously detected strong affinities with Hermetic traditions? 3) If the new perspective allows for the possibility that the Gospel of John, in spite of all the differences to the Synoptics, can be a reliable source of the historical Jesus, what should we make of the other "different" gospels (of Thomas, Judas, Mary etc.)? It would seem a natural consequence of the new perspective that the potential value of (some of) these other early Christian texts as witnesses to the historical Jesus should be taken more seriously than before. Is JJH willing to go into that direction, or does it play a role that the Gospel of John is in the canon, while the other "different" gospels are not?

The proposed paper examines the placement and significance of sexual difference in Alain Badiou’s philosophical reappraisal of Paul (Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism). Feminist scholars (McNulty 2005; Hollywood 2009) have noted the attempt to neutralize/eliminate “the feminine as such” that is at work in Badiou’s reading of Paul. Building on this scholarship, I argue that this aspect of Badiou’s project—while undeniably operative and deeply problematic—is not nearly so stable or successful as the streamlined conclusions of Saint Paul would initially suggest. To this end, my analysis explores how Badiou situates his putatively universal Pauline subject in relation to four epistemological configurations (or “discourses”): the Greek, the Jewish, the Christian, and the mystical. Here Badiou is most explicitly interested in the first three discourses—and the way in which the radicality of the Christian discourse, born out of the event, refuses the terms of both the Greek and the Jewish discourses to make way for (what is claimed to be) an absolutely new form of subjectivity. But Badiou also acknowledges that a fourth discourse (mysticism) is necessary, if only to mark the margin of the valorized third discourse. However, he consistently rejects any further endorsement of the fourth discourse. What then is at stake in this thoroughgoing dismissal of the mystical? My analysis highlights the unacknowledged/disavowed gendering of the mystical at work in Badiou’s treatment of the fourth discourse—a discourse that is both always necessary and always refused in relation to the Christian discourse. In this way, I argue, the coherence, fixity, and finality of Badiou’s “universal” (and ostensibly non-gendered) Pauline subject are called into question, insofar as the specter of the feminine irresolvably and ineluctably haunts it very conditions of possibility.

In 1 Corinthians 9:5, Paul claims that he would have the right to take a wife, as some other apostles had done – including Peter (Cephas). However, he had not done so (1 Cor 7:8), in order to keep himself free to pursue his mission. Paul’s statements about Peter and himself on the issue of marriage may seem fairly clear, but they were not so for many commentators of the patristic period. The marital status of both apostles was up for debate. In the case of Paul, was the "true yokefellow" of Philippians 4:3 his wife, or was she merely a companion in ministry? And for Peter, did the mention of his "penthera" in Mark 1:30 and parallels necessarily mean that he was married? A Syriac fragment ascribed to Epiphanius not only claims that both were married, but even gives the names of their wives. In this paper I will examine this fragment within the context of patristic debates about the apostolic biographies. I will then place this text, which I take as pseudepigraphical, within the broader context of Syriac commentary and historiography in the late antique and early medieval periods.

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The intertextual relations between Joshua 9 and the book of Deuteronomy raises methodological issues when examining how the book of Deuteronomy was shaped and redactionally expanded in order to fit into larger literary contexts. The story of the Gibeonite treaty shares various expressions and themes with sections in Deuteronomy that are generally assigned to late redaction (e.g., Deut 7:1-6, 20:15-18, 29: 4-5, 10, 21). At the same time, it is clear that the Gibeonite story too has undergone revision and overwriting. This paper will explore the directions of interaction between Deuteronomy and Joshua 9 in their different stages of growth, and examine how this intertextuality acted to integrate Deuteronomy within differing narrative frameworks, namely the Deuteronomistic History on the one side, and the Hexateuch on the other.

The present scholarly consensus considers the audience of 1 Peter to be composed of Gentile Christians. This paper will briefly examine the loci classici which support this consensus: 1 Pet 1:14, 18; 2:10, 25; 4:3-4. I propose that we cannot actually learn the ethnic identity of the audience by “mirror reading” this epistle since we begin by providing our own interpretive framework rather than deriving evidence from these texts. Taking up an interpretive strategy outlined by Richard Bauckham, it is proposed that the best way to understand the audience of 1 Peter is as Christians from all walks of life.

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The image of a sacrificial meal has been reworked in a creative way in several passages in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. This study focuses especially on two such texts: Ezek 39:17-20 and Zeph 1:7-8. Despite differences in details, these two passages have one thing in common: they announce, or send out invitations to, a feast of an extraordinary kind, arranged by YHWH himself. The depictions are, quite obviously, non-literal. However, based on the assumption that metaphor always relates to some kind of familiar reality, this paper represents an attempt to answer the following questions: To what extent do these imaginative, metaphorical depictions reflect real commensality, that is: notions and practices associated with real sacrificial meals in ancient Israel and Judah? In which way, and for what purpose, have traditional ingredients in such feasts been re-used, reworked or even reversed by the biblical writers? In a first step, I will examine biblical and extrabiblical texts, as well as iconographic material from the Ancient Near East, in order to trace the background of various features of these prophetic visions. Next, I will present an analysis of the metaphorical re-shaping of the motif of YHWH’s sacrificial feast. Finally, I will address the question of the rhetorical function of these texts. How did they relate to the reality experienced by their contemporary audience?

This paper seeks to clarify the identity of the crowds in the passion narrative in three scenes: 1) the triumphal entry preceding the passion narrative; 2) the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane; and 3) the scene immediately following Jesus’ trial before Pilate, in which the crowd cries for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus. The three synoptic gospels are examined along with John’s gospel to determine if each gospel portrays the identity of the crowd in similar or significantly different ways, and if the identity of the crowd remains constant in the three scenes throughout each gospel. If the same crowd shouts "Hosanna" at the triumphal entry and then "Crucify" at the trial scene, do the gospels try to explain what has caused the shift? Also, who precisely are the crowds who cry for Jesus’ crucifixion? The identity of the crowds in the gospels can be read at several different levels: in terms of historical identity (who was “really” historically present in the various scenes); at the narrative level (in the world of the text itself); or at a symbolic level (who are the crowds meant to represent for the composer or reader of the gospel). This paper concentrates on the narrative level of the crowd’s identity. This exploration of the identity of the crowds seeks to clarify how the gospels portray the role that the crowds (and by implication, the Jewish people and/or Jewish authorities) played in the final days of Jesus’ life and his eventual crucifixion.

The Dead Sea Scrolls as well as The Book of Adam and Eve and the Books of Enoch preserved many mythical and mystical traditions about the atoning incense. The lecture will discuss the priestly nature of these traditions that associated incense with divine fragrance originated in the Garden of Eden, as well as with angels, sacred altars and with eternal cycles of holy time. I will argue that these mythic-mystical priestly traditions demonstrate an alternative memory and represent a struggle on ritual authority that took place in the wake of the biblical world, in the Hasmonean period, on holy time holy, place and holy ritual .

This paper will consider the implications of the science of memory for biblical studies.

A paper honoring the exegetical work of Eldon Jay Epp.

Diagnosing an Allergic Reaction: Marxist Criticism in the Interpretation of Paul Marxist criticism of the Bible has been rare. From the start, Marxist interpretation was hindered by theological and ecclesiastical interests. But more recently, within social-scientific and cultural interpretations, scholars have proposed models that appear studiously to ignore economic class in their analyses. It is therefore possible to describe what Steven Friesen has called a "capitalist criticism" of the New Testament; to name areas in the study of Paul where this criticism has hindered progress; and to outline an alternative approach to Paul in terms of ideology and ideological constraint.

The paper argues – following Francis Watson (1987) and Gitte Buch-Hansen (Copenhagen Ph.D. diss. 2007, soon to be published by de Gruyter) – for a very close connection between John 1:14 and 1:32-33: “the union of the Logos … with Jesus of Nazareth took place in the descent of the Spirit at his Baptism” (Watson). This union should be understood in the light of the Stoic cosmology of the Pneuma (Buch-Hansen). In particular, Logos and Pneuma are two sides (a cognitive and a physical one) of the very same thing, just as Pneuma is understood in Stoicism. When this entity comes to “remain on” the earthly Jesus (= when the Logos “becomes” flesh), Jesus becomes the Christ. Only as such will he have been with God in the beginning. The paper explains this conception by analysing the ties between the Prologue and the Baptist’s witness to Jesus’ baptism later in chapter 1 and then goes on to analyse chapters 3 and 6 in order to show that a Stoic-like understanding of the Johannine Pneuma will solve issues of epistemology in chapter 3 and ontology in chapter 6. This result is taken to support the same understanding of Logos and Pneuma in chapter 1. The paper argues more broadly for three methodological approaches to be adopted in Johannine interpretation: (a) John has a cosmology which is concrete and immediately intelligible. (It is not all “symbolism”, “imagery”, “metaphor”, “poetry” and “myth”.) (b) John must be read over longer stretches (e.g. complete chapters) as aiming to dissolve philosophical puzzles that are presented to begin with. (c) John must be torn away from the usual, Platonizing perspective within which he is normally read (if he is at all read from a philosophical perspective). A Stoicizing perspective is better able to account for the incarnation.

Printed Bibles often present explicitly stated purposes and ideologies in the paratextual material, i.e. the introduction, preface, and explanatory notes. In Children's Bibles this is even more common. Focussing on English Children's Bibles and retellings, this paper will present an analysis of the types of paratextual material in the books. Items discussed will include confessional letters of approval, educational guidelines for parents and teachers, and material aimed at the children themselves. Such elements include glossaries, maps, and questions like: "What things do people do which you think are wicked and evil?" (Mary Auld, Noah's Ark, 1999, 31). The paper will present patterns in the types of material, including how they have changed, for example, the decrease in explicitly Christian introductions and the increase in culturally sensitive ones, such as "A Child's First Bible was written with respect for Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish biblical and religious traditions." (Sandol Stoddard, 1991, 5r). Questions will be raised as to the (explicit and implied) ideologies of the material and how they may affect the manner in which the (Children's-)Bibles are read, understood, and used.

S. An-ski’s Yiddish play The Dybbuk and Waszinski’s film adaptation thereof (1937) have been described as Jewish versions of Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, or Tristan and Isolde. Given that a musical rendition of the Song of Songs figures prominently in both play and film, why does Khonen and Leah’s unconsummated (albeit lethal) game of lovers’ hide-and-seek not prompt comparisons with the Song’s tale of love? Readers’ utopic pigeonholing of the biblical love ‘story’ may explain this myopia. But Fiona Black’s depiction of grotesque bodies in the Song (2008) and their evocation of love’s darker dynamics (eg. “death of the [pre-amatory] self ... the quest for possession, envy, perhaps even repulsion” [236]) provides a heuristic that allows: 1) the construction of untapped structural homologies between the film and the biblical text; the discomfiting transposition of the lovers’ quest to a shtetl cemetery, flanked by a rabbinical court full of watchmen, and funneled through proto-horror-film special effects translates the Song’s grotesque content and stylistic devices into popular Yiddish film/theatre conventions of the 1930s; 2) a new, intertextual reading of the film’s “Hasidic grotesque” elements (cf. Hoberman), especially the demonic possession of Leah by Khonen; Leah’s bartered, possessed, exorcised, excommunicated, and ultimately dead body--musically framed by the Song itself—somatically extends Black’s (and the Song’s) exploration of love’s thanato-erotic conflicts in extremis; 3) a resistant reading of the film’s beautifully lyrical Shir hashirim as a grotesque musical body, charged with positive and negative identificatory valences at several intertextual levels. This more dissonant configuration is produced with help from theories of film spectatorship, and a recontextualisation of the film’s music within the broader, semiotically fraught and gendered politics of representation in which Jewish self-definition constantly negotiated anti-Semitic caricatures of Jewish actors as doubly “dissembling and gender dysfunctional” (cf. Solomon, Re-Dressing the Canon, ch.4, 98).

According to Lev 6:11 (6:18ET), the female offspring of the Aaronite family is not allowed to eat from the priestly portions of the grain offering. However, the phrase “every male among the sons of Aaron” is intriguing and necessitates scrutinizing all occurrences of Hebrew banim in genitive constructions. Where is female offspring included, where is it excluded? A closer look at the sacrificial instructions in Leviticus 1 – 7 reveals gaps and ambiguities in the descriptions. It is often unclear who has to perform specific actions. Thus this paper aims at investigating the identity of those involved in performing sacrifices and eating sacrificial portions and the role gender plays in it.

This paper analyzes the placement of 1 Enoch and Jubilees in Ethiopic manuscripts and canon lists on the basis of various chronological and corpus-based considerations, both with a view towards its location relative to other documents as well as, at a more fundamental level, its existential ratio in the literature.

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus convinces John to baptize him with the famously elusive words: "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” This paper draws on the echo of Isaiah 42 in Matthew 3:17 to argue that Jesus' baptism is a metonymic presaging of the whole of his identity and mission, and that this is the sense in which it fulfills all righteousness. The theophany following the baptism glorifies the self-effacement of the Christ using the words of Isaiah 42:1-4 which describe the humble child of God who will bring krisis to victory through meekness. Matthew continues to develop this theme in the context surrounding the explicit citation of Isaiah 42 in chapter 12, as well as in the transfiguration, and the passion narrative.

The Books of Jeu of the Bruce Codex contain a plethora of examples of formulae for an initiate to pass through different areas of the divine realm. One of the most interesting features, however, is the set of detailed instructions found in the 'Second Book of Jeu' for three baptisms a soul must receive before embarking on this heavenly journey. This paper will examine the various elements comprising these three baptismal rituals of water, fire, and Holy Spirit, as well as the immediately following, related ritual to remove the “evil of the archons.” It will explore the nature and use of the variety of plants used in the offerings, and discuss the purpose of the seals used before and after the rituals and the number-ciphers held in the hands of those being baptized. Furthermore an analysis of the prayers spoken by the officiant of the rituals will be undertaken, as well as the use of glossolalia, mystery names and divine intermediaries. The author of the text in question is clearly influenced by a strong magical ritual tradition, utilizing a wide assortment of elements in a repeated, but varied, ritual context. The aim is to achieve the intangible result of purification of the initiate’s soul. Although later texts belonging to the same milieu of thought reduce the complexity and importance of baptismal rituals, the detailed record of the complex rituals preserved in the 'Second Book of Jeu' is an invaluable resource in the study of Egyptian Christian-Gnostic mystery ritual tradition.

One dialectical peculiarity of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is the gemination of nun. This may be seen in such nouns as ’yntt’ and in such pronouns as ’nt. Additionally, imperfect verbs may also succumb to gemination in PsJ (e.g. ’ynd‘, thn‘yl). The specific inquiry of this paper concerns the non-assimilation of PSJ’s pe-nun verbs. Though one does find a number of non-assimilating form ins other Aramaic dialects (e.g. biblical Aramaic or the Bavli), the number of exclusively non-assimilating pe-nun forms is far greater. Within PsJ, most pe-nun verbs assimilate (some invariably), a few assimilate inconsistently, and others never assimilate. Is there a rhyme and reason to such variation? This paper seeks to present an analysis of the relevant pe-nun forms and attempt to explain this dialectal peculiarity.

This is an exploration of conflicting positions of translation as a religious practice and translation as a practice of historical scholarship. In the act of translation, discourses are imported (immigration) or exported (emigration) from/to other non-identical discourses. However, translators and scholars of the New Testament are frequently confronted with the fact that concepts and categories in the source language (Greek) simply do not exist in the target language (English). The opposite is true as often: concepts and words in the target language (English) do not exist in the source (Greek). To compensate, these semantic voids are often “filled in” by translators with target-language ideas in order to render the New Testament more amenable to modern devotional audiences. While devotional appeal may be desired in some arenas, such “filling in” often entails ideological and theological choices that effect academic inquiry. The goal for the scholar of early Christianity or New Testament studies is not to generate followers of Jesus; nor is it to project onto the ancient texts proof of moral or religious truth claims which developed long after the source texts were written. Yet, scholars of early Christianity frequently utilize theologically-inflected translations—a practice which inevitably insinuates anachronistic ideas into theologically disinterested scholarship. Thus, this paper aims to unite the theoretical and practical implications of (mis)translating key concepts in the New Testament, and seeks to redress the dilemma of one practice (theology) determining the conclusions of another practice (historical scholarship).

Most Bible teaching in Africa takes place within the context of seminaries and confessional colleges of theology where the Bible is regarded as Scripture and normative for doctrine and life. Paradoxically, most of this teaching is done by scholars who have been educated in Western universities where the Bible is regarded mostly as ancient literature without much reference to its normative use by groups of believers. This paradox creates an epistemological gap between the teaching goals of teachers and the learning expectations of students. This paper is an attempt to highlight the problematic and bring it to the attention of stakeholders in African biblical scholarship. The aim is to set in motion a dialogue with a view to a possible amelioration of the situation.

My paper describes the text-critical relationship between the Gothic New Testament - translated by Wulfila in the mid-fourth century, in Moesia Inferior (modern North Bulgaria) - and the Byzantine text. The Gothic version is very close to the Byzantine text. This is not surprising, because Wulfila’s relationships with the Church of Constantinople are well known and his Vorlage probably came from there. But it is surprising that the Gothic and the Byzantine text are more closely related in the Gospels than in the Epistles, where numerous non-Byzantine variants are transmitted. The reason for such divergence has been a long-standing puzzle: some scholars of the previous century considered the non-Byzantine readings to be post-Wulfilian, introduced into the Gothic version through the influence of the Vetus Latina, after the Gothic settlement in Italy (486). This thesis agreed with a consensus in the New Testament criticism of the period, that the Byzantine text was already formed at the end of the third century/start of the fourth century. However, the theoretical framework has now changed: the most recent theories concerning the formation of the Byzantine text view it as the result of a progressive textual development. This framework provides a new perspective on how to evaluate both the high percentage of Byzantine readings in the Gothic Gospels and the lower percentage of Byzantine readings in the Gothic Pauline Epistles. My paper argues that the Gothic text would reflect the stage of development of the Koine in the mid-fourth century, which was more advanced in the Gospels than in the Epistles. Many non-Byzantine readings (among them many shared with ,Western‘ witnesses) were probably pre-Byzantine variants, already present in Wulfila’s Vorlage.

The Thessalonian epistles deserve more attention in the rendering of Pauline theo-politics. 2 Thessalonians, in particular, has been marginalized not only because of uncertainty about its date and authorship, but because of its blunt statements about retributive justice in the form of divine vengeance upon those who oppress Christians. What appears in that letter, however, is the foundation for a highly nuanced theology of history that takes into account the dialectical relation between the gospel’s restraining and enabling of evil, the maturing of which is otherwise impossible. This process of maturation is presented as the condition of possibility for the exercise of divine justice at the parousia, but also as a warning to Christians respecting premature judgments of their political and historical situation. An exegetical sketch of the salient parts of this letter will be offered in support of a broadly Pauline political theology that at once incorporates and transcends later Irenaean and Augustinian elements. Some attempt will also be made to broach related issues in a theology of law and lawlessness.

Hurrian and Hittite inhabitants of southern Anatolia in the 14th- 13th centuries B.C.E. practiced a blood rite called the zurki, which closely resembles the Biblical sin offering. In both Anatolia and Israel, the rite consists of smearing blood on an object, frequently cultic, as a means of removing metaphysical threats, such as sin and impurity, which may otherwise evoke divine retribution. The Hurro-Hittite zurki rite was regularly accompanied by an offering of cooked fat, often from the same animal, called the uzi rite. This practice is strikingly similar to the sin offering which involved the burning of its fat on the altar as a “pleasing aroma to YHWH” (Lev. 4, 31). Moreover, the underlying dynamic of both the Hittite and Israelite rituals is a form of metonymy, where the ritual patron is absolved by association with the object. Finally, the rituals are performed in nearly identical circumstances, including expiation for unintentional sin, purification of a defiled temple and the consecration of a new cult structure. These striking parallels among the Hittites and Israelites raise the possibility of a historical link, direct or indirect, between the two cultures. In order to establish the uniqueness of the Hittite and Biblical rites, they are compared to rituals from other ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, where blood is used differently, namely as an offering to chthonic deities. A notable exception is the zukru festival from Emar which also features a very similar blood rite and thus may pertain to the same tradition as the Hittite and Biblical rite. In conclusion, I explore possible historical contexts for the transmission of this ritual tradition, paying particular attention to the exchange of rituals between Hurrians and Semites as reflected in the ritual corpus from Ugarit.

Despite the existence of the Old Syriac and Peshita Versions of the New Testament, Philoxenus asked Polycarp for a new Syriac translation. In 508 A.D., they produced what is known today as the Philoxenian. A more faithful translation of the Greek New Testament was necessary in order for Philoxenus to enter into dialogue with the Chalcedonian Church. The objectives of this paper are to present the reasons behind Philoxenus' request for the new translation and the outcome of this attempt.

The composition of the story of Dinah and Shechem (Gen 34) has been a subject of debate since the time of Wellhausen. The story has also naturally attracted the attention of feminist critics, who have noted that the narrative portrays conflicts between groups of men in terms of concerns about female sexual purity. Scholars interested in the portrayal of sex and gender in the story, however, have rarely seriously engaged with the question of the story’s composition. This paper will examine some of the major hypotheses on the composition of Genesis 34 and their implications for understanding the character of Dinah and her role in the narrative. I will argue that the literary problems in the narrative are best resolved by means of text criticism rather than source criticism, and I will discuss the implications of this view for understanding the ideas of sexual violation and pollution in biblical Israel.

In early 20th century biblical scholarship—exemplified by William F. Albright and others—it was common to see, in Joseph's rescue from "symbolic 'death'" at the pit at Dotham and subsequent rise to rescue Egypt from famine, parallels to Ancient Near Eastern "dying-and-rising" gods, whose stories functioned as aetiologies for seasonal fluctuation, and cycles of famine and fecundity. Although many of the more questionable aspects of these theories have been abandoned, there remain scholars who still see hints of such "high mythology" in the Joseph story. Despite this, however, there has not been a study of the continued influence of older theories on modern scholarship, or of newer proposals. In this paper, I will review the status quaestionis in this respect, and suggest that we can detect a connected "cycle" that runs throughout Gen. 41-50, relating to Joseph's "rescue" or "preservation" of the Egyptian produce before the years of famine. This narrative is typologically similar to certain ANE cycles and, specifically, displays similarities with some prominent motifs from Egyptian literature. Significantly, this paper will reopen the currently "dormant" investigation of the enigmatic title bestowed upon Joseph by Pharaoh in Gen. 41.45.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ECONOMY SECTION: Scholars of classical history are going through a revolution in their thinking about the ancient economy. In particular, they are debating the usefulness of Moses Finley’s assumptions and methods for understanding and researching the Greco-Roman world. Those studying the economy of Galilee in the late second temple period are also involved in this debate but often not aware of its counterpart among classical scholarship. This paper will highlight three areas of disagreement in the study of the economy of the Roman Empire which also play a role in the current debate over the historical Galilee: 1) How useful are (socio-)economic models? Do they tend to ignore hard evidence, working deductively or can one use them alongside the data? 2) Should we discard Finley’s “primitivist” (non-market) understanding of the ancient economy in favor of the “modernist” understanding which teaches that modern capitalistic economies differ from the ancient ones only in quantity? 3) Should we discard Finley’s “substantivist” view of the role of status and civic ideology in the economy and accept the “formalist” view which holds that economic decisions were separate from social ones? I hope to present a more balanced approach to this study which avoids polarities and listens to multiple voices and one which still finds a place for Finley in the investigation.

Josephus describes Bezalel, the builder of the biblical tabernacle, as a master arkhitektôn, as a nephew of Moses, as a peer of Oholiab, and as a respected figure (Antiquities 3.104-6). Whiston and Thackeray translate arkhitektôn as "architect" throughout Josephus' oeuvre, where pairs of arkhitéktonas appear on four separate occasions. In this paper I will trace Josephus' usage of the term arkhitektôn to describe Bezalel back to LXX Ex. 31:3-4, 21, where the verb arkhitektoneô is applied to the biblical “architects.” I will then set Josephus’ Bezalel and Oholiab within the contexts of the other Josephan arkhitéktonas. Finally, I will interpret the Josephan "architects" within the larger contexts of “architects” in Roman and Jewish literature, epigraphy and visual culture. I will suggest that Josephus construed Bezalel and Oholiab as upper tier Roman “architects,” taking his cue from the Septuagint usage and from the fact that Bezalel is called “by name” in Scripture.In the process of regularizing Bezalel and Oholiab to this Roman profession, Josephus relieves Bezalel of his Scripturally-ordained gifts of “wisdom”,” “understanding” and “knowledge.” Thus he both protects the uniqueness of Moses, and avoids any comparison of Bezalel with Greco-Roman craftsmen gods such as Daedalus and the Punic Kothar wa-Hassis.

There are a couple of instances Emperor Julian comments on a Jewish practice of incubation: In Against the Galileans 339E, Julian castigates a Christian practice of incubation, which he claims stems from an Israelite tradition; and, possibly in his Letter to the Alexandrians 443B.This paper seeks to understand: Julian’s sources for a Jewish practice of incubation; his purpose in raising this practice; whether such a practice continued to exist among Jews in Late Antiquity, and, the possible influence of Christian discourse on this Jewish practice. To date, no one has considered Julian’s comments about Jewish incubation. Julian’s attack on a Christian practice of incubation and his linkage of it with an Ancient Israelite practice in Against the Galileans is not surprising as he regularly attacked Jewish practice to undermine Christian practice. Also, the Old Testament is replete with examples of Israelites having dream visions. Moreover, Hellenistic authors such as Strabo (Geographica XVI, 2:35) and Agatharchides (Contra Apion 1:211) attacked Jewish practices of seeking dreams and incubation. Thus Julian could easily have used the Old Testament and/or Hellenistic authors as a source for a Jewish practice of incubation. Despite the antiquity of these comments, some Jews may have continued to practice incubation in Julian’s own day. The later evidence – the synagogue built on the site of Maccabean martyrs in Antioch stemming from patristic sources and other archaeological and rabbinic evidence - does not specifically mention a practice of incubation but rather reflects discourse of Jewish worship at tombs of their holy dead similar to such discourse in Christianity of the fourth century. This is surprising. Traditional Judaism looked at graves as polluted and stayed away from them. Given this evidence, most of it datable to after Julian’s time, it is possible that a cult of the dead existed in Antioch where Julian wrote Contra Galileos and that Jews practiced incubation in Julian’s time. If true, Julian may be a source for Jewish practice in his day.

The paper will deal with the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah. It will show that the site dates to the late Iron I and that the radiocarbon determinations of samples from the site have no bearing on the Iron Age chronology debate. The paper will also deal with the fortification system, the ethnic affiliation of the inhabitants and the identification of the site. It will show the gap between the interpretation of the finds by the excavators and the archaeological reality.

The paper will deal with Megiddo and the north in the 10th and 9th centuries BCE -- the late Iron I and the Iron IIA. It will use the archaeological finds for historical reconstruction. It will also reflect on broader issues related to the reconstruction of the history of Ancient Israel: from Jerusalem to smaller sites in Judah and beyond.

The use of the first person in these two prophetic books shows a wide spectrum. Sometimes the “I” in Isaiah can be identified, e.g. as standing for the prophet (Is 6:5), for king Hezekiah (Is 38:3), or for Zion (Is 49:14), but quite a number of passages remains open with regard to their references (starting with Is 3:7); this is also true for the first person plural. There are only two passages where an “I” or “we” in Isaiah is directly connected with the figure of the servant(s), namely Is 49:3f and 61:6. This leads us to look more precisely at the texts in Is 49-50 and 61 which also focus on suffering. Jeremiah differs significantly from Isaiah with regard to the use of the first person. The prophet Jeremiah speaks a lot about himself in the first person, yet seems to avoid the designation “servant” for himself; it is even absent in the so-called ‘confessions’. The combination of “servant” with a first person occurs only in the singular (“my ...”), and solely with God as speaker, with four clear references: prophets (e.g. Jer 7:25; see also the contrast in Jer 29:15, 19), Jacob (denoting the people, in Jer 30:10 // 46:27f), David (33:21f, 26) and Nebuchadnezzar (three times, beginning with 25:9 MT, missing in the LXX). Especially the last identification of “my servant” with the king of Babylon in God’s speech is provocative and marks a noteworthy difference between the two prophetic books in question. On the basis of these and other observations we will compare further texts dealing with a suffering “I” or “We” in Isaiah and Jeremiah and argue for a literary dependence of the latter from the former.

In the framework of early J and E documents, the prologue to Deuteronomy in chapters 1-3 seemed derivative, part of the last phase of expanding the book. John Van Seters was among the first to challenge the priority of the accounts in Exodus and Numbers, and he is correct to see Deuteronomy 1-3 as not based on other Torah narrative. Equally, he does not distinguish the Deuteronomistic voice in these chapters from an older narrative base that is only adapted to Deuteronomy by its first-person attribution to Moses. In particular, the account of Israel’s defeat of Sihon and Og, while bypassing the sons of Esau and the sons of Lot, depicts an eastern conquest that has no intrinsic relationship to a western Promised Land. This material was incorporated into the narrative prologue to Deuteronomy at a late stage in the book’s development from a source independent of and parallel to the sources for Exodus 18 and Numbers 20-21. With its focus on Israel’s domination of eastern territory north of Moab, and its association of military conquest with Moses, who never sets foot west of the Jordan River, the core account in Deuteronomy 2-3 appears to have its roots in the “northern” realm of Israel, not Judah. By this analysis, the eastern conquest would belong to what Marc Vervenne calls “pre-Deuteronomic” material, and this may be as old or older than the parallels elsewhere in the Torah.

The notion of the hierarchical lexicon will be presented, emphasizing and exemplifying the representational amenities that make it such an elegant and powerful repository of lexical information. Illustrative of possible structures in such a lexicon, a preliminary hierarchy will be introduced for the twenty most frequent Qal active verbs of movement in the Hebrew Bible.

As is well known, Q is a reconstructed source based on the double tradition material shared by Matthew and Luke. Various attempts to reconstruct Q have been undertaken throughout the stages of scholarship on this source. This paper surveys the different approaches and principles that have guided those reconstructions of Q, and seeks to evaluate the validity of such methods. The paper concludes by offering some guiding reflections on how reconstructions of Q could most robustly be undertaken.

Given the importance of Assyria for our apprehension of First Isaiah it comes as a bit of s surprise that Babylon is addressed first in the oracles against the nations in 13-23. It seems to me that the remnant language beginning in chapters 10 and 11 hold the key to understanding why the nation oracles begin with Babylon. By the time the book of Isaiah emerges in a more final form in the late Babylonian or early Persian period, it is clear that the real threat to the remnant of Israel is Babylon, not Assyria. The narrative material in 36-39 demonstrates this as the threat against the remnant of Israel (37:4, 31, 32) by the Assyrians is averted through a divine act of deliverance (ch. 38). The real threat against the remnant of Israel comes with the arrival to Jerusalem of the entourage from Babylon,, though Hezekiah feels relief that this threat will not come to fruition during his reign (ch. 39). Later, in the last reference to the remnant in the book of Isaiah, it is the remnant in Babylon who should not compare YHWH to the gods of Babylon (ch. 46) but realize that YHWH will take vengeance on Babylon for showing no mercy to the people of Israel (ch. 47). Returning to the oracles against the nations in 13-23, we then find an ironic use of remnant language in the charges against Babylon and the vassal nations that pose as threats to Israel. The grandiose language in chapter 13 expresses an exaggerated vision of Babylon encompassing the interests of heaven and earth, envisioning the time of Babylon’s demise. This demise will not only wipe out the remnant of Babylon (14:22), but will threaten the remnant of Babylonians vassals Moab (15:9; 16:14), Syria (17:3), and Arabia (21:17).

“Dress” is defined by social scientists as an unambiguous, gender-neutral collective noun designating an assemblage of modifications of the body and supplements to it. In and of itself dress does not carry inherent meaning but rather that ascribed culturally. As a visible extension of the body, its social message is understood by both the wearer and viewer and can mark social and ethnic identity as well as gender roles and boundaries. It is through dress that adults of a society reinforce and transmit cultural norms, instructing the younger generation not simply how to appear but how to act. In short, dress is a means by which society defines its ideology. The present study explores aspects of dress that relate to how ancient Near Eastern societies defined ethnic, social, and religious identity and how dress norms served to label members of different groups and instruct their behavior. My main focus, biblical Israel, concentrates on the Torah laws prescribing garment fringes or tassels. I review commonly held interpretations of these laws and offer additional perspectives based on comparative material and inner biblical exegesis. My thesis is that these biblical prescriptions derive from actual marital rituals involving hem ornaments and are meant to symbolize the covenantal-marital bond between Israel and God.

Julie Galambush in her Reluctant Parting argues “Matthew’s extravagant assertions of Jesus’ authority are placed in the context of confrontations with the Pharisees” and that he is “equipping his community to go head-to-head against Pharisaic teachings" (68). In this paper, I draw from the work of Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation and Michel Meyer’s Questionnement et Historicité to illuminate the model of argumentation Matthew sought to teach his community. Perelman, Olbrechts-Tyteca, and Meyer help us to understand how the arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees enact a theology rooted in Talmudic rhetoric and argumentation, which is reflected in their theories. The influence of Talmudic thinking on the argumentative exchanges in Matthew is evident in two key notions: epideictic discourse and questioning. Epidictic discourse, the keystone of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work, identifies the need for those who argue to agree on a set of values that will guide action. The preface to the arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees establishes the values they should share, allowing them to critique interpretations of sacred texts and actions provoked by them. When Jesus and the Pharisees argue, they do so primarily through a question and answer process, reflecting an essential characteristic of the Torah and Talmud. Questioning, Meyer suggest, shifts the focus from propositional reasoning to an embedded reason allowing for multiple interpretations of texts and values. Accordingly, the use of epidictic and questioning in Matthew suggests it is a distinctly Jewish rhetoric.

This paper will follow the quest for Solomonic Megiddo conducted by three expeditions during seventy years of excavation. The first expedition conducted by the German Society for Oriental Research (1903-1905) proposed that the Solomonic period city was represented by the great burnt city of Stratum VI. The second expedition, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (1925-1939), proposed that it was the great chariot city of Stratum IV. The third expedition, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1967, 1970-72) preferred the palatial city of Stratum VA-IVB. The personality, background, and ideology of the senior staff of each of the expeditions played an important role, leading each one to form very different conclusions regarding which stratum represents the 10th century BCE Solomonic city. Only after the earlier stand points are understood can the position of the current, Tel Aviv University expedition (since 1992), be evaluated.

Consideration of how studies in social memory impact studies of the historical Jesus.

As is well-known, Hugh Nibley had been in Germany (and Switzerland) 1927-1928 and again in 1945, could read and speak German fluently and in his scholarly work much used sources from Germany. How do his books read today in a context of German Biblical scholarship? As approaches to Biblical Studies become increasingly diverse, it can be useful to seriously analyze the work of a scholar deeply rooted in a non-mainstream church. His dedicated scholarship invites a close look both at the greatness and the limitations of an essentially apologetic life work. The paper discusses inter alia Nibley´s studies on the Henoch figure. Special attention will be given to Nibley´s apolegetic use of religious parallels, compared to apologetic literature from other churches, especially from mainstream Protestantism. What contributions to Biblical and apocryphal subjects in the works of Nibley recent scholarship might be well advised not to overlook? What can reading Hugh Nibley contribute to a dialogue between LDS and non-LDS Biblical scholarship? The speaker is a German protestant theologian teaching New Testament.

The Rabbinic economy of Palestine was created following the two disastrous rebellions against the Romans in 70 CE and 135 CE and represents how ancient “protectionism” can be used to bolster a lagging part of the economy. This protectionist economy of the Rabbis can be tracked by the creation of new categories of restrictions that have little basis in Scripture but serve only to “protect” and differentiate what was left of Jewish life in Palestine from Christian and Roman populations in Palestine. It is well known that the standards of the rabbinic age are not always a continuation of the standards of the biblical period. While the Jews re-interpreted time-honored standards to meet the needs of the people in each age and these reinterpretations were affected by the historical circumstances, the events of 70 and 135 CE represent watershed events that totally changed the relationship between the different populations of Palestine. Many of the changes that were made in Rabbinic literature from the biblical period to the Roman period resulted from changing social and economic conditions of the Jewish people in Israel but some changes were based upon conditions extant in the far flung diasporas of Babylonia and the Mediterranean and therefore are not really relevant to the understanding of the Rabbinic economy of Palestine. This paper will be divided into three different parts: Part I will examine the biblical and Iron Age-Persian period evidence from archaeology for the economy of ancient Israel and will present a summary of what is known about this period. Part II will examine the innovations of the Judean economy (especially Hasmonean) in light of the changes resulting from Greco-Roman trade and influence. Part III will examine the Rabbinic pronouncements that reflect the change after 70 CE and especially 135 CE and compare them with the evidence from excavations in Roman Palestine through the Byzantine period.

Among the terminological links between the Qumran texts and the NT one of the most striking parallels is the common mention of a “spirit of truth” in the Doctrine of the Two Spirits (1QS 3:18-19; 4:21, 23) and in the Gospel of John (14:17; 15:26; cf. also 1 John 4:6). The expression can also be found in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (TestJuda20:1-2) and in Hermas (Mand 3:4), not to mention later (Gnostic) texts, but since the influential comparisons between Qumran and John by R.E. Brown and J.H. Charlesworth, this terminological parallel has often been mentioned as an argument for an indirect or even direct influence of Qumran thought on the Fourth Gospel. In recent research the dualism in (part of) the Qumran texts and the dualistic elements in the language of the Fourth Gospel have been discussed in a more sophisticated manner, and central elements of the Johannine language such as the opposition of light and darkness can now better be explained from various Scriptural backgrounds without assuming any direct influence from Qumran or the Essenes. In such a more cautious manner, the paper analyzes the different instances of the expression “spirit of truth” and their precise meaning in the different contexts. Even in the Doctrine of the Two Spirits, the expression is not used in a unified manner, and the precise notion and motivations of ‘spirit’ and ‘truth’ are quite different in the various passages. Thus, apparent terminological parallels cannot prove any kind of ‘influence’ but rather show how different authors could use and combine the same terms in very different contexts.

The proposed presentation will have both diachronic depth and cross-cultural breadth. The time dimension will begin with the ancient context for victory chants praising the Divine Warrior Hero and include perspectives drawing on rabbinic interpretation and liturgical practice en route to an evolving interdisciplinary understanding of what Northrop Frye has called "words of power", with which one may address a dialogic unfolding in hopes that empowerment can become a vehicle for building peace. Comparative Literature and Cultural Anthroplogy are two realms of discourse that I plan to combine in this exploration of The Song at the Sea as a multi-channel performance piece with divinely-inspired power to heal.

In this paper I explore a postcolonial Jewish perspective on feminist biblical studies. There are several feminist 'textbooks' on biblical literature, as well as several introductions, anthologies, commentaries, and companions. In the 1990s these publications began to include so called “postcolonial” voices, and interpretations that sought to globalize feminist biblical studies. Feminist biblical theory did not define the meanings and diverse agendas of postcolonial criticism. The prevalent understanding is essentialist. What is missing from these new frames is an awareness of discourse as colonial practice. While feminist introductions to the Hebrew Bible are oblivious to the concept of nation, feminist introductions to the Greek Bible are oblivious to the discursive colonizing of the Jewish Bible. The paper will focus specifically on Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's “introduction” to a feminist study of the Bible, her hermeneutic theory, her Christian bias, and her limited definition of the postcolonial.

Paul's references to Moses as a model and source of his own authority reflect a rhetorical strategy that (as Hindy Najman has shown) goes back at least to Ezra-Nehemiah and that continues in later Second Temple and rabbinic writings. In his allusions to the book of Numbers, however, Paul makes a different use of Moses. In Numbers, Moses' repeated failures of authority are invariably followed by God's severe punishment of the people. The overarching message of Numbers is a clear mandate to respect the authority of God's representatives, no matter how questionable that authority may appear. Paul, facing challenges to his own authority, incorporates the failed Moses of Numbers with the tradition in which Moses' authority is absolute, thus buttressing his role as the heir to Moses as authoritative teacher with the threat of divine retribution against those who would take advantage of his failures.

This paper reexamines the status of the lower stratum families in the Neo-Assyrian period. About 25% of the 450 families known to date, are clearly true slaves, attested mainly in sales of people, and about 5% are temporarily in that status, namely pledged people. The status of the other families is unclear. Scholars have adopted a variety of terms to define the status of these people, among them pseudo-sklaven, serfs, helots, tied cultivators, dependent persons, semi-free population, unfree workmen, servile labor force, and more. In my opinion, most of these persons were employed as errešu on land owned by the members of the middle and upper strata, and the great majority of the population of the Neo-Assyrian Empire should be defined by the term tenants. The main part of the paper considers other socio-economic and demographic issues, including family types, family size, marriage patterns, childless families, single-parents families, children's ages, infertility, infant mortality, longevity and more.

In his Preface to Samuel and Kings (the Prologus Galeatus), Jerome sets forth a theory of the Old Testament canon that allows for no room between the canonical books and the apocrypha. Jerome’s use of the term “apocrypha” in this context should be interpreted in the light of such terminology in contemporary canonical discussions, which indicates that Jerome countenanced no “ecclesiastical” books outside the canon but still useful to the church, a category we find in Rufinus and, earlier, in Athanasius. However, Jerome elsewhere maintained a more neutral or even positive view of some of the non-canonical books, even accepting their use within the ecclesiastical liturgy. Jerome’s seemingly inconsistent attitude toward some books he classifies as “apocrypha” has led scholars either to posit a development in Jerome’s canonical theory, or to suppose that the theory found in the Prologus Galeatus does not represent even Jerome’s mature views, which were instead much more accepting of the deuterocanonicals than his famous preface would imply. This paper seeks clarification of Jerome’s canonical theory by investigating his remarks on the canon in several of his writings, and placing them in the context of fourth-century discussions of the Old Testament canon. The confusion arising from Jerome’s comments may be explained as a consequence of a multi-faceted plan to realign the Church’s Old Testament with the Hebrew Bible, a plan that Jerome articulates only partially on any given occasion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Book of Jeremiah’s portrayal of Egypt as a place of refuge. Although we have seen an ambivalent attitude towards Egypt as a place of refuge in 1 Kings 11-12, Jeremiah displays a more negative attitude overall towards Egypt as such a place. The relation of MT and LXX Jeremiah has led to much scholarly debate. I first address this general question and then examine the degree to which the LXX’s references to Egypt differ from those of the MT. In this connection, I will briefly note all the mentions of the word “Egypt” in both the MT and LXX and divide these into three categories: references to the past event of the Exodus, references to contemporary Egypt outside the Baruch Scroll (36-45), and the Baruch Scroll. After exploring these three categories, I will examine Jeremiah 46 in detail because of the concentration of references to Egypt, its history, and its cult found there and because it has a perspective quite different from the book’s other references to contemporary Egypt outside the Baruch Scroll. Jeremiah 46 also merits special attention because both prose and poetry from a number of time periods and perspectives appear there. I evaluate all this material from a synchronic perspective. Finally, I will explore how historians have treated the Egyptian material in the Book of Jeremiah and offer some concluding remarks.

One of the central concepts of Jewish law and ethics is tsedaqah, which means “righteousness” in the Hebrew Bible, but in later texts also indicates “almsgiving” or “charity.” This paper is part of a larger study on the origins of Jewish charity, including how and why it came to be called tsedaqah. It traces the concept to the earliest stratum of rabbinic literature, legal and exegetical texts redacted in third-century Roman Palestine. These corpora, including the Mishnah and Tosefta serve as the foundations of the Talmud and, in turn, all subsequent works of rabbinic Judaism. This paper focuses on a narrative in which a king gives away his fortunes to relieve a famine (Tosefta Peah 4:18). A close reading of the text illuminates its approaches to supporting the poor, which are then placed into their Greco-Roman cultural contexts. This study finds that the rabbis display knowledge of Greek forms of giving, particularly Hellenistic civic benefaction (euergetism), which they adapt for their own purposes. Through their selection of biblical prooftexts, the rabbinic redactors also identify the benefactor as a righteous individual and his benefactions as acts of righteousness. This paper contributes to our understanding of Judaism in the third century by illuminating the role of – and the rabbis’ creative engagement with – Greco-Roman culture.

Scholars have long been pressed to explain Yahweh’s callous rejection of Judah’s impassioned plea in Jeremiah 14. There, in the face of severe drought, Judah gathers together, confesses their apostasies, and attempts to spur Yahweh to action. Earlier Yahweh had complained about Jerusalem’s lack of contrition (Jer 8:5-6), yet here after having acknowledged their failures the deity curiously rejects Judah (Jer 14:10, 15:1). In an attempt to understand Yahweh’s rejection, this paper explores the two communal complaint speeches offered by the Judah in Jer 14:7-9 and 14:19-22. I begin by proposing a heretofore unrecognized intertextual relationship within these two speeches. In Jer 14:7-9, the confluence of situational context and intertextual allusions could have evoked the story of God’s miraculous provision of water at Massah (Exod 17:1-7). The plausibility of this intertext increases, however, when one reads Jer 14:7-9 in conjunction with 14:19-22. Scholars have so far failed to recognize the structural cohesion between these two so-called speeches. When read together, 14:7-9, 19-22 structurally form a single lament with a pattern of inverted concepts similar to that of a chiasm. Moreover, it is within the second half of this lament that further intertextual allusions emerge, making the proposed intertextual relationship that much more plausible. This intertext alone, however, cannot explain Yahweh’s acute reaction. Rather, one further needs to understand the characteristic portrayal of this intertext’s creator, Judah. Consequently, a brief survey of the characterization of Judah in the literary context prior to Jer 14:7-9, 19-22 is necessary. Combined, intertext and characterization converge, revealing that Judah’s intentions are not all that they first appear to be. Rather than genuine repentance, Jeremiah 14 portrays Judah as having formulated a ruse, one by which they had hoped to manipulate Yahweh.

Invited Paper

Egyptian traditions about Abraham first appear in the reign of Ptolemy I and have a long history before Christianity comes to Egypt. This paper will survey the various traditions about Abraham ending with Coptic homilies about Abraham. The interaction between Coptic and Egyptian interpretations of this seminal biblical figure provide a backdrop for understanding how Egypt was prepared for Christianity.

Pharaoh is a major character in the present form of the narrative of Exodus 1-15. He speaks, acts, and makes decisions (especially in relation to God) that contribute to the tension and development of the narrative and engage the reader, either positively or negatively. An investigation of the narrator’s portrayal of Pharaoh, considered within the literary structure of the narrative, produces significant insights into the literary artistry and the theological depth of this material. No one, especially, the contemporary Egyptians can read the exodus narrative in Exod 1—15 without encountering Pharaoh, who stands firmly within its literary world. The flow of the narrative depends on the nature of the characters and their various interactions, which generate the sequence of the events. Each character helps to develop the character of Pharaoh. Pharaoh speaks, acts, reacts to other characters and events, and makes decisions. At the same time what the other characters say about Pharaoh, how they treat Pharaoh, and how they react to his decisions play an import important role in portrayal of Pharaoh himself. Thus Pharaoh plays a crucial role in the developing the tension and the plot of the narrative. The textual indicators for Pharaoh as a character in the narrative include appellation, character actions, character speech, inner life, and narrator commentary or point of view. Pharaoh appears as a character from the beginning of the story to the end. The narrative’s presentation of the relationship between Pharaoh and other characters serves to provide a structure for a sequential reading of Exodus in an investigation concerned with Pharaoh as a character. This relationship is most forcefully shaped by four episodes: Pharaoh encountering the Israelites (1:1—2: 25), Pharaoh encountering Moses (5:1-23), Pharaoh in confrontation with Yahweh (7:7-11:8), Yahweh’s ultimate victory and Pharaoh’s final defeat (14:1-15:21).

Several NT scholars claim that the Matthean parables are much closer to the rabbinic tradition than to the rest of the synoptic parables. The Matthean parables are frequently described as "midrashic" in their nature and function. It was argued that Matthew has often used his parables to provide a commentary to some Markan sayings or teachings (cf. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew, p. 64; Drury, The Parables in the Gospels, pp. 91-92; Kingsbury, The Parables of Jesus in Matthew 13, p. 136). The term "Midrashic" is used in a general sense by several scholars to signify the exegetical role of the Matthean parables. Although this usage could be acceptable linguistically, and though there is a fairly wide consensus among scholars regarding the general exegetical role of the rabbinic parables, the use of the term midrashic in the sense of exegetical can be misleading. This is because the usage is so general that it ignores the many technical and religious connotations the word has acquired over time, which makes the simple linguistic meaning-"exegetical"- no longer legitimate. In addition, nearly every parable, in a sense, interprets or explains something, but this does not qualify all or most of the parables to be called midrashic Are the Matthean parables midrashic? The only way to answer this question is to define the "midrashic role/function" of the rabbinic parables and then to see if the Matthean parables play this role or not. In other words, we need to know first what are the different sub-roles and sub-functions, which are involved under the overall midrashic function. Then one can say that a midrashic parable is that which does such and such. Only then can we decide whether the Matthean parables are midrashic or not. Six sub-function of the rabbinic parables will be presented here through studying many rabbinic parables which return to the early tannitic period of the rabbis (up to year 80 AD). Then, a reflection on the Matthean parables will be made in order to examine the claim of their midrashic function.

In his work engaging contemporary discussions of how Western concepts of subjectivity emerged, Christopher Gill has argued for making a distinction between “subjective participant” and “objective observer” theories of the self, claiming that in ancient discussions of ethics the latter view dominated. While a number of issues are at stake in this distinction, presently I would like to consider the issue of self-reflexivity (the emphasis found in subjective-participant models) versus self-reflectivity (that found in objective observer models). Self-reflexive concepts of the self tend to be concerned with a distinctively first-person point of view, while self-reflective concepts emphasize the way in which our relationships with ourselves are of the same kind as our relationships with other people. Gill argues that, when it comes to self-perception, ancient theories of self-perception frequently emphasized self-reflection. I will here consider how this distinction helps to illuminate early Christian theories of moral psychology. In developing his moral psychology, the third-century author Origen of Alexandria borrowed a great deal from Epictetus, including a concern with the idea that examining the behavior of other people helps us to examine our own. Origen inserts this strategy, however, into his broader cosmological picture, in which God pairs human beings against particular adversaries in order to facilitate the moral progress of rational beings with a view to their salvation in the apocatastasis. In this current study, I will consider how the parallels between self- and other-examination operative in Origen’s picture of moral progress informs, and is informed by, his apocalyptic orientation.

Many remember the 1979 movie Being There starring Peter Sellers for its audacious final scene in which Chance the Gardner walks on water. This is only one way in which the film echoes the Gospels, however, and the Gospel of Mark in particular. Chance’s mysterious parentage, his propensity to speak in parables (particularly of the horticultural variety) and the consistency of Sellers’ performance of the simple yet enigmatic character join the miraculous walk by inviting parallels with Mark’s portrayal of the character of Jesus. Indeed, Chance’s character is the quintessential example of a character type delineated by film theorists as a “holy innocent,” suggesting yet another point of convergence between these two protagonists. The paper I propose will examine these connections by pairing analysis of the parable theory of Mark 4, Jesus walking on water and the longer ending of Mark with three scenes from Being There: Chance’s meeting with the President in which he provides a parable (1:01:48; 3 minutes), Chance walking on water (2:02:43; 3.5 minutes) and the outtakes that run over the closing credits in which Sellers breaks character (2:06:07; 3.5 minutes). The larger issues in play in the presentation are how the character of Chance serves as a surrogate for the character of Jesus in analyzing the process whereby characters or historical figures are constructed and/or interpreted by means of the projection of others’ expectations, both within and beyond the narrative in which they appear. Also, this essay will draw attention to the pedagogical strategy of studying these texts in tandem and how doing so creates a critical distance that invites students first to do this work with Chance and then apply a similar approach to the character of Jesus in Mark. Note: I have submitted this proposal to the Bible and Film program unit, as well.

Rom 3:9-20 seems so clear (an indictment which proves or illustrates the universality of sin) that few studies are dedicated to these verses (e.g. Keck 1977, Hays 1980, Moyise 1995, Watson 2004). From a rhetorical perspective, it is an argument based on the authority of Scriptures. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of this text are more sophisticated. The intertextual assembly of vv. 10-18 (Ps 13:1-3 = Ps 54:2-4; Ps 5:10; Ps 139:4; Ps 9:28; Is 59:7-8; Ps 35:2) has a narrative function and develops its own theory of intertextuality via a complex enunciative device (cf. Benveniste). 1/ On the narrative level, some monstrous traits of deformity slowly appear: a humanity without a face, deprived of sight, with a wide open mouth ready to bite and howl, even incapable to look at God with fear. Is it the representation of humanity itself, or of a humanity which has lost its own humanness and has taken the very traits of its despotic master named Sin? 2/ The text’s enunciation is complex, since the monster’s description is assumed by two instances but in a different manner: as in a court of law setting, the prosecutor (we) first speaks and then his witness takes the stand (the Law). ‘We’ speaks to the letter’s receivers concerning humanity as a whole and quotes a written witness (3:10), while ‘Law’ talks to ‘those within the Law’ concerning the ungodly (3:19). Ultimately, it is the prosecutor who confirms the scope of the Law’s witness: “We know that everything that Law says, it says so that every mouth may be silenced” (3:19). In other words, Rom 3 suggests its own theory of intertextuality, through the confrontation of two voices (“we” and Law) and the double function of Law as interpreted Scripture and as interpreting speaker.

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Iron Age stratigraphical sequence at Dor can roughly be divided into three consecutive cultural units, which differ from each other in many aspects of their material culture. They span the time span from the 11th to the 7th century BCE. This lecture will explore the possibility that these different units reflect political and even ethnic transformations, reflecting the changing fortunes of Dor—form a Canaanite/Phoenician settlement to an Israelite administrative center in the 9th century BCE, and its affiliation under Assyrian rule.

The discovery of a jar handle with an stamp seal of the pharaoh Sety II at Gezer offers the opportunity for a look at the reign of this minor king who ruled in Egypt at the critical period right at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and his dealings with Canaan. This paper presents the context of the handle in the Gezer excavations, and reviews its significance within the small corpus of objects assigned to this king. This serves as an introduction to a review of the reign of Sety II and a reassessment of some of the controversies that surround the period following the death of Ramesses II. The paper looks at Sety’s career before ascending the throne (including his relationships with Ramesses II and Merneptah, role as Chief of the Egyptian army and the campaigns in Canaan and Libya), the controversies pertaining to his accession and reign, with special emphasis on his relations with and activities in Canaan, and the intrigue that followed his death.

One of the most representative soteriological doctrines is that which claims that participation in the liturgy is essential for human salvation. This paper will investigate the presence of liturgical soteriology in the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, especially connected with the Triodion, and further find the roots of this idea in early Paschal materials and their origins in the Psalms and Temple service. Such elements as the assembly in the Temple, the righteousness and holiness of the assembly, the co-celebration with the angels in the presence of the divine glory, and the salvation through the divine glory will be investigated in a comparative analysis in both the Bible and Eastern Paschal tradition. While liturgical celebration represents a veritable machinery of salvation, it is not the real soteriological agent, but rather a mechanism intended to prompt God’s gracious condescension and salvific agency.

The thesis of this paper is that Isaiah 6:1-8, the narrative of the so-called “call” of Isaiah, is an influence on the narrative of the baptism of Jesus in Mark. The failure of previous scholarship to realize this is a failure of hermeneutics. In this case, even scholars deeply committed to interpreting Mark in light of the book of Isaiah have been hampered by a questionable application of form criticism and an overreliance on exact verbal parallels when determining intertextual relationships. A rereading of these texts informed by a more fully postmodern concept of intertextuality allows an interpreter to see the shaping of one text’s meaning by the other. Influences are not merely verbal, on the level of quotation, allusion, and echo, but structural as well. Once this shaping pattern is observed, the influence of Isaiah 6:1-8 on the baptism of Jesus becomes readily apparent, an influence that has important exegetical implications. Furthermore, recognition of this influence will allow us to add yet another explanation to the sixteen set forth by Davies and Allison for the surprising way in which the Spirit’s descent is described in Mark.

Assuming that the “hard-saying” of a Jewish Jesus calling his Jewish disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:51-71) is mishandled both by those who interpret it only metaphorically and by those who interpret it literally but infer the teaching to be inherently non-Jewish and the narrative non-historical and non-unified (cf. Cahill), I wish to explore the alternative that the narrative is unified and connected with John 13:18 (via trogon; cf. Swancutt). This would identify the morsel given to Judas at John 13:27 as the Eucharist and explain Satan's entry into him (cf. 6:70) by the logic of 1 Cor 11:27-32 (cf. Hodges). Accordingly, “eating the flesh” and “drinking the blood” first betokens “portions-eating,” murmuring and betrayal (cf. Derrett). Why then would it then betoken forgiveness, atonement and life? While the Jesus-Joseph motif provides one avenue for explaining this, the immediate context of John 6 transfers Jesus’ audience to the days of Israel’s desert murmuring against God and its judgment and atonement by the venomous bite of burning serpents and by their gazing on Nehushtan, respectively. In this setting, the judgment and atonement that Jesus promises to his murmuring audience must be no less comprehensive. The eating and drinking must then signify both the “murmuring” (represented by giving the morsel to Judas) and the "gazing" that brings the healing (cf. John 3:14; 19:37). If Judas does not partake of this healing, it must be for failure to discern the latter dimension in this “bread.” It remains to explore the application of Pss 41:9, 69:21-28, and 109:6-14 to his venomous deed in John 13:18-26 (cf. 6:70-71) and Acts 1:20.

Jewish sages of the Second Temple period esteemed eyes and ears as mediating organs through which students could encounter divine wisdom. These sages also understood that humans use eyes and ears to make moral judgments, whether sound or poor. Mindful of the subjective nature of sensory percepts, sages deemed it necessary to devise strategies for the regulation of the senses. Drawing on anthropology of the senses and Catherine Bell's theory about ritualization of the body, I interpret Second Temple Jewish wisdom instruction as a process of ritualization that aimed to regiment the senses. Sages sought to ritualize the senses by promoting an interaction of eyes and ears with the pedagogical environment and by impressing upon the senses schemes of privileged oppositions. In their attempt to manage the senses, Jewish sages simultaneously honed eyes and ears in certain ways and dulled them in others. Sages aimed to discipline visual perception, for example, by inculcating a forward gaze and vigilance, by prescribing certain visual practices and proscribing others, and by role modeling. Through such ritualization strategies, sages sought to reform and remake eyes and ears and, thereby, effect a status change in their students from "inexperienced" to "wise." The results of this process of sensory disciplining, however, were not limited to the instructional environment. As Bell argues, persons who become ritualized learn to behave in nonritualized spaces in ritualized ways. Hence, the ritualization of the eyes and ears through sapiential instruction increased the likelihood that students would practice good management of the senses and exercise proper habits of mind away from the watchful eye of the sage.

This paper analyzes the figure of Belos in the two fragments in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica that are commonly ascribed to Pseudo-Eupolemus (9.17.2-9; 18.2). Fragment 1 includes a genealogy that reconfigures information regarding the line of Ham in Genesis 9-10. The text places Belos at the head of its genealogy, who is also identified as Kronos. Fragment 2 claims that this person built the Tower of Babylon. In terms of understanding Belos, scholarship has focused on the question of whether he should be understood as signifying Nimrod or Noah. In this paper I argue that the Nimrod association is more plausible than identification with Noah, but that the name Belos should be taken seriously in its own right. “Belos” is a Greek form of Bel (“Lord”), a common epithet for Marduk. This god is referred to in Greek literature as Zeus-Belos. Belos is also regarded euhemeristically as an early king and founder of Babylon. With the name “Belos” Pseudo-Eupolemus does not simply apply a Greek name to an important Jewish figure; the author incorporates Hellenistic conceptions of the early history of the east into his reformulation of the line of Ham.

The paper considers how Isaiah 56 - 66 makes theological statements by means of their overall chiastic shape, by using parallelism, by using words whose ambiguity suggests complex theological ideas, by using paronomasia, and by using the rhetoric of persuasion.

While the study of the book of Isaiah has advanced immeasurably in the last decade, there is still a need to explore the effect of extra-biblical material, especially Akkadian material from neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times, on the interpretation and analysis of Isaiah 1-39. The comparative perspective on the book of Isaiah has advanced significantly in the last decades, especially relating to Assyrian prophecy and Royal inscriptions. However, other extra-biblical sources were not sufficiently explored in relation to Isaiah 1-39. Furthermore, Lexicography of Akkadian has advanced greatly in the last decades, and it is now the time to reevaluate many of the old lexicographical problems within the book. In contrast to comparative works which have ignored the diachronic analysis of the book, and distinct from the claim that the comparative perspective must be done only after the diachronic analysis, it is proposed to combine the exegetical and historical analysis of the book with the comparative perspective. This way it is proposed to reincorporate the book of Isaiah as an important source for the study of the history of the Ancient Near East from the eighth century B.C.E to the end of the Persian era. The present paper will deal with several new interpretations of problematic passages in Isaiah 1-39 in the light of lexicographical new suggestions based on Akkadian, some possible new parallels between passages in Isaiah 1-39 and Assyrian and Babylonian literature will be reevaluated, and new parallels in genre and in content, not yet investigated, will be undertaken.

The Septuagint’s translation of the verbs of Chronicles, made sometime in the middle of the second century BCE, slices through the diachronic development of the Hebrew verbal system from classical biblical Hebrew to Mishnaic Hebrew. The translation gives insight into the spoken Hebrew of the time of the translator, which was the primary influence on his understanding of the Hebrew verbs and was probably similar to the Mishnaic Hebrew three tense system of past qatal forms, present qotel forms, and future (or modal) yiqtol forms. It seems the use of past, present, and future or modal Greek forms in the translation of these Hebrew forms reflects this. In addition to this, the translator recognized, through the reading tradition and through his study, archaic meanings to certain verb forms (such as consecutive yiqtol and qatal) and commonly translated them by the appropriate Greek equivalent. However, sometimes he translated these archaic consecutive forms with a Greek future or past form respectively (producing an awkward or different resulting text), perhaps influenced by his contemporary Hebrew. Sometimes the introductory wayhi and/or infinitive construct with a preposition are translated by particles introducing temporal clauses with indicative verb forms. This also may reflect Hebrew use contemporary to the translator. The translation of Chronicles contains a number of clues like these for us to view the Hebrew of the Hellenistic period in its transition from classical to rabbinic Hebrew.

Luke’s Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16.1-8) is widely considered the most puzzling of Jesus’ teachings. Although a seemingly endless string of interpretations continue to appear in print, no single reading looks to have yet won the day. The trickiest feature of the parable in need of resolution is how the steward can be commended for reducing the debts owed to his master. Some interpreters suggest that the story simply ends in irony, with the steward cheating the master, but still receiving applause on account of his successful acquisition of a new home. The primary weakness of this approach is that it portrays Jesus condoning unethical behavior, which for many is significant enough cause to consider additional interpretations. Others propose that the steward genuinely earned his master’s favor by subtracting from the debts either unlawful penalties or his own commission. This approach, however, presupposes familiarity with localized legal customs of which Luke’s audience may not have been aware. In this paper, therefore, I will offer a new reading based on the general practices of lease adjustment in the early empire. I will demonstrate, firstly, that proprietors often had relatively modest financial goals for their large estates, preferring moderate, consistent returns to maximum, high-risk investments. Secondly, utilizing Pliny’s letters as the primary source of evidence (esp. 9.37), I will show that these modest goals enabled, and at times required, proprietors to adjust their leasing arrangements in order to secure the repayment of debts and the longevity of their tenants. Thirdly, and in the light of these earlier insights, I will argue that, by reducing the debts of his master’s tenants, the steward in Luke’s parable successfully secured the repayment of those debts, and consequently the long-term profitability of his master. The steward’s actions, then, were both honest and shrewd, being deserving of both praise and perhaps exoneration.

The earliest of the NT household codes continues to be interpreted in diametrically opposed ways. Some view the code as embodying an unambiguously oppressive ethic which is a departure from the earliest Christian emphasis on equality. Others see in the code a subtle move toward mutual respect, love, and fairness as a distinctly Christian way of living in a household community. Recently there has emerged a mediating position that acknowledges the patriarchal values embodied in the code, but also attempts to salvage the reputation of the letter as a whole by proposing a new way of reading the code. This view suggests that the code conflicts directly with Col 3:11, and that this fact, together with other clues, lets the recipients know that they should read the code “against the grain.” Read this way the code embodies a hidden transcript—a message that would have been imperceptible to outsiders but would have had special meaning to insiders. To outsiders it functioned to certify that the Christian household members were not a threat to a peaceful, orderly society. To insiders it contained a message that was potentially liberating and empowering when read in line with the teaching of the whole epistle. This latest view is appealing for a number of reasons, not least of which that it draws on the insights of post-colonial analysis to provide a more nuanced reading of this passage than previously possible. Nevertheless, this paper will outline several considerations which suggest that this view is ultimately unsatisfactory. Further, this paper will argue that recent research on the literary, social, and especially the imperial contexts of the code supports a reading in which the code supplies a way for Christians to live their daily lives under the lordship of Christ as opposed to the lordship of Caesar.

Miriam’s significance as a biblical figure is “proved” by the fact that God, portrayed as a concerned doctor, intervenes in her case and personally treats her illness. Her well according to rabbinical midrash is said to have been one of the ten things created during the twilight before the first Sabbath of the creation (B. Pesahim 54a). Rabbinic midrash describes her as a prophet, interpreting the passage “and his sister stood afar off” (Ex. 2:4), to mean that she stood afar to know what would be the outcome of her prophecy that her mother was destined to give birth to a son who would save Israel. Miriam was a singer, a woman of spirit. Miriam can serve as an inspiration for contemporary “Miriams” world-wide, whose message influences the downtrodden. A notable example is the South African singer and civil rights activist, Miriam Makeba, who died in 2008. I too have been inspired by Miriam. I am a feminist Conservative Jew living in Israel who has been writing midrash since the mid 1980’s. One of my favorite subjects has been Miriam, to whom I have returned many times for inspiration. She sometimes served as my alter ego, sometimes as “the enemy”. As a young mother, I envied her single-minded pursuit of a “career” and the fact that she didn’t have children to slow her down. Inspired by the feminist Kate Millet, I wrote a free flowing midrash about Yocheved’s relationship with her daughters in law (Elisheva and Tzipora) and her free spirited daughter. At certain low points in my life I identified with her bitterness at her mistreatment by God and life, yet now, with the perspective of age, I see her as a redemptive figure, one who has had children and has made her peace with God.

Despite the fact that the Fourth Gospel was finalized in a Hellenistic setting, its cultural background and thought forms remain thoroughly Jewish. Recognizing Semitic terms and syntax in some of Jesus’ language in the Gospel of John may also provide a distinctive window into the teachings of Jesus. Therefore, this paper will explore John’s use of Aramaic terms and language, as well as Hebraic ideas and thought forms, in its presentation of Jesus speech. While such an inquiry cannot claim to identify particular teachings of Jesus, it may at least suggest primitivity within the Johannine tradition as well as further implications.

A number of historical and archaeological puzzles surround Jerusalem's Southwest Hill (Mount Sion) during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. It was not included in Emperor Constantine’s building program. Nevertheless, by the end of the fourth century a sizable Christian church is attested there, although Christian associations for Mount Sion continue to be in flux into the sixth century and beyond. Some reports record a memory of synagogues on the hill, one reputed to have survived into the fourth century. The overlapping (and fourth-century expansion) of Jewish and Christian claims regarding Mount Sion raise several subtle questions concerning these traditions (see the work of Fredricksen and Irshai). An analysis of the accounts and the archaeology using the methodologies for the study of sacred space, and especially the social, geographical, and sociological frameworks offered in the work of Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Pierre Nora, and Maurice Halbwachs, suggests that these traditions may plausibly all be Christian. This paper analyzes the potential for deliberate Christian building up of existing traditions, or the construction of a mythology, surrounding the Southwest Hill that would support their claims to the place, as to other parts of the city. It argues that they did so. The fourth-century literary evidence and archaeological remains, taken from the perspective of constructions of sacred space, makes this assessment plausible. The synagogue traditions lend themselves to a supersessionistic argument. Christian associations of the place with the narratives of the Gospels and Acts, which build through the sixth century, strengthen their claims to it. Methodologies of sacred space thus illumine the potential of the evidence to draw a picture of Christian construction of a sacred place on the Southwest Hill that clearly articulated a Christian supersessionistic argument, and supported Christian claims to the city.

It is no remarkable observation to note that Job suffers. Neither is it particularly innovative to suggest that Job has become a paradigm for suffering for us today. What this paper will do, however, is use these (by now banal) ideas as a starting point and, looking at both the prose inclusio and the poetic ‘interlude’ (for lack of a better term) from a literary perspective, typify the diverse aspects of suffering in the book of Job. I will argue that eight elements characterize this suffering. First, it can take a physical form (e.g. Job’s boils). Job also experiences mental anguish. Third, his suffering affects those around him (his wife, for instance, becomes so exasperated with the situation that she says, “Curse God, and die”). Despite the ripple effect of suffering, Job nonetheless epitomizes the isolation suffering causes (he, for instance, can find no solace in his so-called “friends”). In this state of loneliness, it is often difficult to fully or adequately express suffering; Job’s lamentations never receive validation from the human or the divine realm. The lack of a heavenly response especially (to Job’s suffering, and our own) can lead to serious questions and doubts regarding the meaning of life and, for some, the existence of God. Unfortunately, for Job and for us, no response from heaven regarding suffering or its explanation ever comes (in Job’s case, God’s thundering reply is as good as none). Finally, and most subtly, Job reveals the reward that we all (deep down) expect for our suffering: the restoration of health, of wealth, of children lost, of faith in God. Ultimately, I suggest that the way Job suffered is the way that suffering is characterized, articulated, and understood today. Given that the Bible undergirds much of Western culture, this should come as no surprise.

Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness presents a body at the limits of the human. Schreber was a noted German jurist until he suffered a series of mental breakdowns. He eventually published his memoirs, which inspired one of Freud’s most famous case studies. The memoirs present an elaborate world system, with Schreber’s body at the center of a cosmic battle. A passive but sexualized Messiah, he must “become feminine” through constant sexual intercourse with the divine to save the world. Schreber’s body, I argue, is a prophetic body, radically implicated in mediating between the divine and human realms. At once marginal and central, over-invested with meaning and denied autonomy, Schreber’s body resembles in particular the body of Ezekiel, particularly in the “action prophecies” of Ezekiel 3-5. The Hebrew prophet’s bizarre performances foreground the anguished, affective body and resist resolution into communicative meaning. The body, forcibly transformed under divine command, transgresses the normative categories of subjectivity. I am not suggesting that prophecy is pathology, or that Ezekiel suffers from a “nervous illness.” Instead, I use Schreber’s insights into the self-understood prophetic body as entry points into Ezekiel. Both men share a complicated relation to the human, at once exemplary and exceptional. And for Ezekiel as for Schreber, the body is at once a medium of divine communication and a means of a radical critique of the existing world order. Schreber’s memoirs also make clear that sex and sexuality are at once contested and central in this prophetic body—a body that moves outside rationality and into polymorphous perversity. Ezekiel likewise refuses the biologically determined body, turning instead to a fluid, tactile corporeal economy that blends outrageous suffering with autoeroticism. Reading Ezekiel together with Schreber opens a new hermeneutic space to think about embodiment, extremity, and the boundaries of the human.

It seems possible to identify within Jeremiah 11-20 the genre prophetic lament (or confession) and prose pedagogic units where deity and prophet instruct people. When those two rough piles are swept together, what remains? Commentators, generally disagreeing among themselves, see a welter of diverse small forms that seem to obscure rather than to aid understanding. Is it possible and responsible to construe a genre for the ‘leftovers,’ nameable as divine soliloquy? If so, how does it function effectively as a genre, both for (presumably) intended audiences and for our contemporaries as well? I will demonstrate the possibilities, reading Jeremiah 14:1-10 and 17:1-13 as divine soliloquies.

Faced with a series of challenges at the hands of critical theorists, the historical-critical paradigm has changed little while continuing to reassert its dominance in the field of biblical studies. Thus, e.g., for John Barton, “...the preferred description of biblical criticism [is] the ‘historical-critical method’” (2007). For many in NT studies, the alternative has been narrative criticism — or, as James Dunn labels it, a “flight from history” (2003). Unfortunately, though, this interest in narrative has generally proceeded with the same history-theology dichotomy characteristic of the historical-critical paradigm. I urge that historical inquiry grounded in the suppositions and principles of the historical-critical paradigm is no friend to theological interpretation of Scripture, and that Heikki Räisänen is correct when he insists that historical criticism cannot be correlated with any theological concerns apart from the historical attempt to describe early Christian religion. I argue that recent work in the philosophy of history redirects the way we think about “history” and NT “texts” in ways that are integral to the work of theological interpretation of Scripture.

Augustine apparently never held a single-volume Bible in his hands. His Bible was a collection of many different books, or collections of books and letters. After all, Augustine's conversion experience at hearing the children's sing-song "Take and Read; Take and Read" led him to open his collection of Paul's letters to the scale-tipping Romans 13:13. And Augustine's now-famous request, upon his ordination to the priesthood, that Bishop Valerius allow him some time to read and study Scripture, is just as striking. Certainly it was Ambrose' preaching that opened up particularly the Old Testament to Augustine. What does this tell us about the role of Scripture not only in Augustine's conversion, but also in his understanding of the ongoing nurture of the soul before God? Why does Augustine focus on certain parts of Scripture more than others, returning as he does throughout his life in particular to Genesis 1-3? What is it about these first three chapters of the Bible which fascinate and vex him so, apart from trying to correct and win over his theological adversaries?

In Job 13:12 the book’s namesake retorts to his three friends, “Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.” Job’s statement suggests that Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar (and later, Elihu) were citing common platitudes as evidence for the explanation of Job’s condition. In reality, these aphorisms, which were intended to comfort, served only to heap insults on the righteous sufferer. Due to the fact that the proverb is a recognizable and identifiable genre in both the Hebrew Bible and cognate literature, it is the position of this paper that the proverbs within Job may also be identified. This study will examine known proverbs from Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, and Anatolia to formalize a diagnostic by which the sayings from the book of Job may be scrutinized with the goal of detecting where they occur within the book.

Several (generally familiar) observations need to be brought together to form an unfamiliar and revealing series. John 1.1-5, 9-14 are in tone (and perhaps in origin) a hymn to God’s power active in creation and tented on earth in the person of Jesus. The prologue thus sets the tone of the whole gospel: a story to be performed and heard in or as if in a liturgy. Jesus is declared at 1.51 to be, as was any temple, the mediating point between heaven and earth, and at 2.14-22 to be the new sanctuary. At 7.2-8.12 Jesus is the water and light of the new Tabernacles, at 19.14 the lamb of the new Passover. At 19.30 the new creation is completed (cf. Gen. 2.1-2), and at 20.11-18 the new Adam and Eve meet in the new Eden. The Jerusalem Temple, point of union between heaven and earth, evoked in its decoration the garden of Eden; at the heart of John’s new Eden is the new Holy of Holies in which angels flank the mercy-seat (20.12), and the new tent of God’s presence – and the new tree of knowledge – must still not be touched (Num. 3.10, Gen. 3.3). The risen Jesus comes to the disciples in a richly liturgical scene (recalling the Temple’s Tamid), and in a final act of creation breathes life into them (cf. Gen. 2.7). The prologue and John 20, framing the gospel, evoke the liturgies within which the gospel itself will first have been performed. The new creation is realised in the gathered community of Jesus’ followers, gathered in the new Temple that the body of Jesus is. This is the paradisiac setting, uniting heaven and earth, in which the gospel’s catechetical performance was designed to bring about the catechumens’ re-creation, their new birth from above.

For large parts of 2 Cor. 1-5 Paul distinguishes clearly between the Corinthians on one hand and Paul himself (with Silvanus and Timothy) on the other. Most commentators assume, however, that at a few (climactic) moments Paul’s ‘we’ embraces his addressees: 1.22, 4.16-5.9, 5.21. But we do better to abandon this assumption, to respect the consistency of Paul’s usage, and to hear in the letter what the audience of its first performance would have been likely to hear in it. In 2 Cor 1-5 Paul claimed of himself and his co-workers alone that they had been sealed and given the down-payment of the spirit, knew of and longed for their heavenly home, and were in a position to become the righteousness of God in Christ. (The reference in Rom. 8.23 and 1 Cor. 1.30b is just as narrow.) Was Paul saying, then, that the Corinthians did not have these qualities or blessings? No; he was just not saying that the Corinthians did. How clear and wide a gulf, then, divided Paul’s own standing, as Paul presented it, from the standing of the Corinthians? This can be decided only passage by passage, with an ear open to the – encouraging or admonitory – tone of Paul’s rhetoric. The letter would have succeeded if, by its end, the Corinthians had come to share at least some of Paul’s privileges. But which? This needs careful inquiry; for Paul and his co-workers, who made the dying of Jesus visible in their own person, would remain far more than simply examples for the Corinthians to follow.

I am interested in in both forming and participating in the panel devoted to a critical discussion of Isaac Kalimi, The Retelling of Chronicles in Jewish Tradition and Literature: A Historical Journey [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009]. I bring to this discussion my knowledge gained from discussing in my Rashi's Commentary on Psalms (Brill 2004) three medieval commentaries on Chronicles, one of which is commonly attributed to Rashi.

This paper wil look at the notorious effort of the emperor Gaius Caligula to install his statue in the Temple in Jerusalem in 39/40 CE. It will approach this controversial topic from several angles: the personality of the emperor, the significance of the imperial cult, struggles between Jews and gentiles in Palestine, and the character and reliability of Philo's narrative.

"Popular Reading: The People's Bible Project"

The Syriac gospel harmony from the late 2nd century, known today after its Greek title Diatessaron and its attribution to Tatian, was used in place of the four canonical gospels in Syro-Mesopotamia between the 3rd and 6th centuries. It has been long thought that this text must have had an impact on the arts of the region. This paper identifies two partially surviving pictorial cycles depicting Jesus’ life, whose narrations, vignette-by-vignette, correlate with the events discussed in two sections of the Diatessaron as documented by the most accurate witnesses to the sequence of Tatian’s prose. One of the two paintings is preserved on a folio fragment of a Manichaean illuminated manuscript from ca. 10th century East Central Asia. The other is found in the famous illuminated St. Augustine Gospels, dating from 6th century Italy. It has been previously pointed out that neither painting is a literal “illustration” to the text of its manuscript. At the same time, they both show iconographic ties to West Asia. Based on their newly discovered diatessaronic contents, I argue that they were copied into their respective codices from earlier prototypes, which were solely pictorial renditions of the life of Christ. I suggest that these paintings originated in a relatively little documented pictorial medium present in Syro-Mesopotamia during late ancient and early medieval times. Textual sources confirm that didactic paintings were used there as visual displays in a religious version of the practice that Victor Mair in his monograph from 1988 calls “picture recitation” or “story telling with pictures.”

In 1 Cor 3:1-2; 14:20 “child” (paidion, nepios) stands for the cognitively immature: “Do not be children in your thinking!”; “I could not address you as spiritual people, but as children in Christ,” not “ready” for “solid food.” In the Graeco-Roman world, where rationality was prized, the irrational and uneducated child could serve as a negative example of cognitive maturity. The positive counterpart was the educated adult male. In 1 Cor 13:10-12 Paul uses both as examples: “When I was a child (nepios), I spoke like a child (nepios), I thought like a child (nepios), I reasoned like a child (nepios); when I became a man (aner), I gave up childish ways (ta tou nepiou).” The child represents the Corinthian “spiritual person” whose Spirit-inspired knowledge was partial and imperfect: “we know in part…” (13:9). The man represents the eschatologically transformed person of the future who “shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (13:12). Paul thus relegates perfect knowledge to the future, and implies that the Corinthian women and men, despite their impressive spiritual gifts of prophecy and tongues, are mere “children” in comparison to what they shall be. I will propose and argue that Paul is here opposing the Corinthians’ “male” model of spirituality that defines it in terms of knowledge (expressed in inspired speech), corresponding to the Greco-Roman ideal of the educated adult male. There are no real “men” in the Corinthian church, implies Paul, for real “men” don’t speak in tongues and prophesy. They are completely “in the know”! Still, the Corinthians should attempt to grow up in understanding—“pursue spiritual [empowerments], especially that you might prophesy!” (14:1). But even more importantly, they are to “pursue love” (14:1), the “more excellent way” (12:31), which “abides” and “never ends” (13:8, 13). In my reconstruction, the Corinthians are portrayed as adopting a “male” model of spirituality, which Paul deconstructs as “childish” because it is based on partial knowledge and thus necessarily characterized by cognitive immaturity this side of the eschaton. The truly “spiritual” are characterized by love.

The nonliteral translation of LXX Ezek. 48:35 - "and the city's name after whatever day it comes to be it shall be its name" - has troubled scholars seeking to reconstruct the Hebrew vorlage, or to identify the translator's error. It seems, however, that the translation stems neither from a different Hebrew vorlage nor from a mistake but rather reflects a deliberate change undertaken to reinforce ideological and theological views of the Diasporan translator. A parallel Diasporan view is found elsewhere in Jewish Hellenistic sources, defining Diasporan identity separately from the homeland Jewish identity.

The book of Nahum describes the coming destruction of Nineveh in graphic and compelling language. It draws upon a number of images and themes employed by other prophets, many of which cross boundaries of gender and species. These boundaries are particularly permeable in the descriptions of defeat. Transgendering the defeated party is a frequent rhetorical technique in the prophets. In Nahum the king of Assyria is addressed in some places as a man, ordered to gird his loins, but in defeat, his warriors are transformed into women. The defeat of the capital city is, as is typical, portrayed as the humiliation of a prostitute, who is publically shamed before the nations. It is the fate of the female slaves which is used to personalize the devastation, while male victims are ignored. A second rhetorical transformation turns the defeated king and warriors into animals. The prophet mocks the Assyrian lion iconography and develops different aspects of locust imagery to suggest the total defeat of the king’s forces. One of the effects of the transgender and interspecies imagery is to preserve the ideology of hegemonic masculinity. Men, as men, are not defeated in battle, but their defeat is rhetorically transferred to those of lower status. The descriptions of YHWH in the oracle invite inter-religious analysis through their incorporation of Canaanite mythic images, in particular in showing YHWH’s interaction with nature.

The Sayings Gospel Q was probably composed and used by Galilean villagers from several villages that formed a network consisting of two categories of Jesus followers: itinerant missionaries and settled disciples of Jesus. Itinerant missionaries were most likely landless peasants who had lost ownership of their ancestral Galilean fields through an inability to pay their taxes and loans, most likely having used their property as collateral. Poverty is clearly the underlying context for most of the Q texts, and, as such, seems likely to me to be the key to understanding their meaning. In order to get to better understand the problem of poverty, I travelled to southern Tanzania and visited several villages where poverty is pervasive. I interviewed the villagers and tried to get to know the social structure of a village as well as how networking works between villages. I am especially interested in questions like: Who owns the land? What do people think about taxes? Do they feel taxation is necessary for their own lives or do they believe that paying taxes privileges others over them? What are the reasons for contact with neighboring villages, and who is responsible for maintaining relations? The paper is a part of my forthcoming monograph that aims to come to new understandings and fresh interpretations of the texts in the synoptic Gospels that deal with poverty and the poor. In addition to the exegetical research to be undertaken, these same texts will also be investigated from a contextual standpoint – that is – from the perspectives of the materially poor. Findings from my field research among the poor living in villages in Tanzania (spring 2010) will be studied and then compared to current biblical hermeneutical scholarly investigations concerning the poverty texts. In this paper the texts under examination will be limited to a few examples.

The correlation between settlement at Lachish and state formation in Judah or Israel on the one hand, and trade on the other, has been considerably complicated by the new discoveries at Kh. Qeiyafa. The exploration of the relation between settlements in the Negev and in the Shephelah deserves fresh examination.

This paper examines the conceptual unity of Psalm 19 in the light of Egyptian Solar Imagery as preserved in hymns found on funeral stelae, using the two hymns to the sun god on the funeral stele of Suti and Hor from the 18th Dynasty as an exemplar of the solar theology that emerged at that time. One difficulty that must be overcome in this comparison is the fact that the 18th Dynasty, and the entire New Kingdom, passed away centuries before the Kingdom of Israel came into existence. This paper traces the continuance of the New Kingdom Solar Theology into the Saite period by the examination of the inscriptions on various stelae and an Oracle Papyrus. Egypt held sway over Syria-Palestine for centuries, from the New Kingdom through the Saite Period, with brief breaks during the period of the United Monarchy and during Assyrian Hegemony. This has left its imprint on Hebrew scribal practices and cultural expression. Most significance for us are two sets of Stamp Seals found in Israel and Judah that date from the 9th-8th centuries that use Egyptian solar imagery that depict protective powers such as the, sungod on lotus, uraeus and sphinx and the royal cartouche. Starting in the seventh centuries, the stamp seals in Judah overwhelmingly are merely epigraphic, without any iconography. The combination of royal and protective themes in the iconography of Israel and Judah’s stamp seals suggest the Egyptian solar imagery being used as representative of the Deity’s protection and blessing of the king democratized, the ureaus and sphinx being hypostases of the Deity’s blessing. This is set in proper Yahwist perspective in Psalm 19:1-7, with the Sun being one of the LORD’s creations. This protection and blessing is viewed as being derived from Torah in the second section of the Psalm (19:8-15).

With all its comic twists, the story of Jacob’s acquisition of Esau’s blessing in Genesis 27 constructs an edifice of tragedy, whose entanglement cannot be easily overcome due to the performative nature of Isaac’s words. On the one hand, the passage underscores the patriarch’s discursive authority. It prefaces his blessing with hnh-n’ zknty (v. 2), introducing it as a death bed pronouncement. The special occasion concludes with a ritual meal (w’klh b‘bwr tbrkk npšy, v. 4), marking a duly constituted space that permits neither modification nor cancellation. Jacob himself acknowledges the risk in the ruse, saying whb’ty ‘ly qllh wl’ brkh (v. 12). On the other hand, in spite of the presumably unassailable reality of Isaac’s blessing (brkh for Jacob, v. 41), a number of features threaten to undermine the efficacy of his declaration. The whole process is tainted by the scheme of deception. Rebekah’s epexegetical lfny yhwh (v. 7) suggests that words are not self-sufficient. Esau mounts a passionate protest (brkty, v. 36; cf. brktk, v. 35) concerning the illegitimacy of the stolen blessing. He exposes Jacob’s repeated offences pithily with a play on word (bkrty and brkty in v. 36). By interrogating the nature of the performative, the story hauntingly explores the erratic nature of human life somehow linked with divine design, as well as the checkered history of enmity between Israelites and Edomites.

In the wake of a recent flood of publications of Greek and Roman inscriptions, Edwin Hatch dared to argue for the comparability of early Christianity, especially in terms of its ecclesiastical structure—parallels in this structure with Greek and Roman models were there, he argued, right from the beginning of the Pauline churches. He based his argument on the ubiquity of what he believed were similar, pre-existing Greco-Roman social formations, thiasoi, koinoi, and collegia. Despite his appeal to parallels, the specifics of his comparison were criticized for lack of terminological precision—his comparanda were not sharp enough or sufficiently rigorous to be compelling and the uniqueness of Christian forms was preserved. This paper explores the process of comparison, especially the complexities of deciding what constitutes comparability in specific cases. This paper argues that the process of identifying the comparanda of a particular comparison is political and strategic. Comparison is used both as a tool and a weapon, and too often in the study of religion—as in the case of Hatch’s critics—comparison is wielded in the service of incomparability, a strategic move that can be called comparatio iniquitatis causa (comparison for the sake of difference). In theorizing the process, this paper argues that to be effective, comparative study must first develop a solution to its political problem. One step toward this solution would be to establish usable criteria for defining the categories of comparison.

Luke 17:37 with its parallel in Matt 24:28 is not easy to understand, and so it is no surprise that many different interpretations have been suggested over the years, especially for the Lukan context of the saying. My aim in this presentation is to look critically at Q 17:37 and its recent interpretations, in order to find the most plausible meaning of this verse in Q. First, the role the "eagles" in the saying should be explained. After looking in the Hebrew OT, the LXX and some examples of eagles and vultures in the Hellenistic culture, it will become clear that the term aetos is used for the Hebrew nsr: This bird cannot be identified easily with the Greek aetos or gups, but in Jewish contexts it is connected with fastness and destruction (Deut 28:49; 2 Sam 1:23; Prov 23:5; Jer 4:13, 49:22; Lam 4:19; Hos 8:1). Instead of over-emphasizing the motif of visibility in Q (cf. Beasley-Murray, Schulz, Zeller, Günther, Bridge and McCane), I would like to stress the temporal and brutal imagery of the saying (the eagles as a picture of swiftness and devastation), the certainty of the coming of the son of man and the connecting function of the verse between vv. 23-24 and 26-27, 30, 34-35. Considering this connection, the eagle-saying describes on the one hand the certainty of the coming of the son of man and the unimportance of the question of location, but it stresses on the other hand the speed and brutality of his coming and judgment.

The hodayot scroll from Cave 1 is a collection of prayer texts. The name of this scroll itself is taken from the formulaic phrase “I give thanks to you O God” that appears consistently among the collection known popularly as the Teacher Hymns (TH) that are clustered in 1QH cols. 10-17. While the texts in the scroll present themselves as a collection of prayer texts, extremely little attention has been paid to how these TH would have been experienced in a ritual context. This paper will explore the possibility that these texts were used in a ritual way for the purpose of achieving a religious experience, an ascent into the heavens and communion with angels. The important elements that will be considered in this paper are the use of first person speech and the strategic arousal of emotions. The TH laments are descriptions of terror and suffering (both physical and psychological) and they generate intense affective responses in the reader. These powerful laments, along with the first person “I,” are two literary elements that would have well-served a reader who seeks to create a religious experience from reading. Through the rhetorical “I” the reader would be able to enter into the text and assume the persona of the text, allowing the reader to emulate the experiences which are described in the text. The experiences of suffering would be emulated by the reader, but more importantly, the experiences of exaltation and communion with the angels. In this understanding the laments, terrifying experiences recounted in the first person, serve a key function because they assist the reader in achieving an altered psychic state, one that is thought to be a necessary precursor for a visionary experience. This study relies upon the work of Moshe Idel and others who have proposed that weeping was an important technique for a mystical experience.

The Old Greek translation presents the theophany in Habakkuk 3 with a distinctly different spin from that of the Masoretic Text. For instance, although in MT YHWH appears to be retracing the route followed in the exodus, some changes in detail in OG (such as "the shady, bushy mountain" in place of MT "Mt. Paran") remove the specific Sinai connections. Such differences between the texts are primarily due to translation technique, especially the strategies employed by the translator for approximating the meaning of difficult or obscure Hebrew, but in certain instances intertextual allusions seem also to have influenced the final shape of the Greek text. Not only is it helpful to probe the circumstances that shaped the original translation, but it is also instructive to trace the interpretive tendencies of the text into the exegetical writings of the Church Fathers to observe the links they find in the Greek text that allow them to reinterpret the passage in their own context. This paper, then, will attempt to explain representative differences between MT and OG and examine the subsequent life of the Greek text in early patristic writings.

The law that intermarriage defiles the Sanctuary is promoted in the book of Jubilees and in certain Dead Sea Scrolls, although nowhere in Scripture is this statement explicitly made. What are the Scriptural antecedents of this phrase and what is its significance in the Scrolls? Do other sins defile the sanctuary in the same way? This paper examines the intertwining of sexual defilement and the defilement of the sanctuary in several Second Temple texts, most notably, Jubilees, Aramaic Levi, the Temple Scroll, MMT, and D. Scholars have largely assumed that the pollution caused by intermarriage to the sanctuary was caused by the physical entry of foreign spouses into holy space. However, this rationale is nowhere explicitly stated in the texts listed above. It seems more likely that these authors are concerned not only about possible defilement of the temple but for the desecration of the human sanctuary of Israel. This paper examines the usage of biblical priestly terminology in the Scrolls and concludes that for many of these authors the bodies of Israel were a cultic sanctum, i.e. “sanctuary,” which could be defiled by illicit sexual activity even when no one was entering the temple. This thesis is supported not only from Pentateuchal traditions where the impurity of sex, both licit (Lev 15) and illicit (Lev 18 and 20) can defile the sanctuary without contact, but also by early Second Temple biblical texts, e.g. Ezra 9 (desecration of “holy seed”) and Mal 2 where intermarriage desecrates “the holiness of YHWH.”

Much has been written about the four rivers described in Genesis 2:10-14. Most commentaries tend to center around attempts to identify those rivers with modern-day equivalents, with varying degrees of success. Rather than treat them as literal rivers, however, it is perhaps more useful to consider them as features of a “mythic” geography. Considering the rivers in Genesis in this way allows a comparison to similar occurrences in other mythic traditions, which in turn yields some valuable insights into the purpose of the river descriptions in this passage, beyond merely fixing physical location. Though the cultures are quite disparate, it is fascinating to note that a similar set of rivers features prominently in Norse myth. The purpose of this paper is to compare the descriptions of the primordial rivers in Genesis with their counterparts in Old Norse mythic literature (both Elder and Younger Eddas); to contrast the functions these descriptions seem to serve; and by using some of the tools of modern myth theory, to proffer some suggestions for using the ideas generated to increase understanding of the figurative role rivers play, not just in this particular passage but in the biblical text in general.

The sayings traditions of Jesus of Nazareth lie at the foundation of the moral exhortations in both the Letter of James are the Q Source. An examination of both James and Q reveals that they hold some moral exhortations in common. The purpose of this paper will be to examine these common links with the Jesus tradition by focusing on their vision of God and its consequence for action. This study demonstrates that faith in action captures the vision of James and the Q source. James’s vision embraced an understanding of works that occurred in the context of one’s whole life of faith (Jas 1:14) as does the Q Source (Q 6:46-49). A social-scientific examination of the Israelite value of ‘wholeness’ demonstrates that this value is reflected equally in James and Q. Patterns of all-or-nothing (characteristic of the Israelite value of wholeness) are common to James and Q. Some examples that are examined: God demands total allegiance; people cannot serve both God and mammon (Q 16:13). Friendship with the world is enmity with God (Jas 4:4); the need to keep the whole Law (Q 16:17 and Jas 2:10), etc. Through this analysis of the moral exhortations in James and Q, this paper illustrates that the Q tradition as it developed further in the Sermon on the Mount is also reflected in the Jesus tradition at the heart of James’s ethical teaching. The common links in the traditions between James and Q are explained from the fact that James is aware of the Jesus tradition as it is being handed on within the Q community and its developing tradition as seen in the Q Sermon on the Mount.

Chrysostom, the fourth century bishop of Constantinople, is credited with being the first person to refer to the two testaments as ta biblia, “the books.” These books represented 66 texts written over a span of hundreds of years in three different languages from across the ancient Mediterranean world – a collection defined by diverse confessions of the salvific work of God. The shift from the Greek plural to the Latin singular, Biblia, “the Bible,” has had a profound impact upon the popular imagination of American evangelicalism, which more than any other form of Christian expression in the world, emphasizes the final, ultimate authority of “the Bible.” This moniker, coupled with the post-canonical concept of inspiration and the transmission of “the books” in a single volume, has misled many to assume the biblical witness represents a single voice, unified in clarity of vision in all matters. This is simply not the case. In fact, the beauty of the Christian canon lay in its kaleidoscopic witness to the divine – not a single voice, but a chorus of voices singing from every corner of the human experience. In Divided by Faith, Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith examine the problem of race relations in American evangelicalism. At the heart of their discussion is the problem of diversity within this community and the impact of social location upon perceptions of reality – among the approximately 85 million Americans who identify themselves as evangelical nearly 90 percent are middle class and white. The history of biblical interpretation includes morally reprehensible acts carried out in the name of Jesus within culturally hegemonic communities armed with a misperception of the singular truth of scripture. This history stands as a prophetic witness, unveiling the darkest contours of the misappropriation of scripture. American evangelicalism must first recognize the diversity of voices within “the books” and the diversity of perspectives that they represent, and then it must embrace the “other” as a hermeneutical strategy; if it does not, it is destined to repeat the tragic past, wielding “the Bible” as a weapon of divinely ordained violence and oppression.

Dtr was was not the first to gather together traditions about ancient Israel. Evidence within the book of Joshua suggests that a cult centered at Gilgal played a key part in both the early worship and the gathering together of the traditions about earliest Israel. The traditions about Gilgal and its role in early Israel are complex. The Israelites are said to have reconnoitered the region of Jericho (Josh 2:1), crossed "near Jericho" (3:16), and camped "in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho" (4:19). Yet the instructions for carrying out religious rites at Mts. Ebal and Gerizim contained geographic references which located it "opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh" (Deut 11:29-30), which suggests that this may be a reference to a northern Gilgal; in addition, "the oak of Moreh" was located near Shechem (cf. Gen 12:6). The biblical tradition claims that "Gilgal" served as the Israelites' base of operations throughout the early phases of the Israelite settlement (6:14; 9:6; 10:15, 43; 14:6), but is this a reference to a southern or a northern Gilgal? In all, the MT refers to at least three, and possibly five, different locations identified as "Gilgal" in both the north and south, and multiple sites identified as Gilgalim have been discovered in surveys of the central hill-country. This paper will sift through both the biblical and archaeological data in an effort to elucidate the role of Gilgal and the gilgalim in early Israel.

Through a reading of the second-century C.E. Christian text, the First Apocalypse of James, this paper investigates dilemmas that arise when a community’s remembrance of its martyrs exists in tension with its theological commitments. The tensions involve the remembrance of female martyrs and the gendered nature of these theological commitments, and so I consider also the question of the gendering of violence in antiquity. 1ApocJas uses the form of a dialogue between Jesus and James, the brother of Jesus, to discuss theology and martyrdom. According to the text’s theological exposition, the true God is perfectly male, and femaleness is not only secondary, but also responsible for evil and violence in the world. After laying out this theology, the text proceeds to memorialize and honor a group of women “whom all the generations bless,” among whom are three martyrs. By setting these two discussions in succession, 1ApocJas asks implicitly how it might be that women should be honored as foundational martyrs when femaleness is so devalued theologically. Violence was commonly understood in the ancient world in inextricably gendered terms, as the victim of violence would be seen as feminized. The text makes use of this connection between suffering violence and femininity in order to authorize the three women as paradigmatic martyrs. At the same time, the text instrumentalizes its theology to feminize the persecutors of Christians. 1ApocJas explains the violence of worldly persecutors by saying that these authorities are the followers of a figure named “femaleness” and as such they are not children of the true God. The persecutors are the ones who have qualities of femaleness. I suggest that 1ApocJas makes use of the complex, overlapping nature of the discourses of gender and violence in order to navigate the tensions between its theology and memorialization of martyrs.

A number of stamp seals bearing the theophoric element m(w)t have been interpreted as referring to Mot, the god of death and the underworld in West Semitic tradition. It is more likely that these refer to Mut, the Egyptian national goddess who was prominent in Egypt throughout the biblical period. Unlike Mot, who was a demonic figure, Mut's cult and benevolent aspects are well known.

An important part of Prof. Stanton's later work is the attention he gave to issues relating to the four gospel canon in early Christianity. In his presidential address to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas - published as 'The Fourfold Gospel'in NTS 43 (1997), 317-46 - Stanton proposed that the fourfold gospel canon was intrinsically linked with the development of the fourfold gospel codex, which he argued was a well established artifact by the end of the second century. This paper offers an illustrated reconsideration of the manuscript evidence appealed to by Stanton, alongside a general survey of second and third century gospel manuscripts on papyrus. I argue on the basis of the surviving manuscript evidence that the gospels mostly circulated individually up until the fourth century, and that four-gospel codices were the exception rather than the rule.

Writing a large-scale reception-historical commentary presents a variety of challenges, including the question of organization. The commentary form imposes a sequential structure mirroring the textual units, but how ought one to organize material within each unit? As part of the "Reception History: Theory and Practice in the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series" panel, this presentation will use the Primeval Narrative of Genesis 1-11 as a case study in writing and structuring a reception-historical commentary.

When considering the issues involved in conceptualizing Jewish Christians or Jesus-believing Jews as a distinct category or categories of religion in antiquity, it is remarkable that the Roman legal perspective is rarely taken. “Jew” was a specific legal category in the Roman Empire, especially after the year 70 CE when Jews were supposed to pay the Jewish tax to the Fiscus Judaicus. “Christian” was another legal or rather illegal category as early as the reign of Trajan judging from Pliny’s letter to his emperor (c. 112 CE). At that moment in time being a Jew was acceptable to the Roman authorities and being a Christian was not. In this paper it is argued that the reform of the Fiscus Judaicus by the emperor Nerva in 96 CE was of the highest importance in this context. This reform very probably led to a new, religious, definition of “Jew” in contrast to the initially ethnic definition as used by Vespasian when he introduced the tax. It is argued that the term “Jewish Christian” quickly loses its relevance when used for the historical situation after 96 CE. As a consequence of Nerva’s reform of the Fiscus Judaicus, some or many Jewish Christians lost their “Jewishness” and “became” Christians, sharing the same (il)legal status as their non-Jewish Christian brothers and sisters. Examples of this category are, e.g., the writers and Jewish Christian audiences of the Letter to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation and the Fourth Gospel. There were others, better referred to as Jesus-believing Jews, who remained fully faithful to the “customs of their forefathers” and who were considered to be Jews by the Romans. Examples of this category are very likely the Ebionites and the Nazoraeans. The term “Christian” should probably not be used in relation to them.

According to a large consensus today, Q is a Jewish-Christian document which presupposes and affirms the Torah (Q 4:1-13; 11:42; 16:17). All debates in Q are inner-Jewish and "intra muros"; the opponents are characterized as those "who do lawlessness" (Q 13:27). However, Q demands its addressees to do what Jesus says (Q 6:46); his sayings must be heard and acted on in order to survive the coming judgment (Q 6:47-49). This definitive teaching of Jesus does not repeat usual contemporary interpretations of the Torah, but is highly original and even offensive for other Jewish Torah interpreters like the Pharisees. Therefore, although the general Jewishness of Q must be acknowledged, it must be asked which kind of Judaism is represented in the Sayings Gospel. As a test case, this paper investigates the saying on divorce in Q 16:18. It will be argued that this saying is a new prophetic instruction on the basis of the original marital unity at the beginning of creation (compare Mal 2:14-16). Thus, Q 16:18 fits well into Jesus' preaching of the kingdom of God which means a renewal of the original order of creation. As an eschatological, Moses-like prophet Jesus interprets the will of the universal, fatherly and merciful creator and judge of the world. Such a hermeneutic of the Torah is hardly paralleled in the Jewish contexts of Q and puts the Sayings Gospel at the margins of ancient Judaism which certainly had no lack of marginal groups.

The enigmatic word ’amon in Proverbs 8:30, which in English translation reads: “then I was beside him, ’amon; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,” has received three interpretations, from earliest times to the present: (1) artisan; (2) constant(ly), faithful(ly); (3) little child. Three of the most recent articles dedicated to the puzzle—by Hurowitz (1999), Weeks (2006), and Lenzi (2006)—continue this trend. Weeks argues convincingly that the most plausible meaning for ’amon is “faithfully.” Hurowitz and Lenzi argue that wordplay is involved, suggesting several meanings. Despite their methodological agreement, however, they still come to different conclusions. Hurowitz convincingly opts for the meaning “nursling” as the only valid primary meaning, allowing for the “slight” possibility of “legitimate secondary meanings, on the level of intentional word plays and double entendres.” By contrast, Lenzi argues convincingly that the word is an Akkadian loanword with a secondary meaning “growing up” and a primary meaning “master, craftsman, scholar, mediator of knowledge.” – In this paper I will present some new insights into the value and purpose of ambiguity in Hebrew poetry and outline some new perspectives on the phenomenon of wordplays. I hope to demonstrate that all three scholars are partly correct. All three meanings are intended primary readings of ’amon. But none of the three meanings is the only primary meaning. Rather, the combination of polysemous and multi-lingual wordplay creates a kaleidoscope of meanings, all of which together enhance Wisdom’s uniquely powerful role in, at, and beyond creation.

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A fruitful area of investigation in recent scholarship is the light the Scrolls can shed on the processes of ancient Jewish literary activity. A fascinating next step in tracing the significance of the Qumran Scrolls more broadly is the much discussed issue of the social background of the material. The Scrolls testify to a learned group of Jews engaged in composing, shaping and collecting a very large amount of literature. We know that there were similarly learned Jews engaged in shaping and collecting and editing another very large amount of literature: the emerging Hebrew Bible. Since both social spheres share a considerable amount of overlapping material the connections between both become even more tangible. Bearing in mind that literacy, and especially learning at the level required to deal with the material at issue here, was the preserve of a small elite in the Second Temple Period, it is likely that the same limited stratum of highly educated scribes is the pool responsible for the Hebrew Bible and the corpus of the Scrolls. This paper will probe the relationship between the circles behind the emerging Hebrew Scriptures further by means of a comparative discussion of Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:2 and 1QS 6:6-7.

On the one hand, the New Testament is filled with dramatic scenes of healing in which the sick are rescued from demonic forces (Jesus’ healing miracles in the Gospels), aligning sickness and disability with evil. On the other hand, the violent death of Jesus becomes a rallying point for early Christians, elevating the weak body as a source of identity and power (the passion narrative in the Gospels, Pauline Christianity, 1Peter). This paper examines ancient attitudes towards illness and disability as a means of understanding the opposing attitudes represented in early Christian literature. As a point of departure, this work will begin with Michel Foucault’s concept of “rituals of truth,” that are constructed through specific discursive practices. Next, this paper will look at two bodies of evidence in order to sketch the discursive practice of illness in antiquity: 1) the testimonies of the “sick” and 2) the observations of ancient physicians. The primary sources available for reconstructing the experiences of the “sick” are two catalogues of inscriptions from the Asklepion at Epidauros and the Asklepion at Athens (ancient sites of healing dedicated to the god Asclepius), photos from the Asklepion at Pergamon and the Pergamon museum (which I have visited in modern day Bergama, Turkey), and the personal tale of the healings of Aulius Aristides preserved in his Sacred Tales. The sources for reconstructing the ancient perspectives of the “well” toward healing include Hippolytus and Galen. Finally, I will consider the manner in which New Testament attitudes toward illness/disability participate in these ancient “rituals of truth” surrounding sickness and healing. In particular this paper will focus on 1Peter as a test case.

As A.F.J. Klijn and Han J.W. Drijvers argued, the Acts of Thomas is to be located within Syriac Christian theology. The current study supports this argument, and offers greater refinement to understandings about the theology of the Acts of Thomas in its Syrian setting. This is primarily done by compiling and describing repeated or clustered terms in the Syriac text (with reference to other text bases). The essay studies contrasting images of bondage and freedom, which are used to describe the volitional capacities of God, demonic beings, and humans. Freedom of will is an inherent quality of humanity imparted by the freedom of God. Bondage explains the problem of evil in the cosmos, including the troubling behavior of other humans. Subjection can be due to a creature’s nature; but in the case of humanity, bondage of the will is due to deception by Satan and blind slavery to base behavior. The highest goal for the human will is to perform the will of God. These themes are found both in small units of narrative and discourse, as well as in the overarching framework of the story (e.g. Thomas’ paradoxical status as a free slave whose goal is to accomplish the will of God). With due caution against anachronism, attention is paid to a sampling of major Syriac theologians of Late Antiquity, who serve as a sounding board for the findings synthesized from the Acts of Thomas (some materials are presented in English for the first time). Secondary attention is paid to ways in which the Acts of Thomas, seen in the light of the findings of this study, might interface or conflict with Manichaean teachings.

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Both the language and the theological ideas of the Pastorals are considered to be different from the genuine Pauline Letters to his congregations. As letters to individuals, the Pastorals’ genres have parallels in Greek papyri. Moreover, as documents of the common all-day culture of Jews and Gentiles the papyri allow interesting and sometimes surprising insights in many aspects of letters like the Pastorals. The paper will compare the Pastorals with Greek papyri by particularly focusing on issues of economy and administration, but also on characteristic key terms such as pistis/pistos, hygies and others.

Bezalel has been compared with Kothar in the Baal Cycle as one who was appointed by the deity to build his temple. The purpose of this paper will be to investigate this comparison and to observe possible reasons for the similarities as well as differences. In doing so, consideration will be given to the temple building accounts of Bronze and Iron Age West Semitic literature, the priestly traditions and purposes of the biblical literature, the immediate literary contexts of the Baal Cycle and Exodus, and the larger issues of comparisons within the West Semitic world of the Bronze and Iron Ages. It will be argued that the distinctive nature and purpose of the accounts in Exodus and in Ugaritic literature had refashioned any West Semitic literary tradition naming a builder/architect in the construction of the central holy place.

The ???? ???? Isa 24:5 is one of 16 references to an “eternal covenant” in the Hebrew Bible, and most scholars presume the Isaiah reference is one of the later texts to speak of this covenant. Because the reference in Isa 24 is ambiguous and opaque, previous studies have attempted to identify which of the earlier covenantal references is in view in the Isaiah passage. Most scholars have focused on three primary possibilities: the Noachic covenant of Gen 9; the P covenant; and the Mosaic covenant (or some combination of these). What is generally not explored is the relationship of the Isa 24 reference to a ???? ???? to the other two such references in the book of Isaiah, namely Isa 55:3 and 61:8. This study seeks to clarify the association between these texts by asking two related questions: 1) What is the relationship between these inner-Isaianic references to a ???? ???? and 2) What contribution does Isa 24:5 make to the Isaianic and Persian period discourse about covenant?

In late eighteenth-century California, Spanish Franciscans built missions modeled on Revelation’s New Jerusalem, employing imagery from the text in the architectural structure of the missions while striving to create isolated, utopian communities of friars and Amerindians. The tragic consequences of these mission projects included near genocide of the indigenous populations, attempted cultural genocide, and attempted “gendercide.” Several indigenous Californian peoples held a third gender category, identified in Ventureno Chumash as ’aqi. The Franciscan writings about California frequently included a meditation on stories of these third gender peoples, especially when they were discovered to be wives of men, while also praying for their extermination. Third gender peoples were prohibited from the missions, brutalized if found in the missions, and only admitted to mission life if they were willing to change their gender identities. This paper takes up a conversation between the Franciscan interest in, and fear of, third gender peoples, the Franciscans’ own gender bending performances that undergirded their religious authority, and the gender bending imagery that underlies Revelation’s representation of the New Jerusalem as a bride. Why were the Franciscans both fascinated and disturbed by the third gender peoples of California? How was gender play invoked in authorizing Franciscan power, and how did this play inform their interpretive attempts to enact the New Jerusalem in the space of California? How does Revelation’s own gender bending imagery inform and defy these Franciscan imaginations of peoples and place? What challenges to Franciscan normative interpretation and performance did third gender Californians pose, and what fissures in scripturalized performance did their existence in or near the missions reveal? How might studying these Franciscans’ gendered utopianizing help us rethink other readings and appropriations of Revelation’s New Jerusalem?

Recent discussions in Septuagint scholarship have highlighted the distinction between the meaning of a text at its point of inception, or the text as produced, and its reception history, or the text as received. The forthcoming Society of Biblical Literature Commentary on the Septuagint (SBLCS) will seek to elucidate the meaning of the Old Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures at the original, constitutive phase of its existence. This paper will provide an overview of the principles upon which the SBLCS series is based.

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Relevance theory has demonstrated the need to assure that audiences have access to the intended context as well as the translated text for effective communication of Scripture. It has also provided conceptual tools to help us see what is happening in what we formerly thought of as 'the black box of implicit information.' These developments open new horizons of uncharted waters for the Bible translation endeavor. In this paper, I look at the implications of the importance of context for current translation practice as I laid out in my 2006 book, "Bible at Cultural Crossroads: from Translation to Communication". I examine developments in this area over the past 5 years. I then identify areas needing further work to respond adequately to the implications of Relevance Theory.

It will be argued that the marriage liturgical form used by centuries by the Anglican church and other similar marriage liturgical forms has contributed to a legitimatization of violence in many marriages and consequently devalued the dignity of countless wives the past three centuries. Focus is given to the egalitarian roles for husbands and wives advocated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7. Special mention is made of the context of South Africa, encompassing a bold and futuristic constitution which is founded on human dignity, the promotion of equality and the abhorrence of discrimination. South Africa has a particular high percentage of domestic abuse and it is argued that the hierarchal and patriarchal perspectives advocated by some religious leaders based on Biblical texts and endorsed in the marriage forms contributes to this abuse. In conclusion an earnest call is made for the review of most of the marriage liturgical forms still used by the mainline churches today.

This paper describes the outcomes of a course on the Hebrew Prophets that I taught in the fall of 2009, incorporating reflection on direct experience of working with marginalized groups. Each student was required to spend two to three hours a week volunteering at one of three service agencies in the neighborhood: an afterschool tutoring program for economically disadvantaged children, a senior center offering activities and services to seniors living in a housing project, and an agency that provides meals and nutritional education to people living with HIV/AIDS. I chose these agencies with the prophetic emphasis on care for the marginalized in mind, but the students’ actual experiences of service enabled them to relate personally to the prophets in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Every writing assignment and class discussion included some form of reflection on the service experience, so the learning in this course was very student-directed. In essays written near the beginning of the semester, some students identified with the reluctance and divided loyalties felt by many of the prophets. Many reported inner conflicts associated with a growing awareness of their own privileges and responsibilities relative to the people they were working with. In later essays, students demonstrated personal growth, observing that studying the prophets had helped them to put their objections to performing menial tasks in perspective and to focus on the human connections they were making. By the end of the semester, students were able to identify themes in the prophets that relate to current issues of social justice and to make connections between the history of ancient Israel and contemporary events. Many also demonstrated civic learning, by expressing a commitment to ongoing community service, and in some cases by continuing with their service placement after the course was over.

For a better understanding of the original parable of the children in the marketplace (Q 7:31-32), a look at ancient child culture can be helpful. Whereas in the history of research scholars often discussed actantial models (How many groups of children? Who calls to whom?), this paper analyzes a new aspect of the tradition-historical background especially of the verse Q 7:32. The paper elaborates on two different concepts of childhood: (1) a Hellenistic one on the one hand and (2) an ancient Jewish one on the other hand. (ad 1) The Hellenistic phenomenon, which will be examined, is the so called "discovery of childhood". In ancient Greek tradition, the specific childlike character of children was not acknowledged, but in early Hellenistic times there is literary and artistic evidence of a changing attitude: The body and the inner nature of children were associated with a new quality. (ad 2) The Jewish background, which will be presented, is described by Rüdiger Lux (Leipzig) in his article "The Children in the Lane. A Motif of Childhood in Prophetic Speeches of Judgment and Salvation". Especially its aspect of salvation can be regarded as the Jewish backdrop against which the verse Q 7:32 can be understood. Furthermore, in each of these two traditions texts can be found which bear a striking resemblance to the parable of the children in the marketplace (Q 7:32): On the one hand Callimachus' first epigram with its combination of children sitting in a public place, playing and giving advice and on the other hand Zechariah 8:4-5 that combines the aspects of children who reassemble in public places and play. We see: The parable is open to interpretation for two different target audiences. This implicates new facets of an interpretation of the parable Q 7:31-32 (31-35).

Recent scholarship has demonstrated the importance of Akkadian documents of legal practice, especially from the Neo-Babylonian corpus, in reconstructing trial procedure in the Hebrew Bible. These extra-biblical texts shed important light on biblical lawsuits between humans, as well as on litigation between God and people. This paper will demonstrate that the comparisons extend beyond procedure into the very terminology of the courtroom. The forensic interpretation of common Hebrew words, such as the verbal root š-m-' ("to hear") and the adjective nakôn ("established"), can be supported by comparison with equivalent legal terminology attested in Neo-Babylonian trial documents.

While other “uses of Scripture” such as citations, quotations, echoes and allusions have received a great deal of attention in recent decades, the discrete category of "story summaries" has been largely neglected. Although occasionally noted as a "use of Scripture" (as by Richard Hays and Joel Green in one recent overview), perhaps along the lines of a shorter version of Rewritten Bible (cf. Joachim Jeska, 2001), and on rare occasion noted as a form of intertextuality, methodological questions regarding this category of Scripture remain unasked and unanswered. This paper is an exploration of "summaries of Israel's story" (in the NT: Matthew 1:1-17, Mark 12:1-12 and parallels, Acts 7 and 13, Heb 11, Rev 12; cf. Neh 9, Jud 5, Pss 78, 105; etc.), a more focused category of story summary. Previous efforts to define and list such summaries will be canvassed, including the work of Ethelbert Stauffer, Howard Clark Kee, Joachim Jeska, and N. T. Wright. Methodological clarification for the identification of such summaries will be offered, followed by analysis of the intertextual practices most commonly associated with summaries. On the basis of this analysis, concluding reflections of the "test-case" variety will be offered on Matthew 1:1-17 as a "summary of Israel's story". A list of such summaries of Israel's story will be made available via handout.

The purpose of this paper is to examine purity regulations primarily in the sectarian Dead Sea text MiqSat Ma‘aWe Ha-Torah, also referred to as MMT, which correlates with and sheds some light on similar purity stipulations found among certain Hebrew Bible laws. Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell translate MiqSat Ma‘aWe Ha-Torah as ‘Some Works of the Law’ or ‘Some Precepts of the Law'. Lawrence Schiffman classifies the work as the ‘Halakhic Letter’. Regardless of the exact title, contention over certain legal stipulations is clearly outlined. In light of the correlations (with biblical material), this paper will also explore the variant ideological views concerning purification among late Second Temple period Jewish sectarian groups. MMT reflects some of the specific tensions that existed among the Jewish sects of the particular time; some of these tensions included: (1) The purity regulations for those dealing with the preparation of the heifer of the sin-offering ceremony (B 13-17), (2) Slaughtering animals outside the temple and the prohibition of bringing and using their bones and hides in Jerusalem (B 18-23), (3) The overall place where slaughtering animals was to take place (B 20-35), (4) The regulations concerning admission into the assembly and possibly the temple for the Ammonite, the Moabite, the bastard, and the one with mutilated genitalia (B 39-49), (5) The restriction of the blind and deaf from entering into the temple area (B 49-54), (6) The prohibition of dogs from entering Jerusalem (B 58-62), and (7) The prohibition of lepers from entering the holy place (B 64-72). Some of these stipulations will be examined here. Throughout this paper, MMT’s cultic matter will be examined not only alongside Hebrew Bible material, but also with other sectarian texts and rabbinic sources. Although rabbinic sources postdate MMT and the Qumran scrolls in general, seeming comparisons can be made concerning the variant views of late Second Temple period Jewish groups.

This paper offers a close study of Ephraem the Syrian’s interpretation of the figure of the biblical matriarch Sarah. Based on Ephraem’s poetry and prose commentaries on Scripture, one can show how the author was especially interested in casting Sarah into the roles of prophetess and caring mother. Very close is the relationship Ephraem discerned between Sarah and Mary, the mother of Jesus. For him, Sarah was a raza. She was a type of Mary, but she also functioned as a model for Mary. Ephraem’s Mariology was neither one-dimensional, nor one-directional, but dynamic. This paper addresses the role of interpretative traditions of Sarah within Judaism in order to evaluate parallels to and contrasts with Ephraem’s interpretation of her character. The figure of the matriarch Sarah serves Ephraem as a model, both negative and positive, for every-day Jews and Christians. In Ephraem’s hand, Sarah’s character could advance the author’s anti-Jewish agenda. Yet perhaps more pronounced, one finds Ephraem highlighting Sarah’s exceptional prominence among biblical women, both from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

Invited Paper

Second Temple Period

The New Testament papyrus fragments customarily labeled P91 (P. Macquarie Inv. 360 + P. Mil. Vogl. Inv. 1224) contain Acts 2:30–37 and 2:46–3:2. The fragments are generally recognized as a third century witness. Other than the initial examinations of the fragments by Claudio Gallazzi in 1982 and by S. R. Pickering in 1986, the codicological aspects of the fragments have been given little to no attention. Features such as fiber orientation, quire identification and reconstructed leaf dimensions can offer insight concerning the original codex to which P91 belonged. Did the codex contain the book of Acts alone? Or do the physical aspects of P91 reveal a codex large enough to have possibly contained more of the New Testament? More specifically, could P91 be an indirect third century witness to at least one of the Gospels?

The boyhood of Jesus has frequently been used in hymns, children Bibles, and Sunday school lessons to teach virtues with Jesus’ own life providing an example of how children should behave. In some re-tellings of the biblical stories, however, the positive portrayal of Jesus’ actions and attitudes that people seek to inculcate in children are contrasted against a negative backdrop of first century Judaism. Since the holocaust many Christian theologians and biblical scholars have been become sensitive to what has been called the church’s “teaching of contempt.” In this tradition, first century Judaism is constructed as a corrupted and degenerate religion, Jesus is separated from his Jewish heritage, and Jews are blamed from the rejection and crucifixion of their Messiah. In this paper I look at art, illustrations, and text drawn primarily from children Bibles to explore how negative stereotypes of Jews are perpetuated even while positive virtues that Jesus possesses are extolled. This portrayal of Jesus within Judaism will be contrasted with other more recent Bibles which more sensitively reflect post-holocaust interfaith dialog and hermeneutics. Children’s bibles thus provide a unique window to the reception history of biblical texts.

Christ and Bride Coming into Wedding is the title of the final work in a series of paintings on Revelation by self-taught artist and visionary Myrtice West. The central image is Christ and his Bride clasping hands surrounded by those inhabiting the New Jerusalem. While Christ’s appearance (e.g. white, bearded) is not surprising given West’s social location, her depiction of the bride is unusual. Rather than picturing a city or church, the Bride resembles West’s daughter, who died at the hands of an abusive husband. West’s use of her experience (or that of her daughter) to represent Revelation’s bridal imagery is paralleled in the paintings of another self-taught artist, Gertrude Morgan. Morgan, a self-proclaimed bride of Christ, visionary and New Orleans street-preacher, produced numerous depictions of the New Jerusalem in which she stands alongside of Christ the bridegroom. Christ’s pink skin and red hair are striking next to Morgan’s representations of the bride as an African-American woman. While the paintings of both suggest an individualistic interpretation of Revelation’s New Jerusalem, closer examination reveals that their interpretations are not so simple. Additionally, although the paintings of West and Morgan are distinct in terms of style and the ways in which their identities shape their textual interpretations, they illustrate how Revelation’s metaphorical language invites interpreters to extend the ideas undergirding Revelation’s bridal and New Jerusalem imagery. Likewise, the paintings of these two women, each with exceptional life stories, prompt us to think about the ways in which gender and race are negotiated within appropriations of Revelation’s imagery. Thus, this exploration of West and Morgan’s paintings shows the ways that Revelation’s imagery intersects with interpretive identities, helping us understand how Revelation’s rhetoric works on real readers, as well as documenting an exegetical tradition among visionary women in the Southeastern US.

It would not be an overstatement to say that the armature upon which the life’s work of Hugh Nibley was wound was the temple. From the days of Adam, according to Hugh Nibley, there has been, among God’s covenant people, the equivalent of the temple. But, what is the temple? According to most Jews and Christians, “The Temple” is that built by Solomon: the First Temple. The sanctity of the Second Temple, built after the Babylonian Exile, and rebuilt again and again, was confirmed when Jesus referred to it as “my father’s house.” The Greek word translated “house,” oikos, also gives us the word oikonomia, “economy,” as in “the divine economy,” the care and providence of God towards earth and humanity: all creation. Oikonomia “implies the management of an environment or household, [oikos], which is also the root of the word ‘ecology’ [oikologia].” Hugh Nibley held to a strict Biblical view of oikologia and man’s proper stewardship of the natural world (he used the term “Man’s dominion). He linked this with the temple, and what in Temple Theology is referred to as the Cosmic Covenant, actuated by a Great Oath, which binds all creation in harmony and stability, and by which mortals enter the Covenant. Dr. Nibley tied man’s proper stewardship of the world to the temple as “the place of creation . . . the source of life.” It is in linking the temple with stewardship of the natural world — “all living things” — that Dr. Nibley gave his vision of man’s stewardship over the environment; and, in the breaking of the Cosmic Covenant we see how “the lights went out” and both the first and second temples, one in each Testament of the Bible, were lost.

It is sriking that so many of the Israelite priests, in the tradition of Moses, have Egyptian personal names. But the priestly associations of Israel with Egypt go deeper than that. There are also interesting similarities between the priestly role in Israel's health care and the health care role of the ancient Egyptian physician, who is often a priest as well as a physician and who at times employs religio-magical means. Israel's priest did not effect healing--that was more the role of others, including prophets--but the priests had a central role in Israel's health care if only because of the importance of purity and the role of the sanctuary.

In terms of the content of its advice about speech, the Epistle of James is largely conventional. What is not so common is the way James sets the tongue at the heart of a cosmic and primeval struggle. True religion, says James, consists in keeping oneself "unstained by the world" (1:27), but the tongue — which is itself "the unrighteous world" — stains the body (3:6). The defiling world is present in the human body. The tongue sets "the wheel of creation aflame" and is itself "set on fire by hell." The tongue is not only a portal between Hell and Creation, but it, unlike the animals (!), has not been brought under human control (3:7-8). James has, in effect, configured "the world," "religion," and "the tongue" in such a way so that to use the tongue improperly is actually to grant "the world" access to one's mouth. Thus the male and female addressees are alike "adulteresses" (4:4). Whereas most Greeks and Romans viewed abusive language as the mark of a manly brio (cf. Catullus 16 or Priapic poetry), in James's apocalyptic discourse, verbal assaults constitute a sexual humiliation.

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A series of publication in recent years attests to an insistent claim that no extant data support the notion that diachrony in BH can be described. Some of the arguments advanced are purely linguistic (for instance, that Persian loan-words cannot serve as a chronological marker indicative of the 2nd Temple period); others are of an extra-linguistic nature (for instance, that the text of the MT has suffered a great degree of fluidity in the course of its transmission, a fluidity that undermines any effort to delineate the linguistic profile of the original authors). In this paper, I revisit six concrete examples whose linguistic lateness within BH is acknowledged by supporters of traditional diachronic research but denied by those who argue that such research is based on misguided assumptions. Using these examples, I will evaluate the sets of methodological guide-lines and philological procedures that result in such diametrically opposed conclusions in order to determine whether or not (1) linguistic distribution, (2) linguistic contrast, (3) consideration of extra-biblical data and (4) the principle of “accumulation” in dynamic combination suffice for generating valid diachronic statements.

The tension between the conditional and the unconditional aspects of the Davidic dynastic promise exists in both Chronicles and the Deuteronomistic history. The major explanation for the tension within the Deuteronomistic history is the redactional hand of the Deuteronomist. This approach views the unconditional covenant of 2 Sam 7 as the original promise and other conditional aspects of the promise in the Deuteronomistic history as the secondary development attributed to the Deuteronomist’s interest in accounting for the destruction of the Davidic kingdom by Babylon. To explain the co-existence of the conditional and unconditional Davidic dynastic promise in Chronicles seems more difficult since the Chronicler’s reception of the Deuteronomistic history is in the post-exilic period. The question is why the Chronicler leaves both the unconditional and conditional Davidic covenants in the work of Chronicles. The Chronicler could have reduced the two dispositions of the covenant into either one that is unconditional or, more likely, one that is conditional given that no Davidic kingdom existed in that period. The more succinct question becomes: why does the Chronicler leave the unconditional Davidic covenant? This paper attempts to find an answer in the organic relationship between the unconditional and conditional aspects of the dynastic promise. The Chronicler would see the two aspects of the promise not as contradictory but rather as complimentary forming two facets of one coin. The Davidic dynastic promise is conditional in the sense that the kingdom is punished, destroyed, and ceased to exist. At the same time, it is unconditional in the sense that Yahweh’s loving-kindness would not depart from it though the kingdom goes through the time of chastisement (1 Chr 17:13; cf., 1 Chr 10:13-14). In other words, the Chronicler believes and hopes the restoration of the Davidic dynasty after the period of God’s discipline ends.

I teach the Book of Revelation in an introductory-level course in which one of my objectives is for students to learn that more than one good interpretation of a text is possible. Revelation is a useful text for this purpose because there exist a variety of very different interpretations, each of which deals with the complex language of this text in a unique way. The difficulty is that many students can only imagine this text in one way, often shaped by their prior encounters with the Left Behind series. In this context, meeting my goal requires me to address the role the text plays in students’ imaginations, and to give them an alternative way to imagine Revelation. In this paper I discuss three techniques I have developed that help students meet the goal, and the means by which I measure their progress. Through discussions of genre, theology, and artistic representations of selected passages, I ask students to develop a new way of “seeing” Revelation. I prepare students to articulate two interpretations of the same passage of Revelation, and to explain the choices each one makes regarding the language of the text. The goal is not to replace the student’s former understanding of the text, but to enable them to see multiple possibilities within one text.

Since the publication of the Earth Bible Series, the interpretation of the ryb (Deut 32; Ps 50; Isa 1:1-20; Hos 2:4-17; 4:1-3; Jer 2:4-13; Mic 6:1-8) has taken a new direction. Traditionally understood, these texts present how YHWH confronts Israel’s infidelity to the covenant by way of “disputation” or “conduct of a legal case,” with usually the natural elements as witnesses. Recently, however, some interest has focused on the presence and role of Earth community in the covenant relation between YHWH and Israel. Our research looks into the ryb in Mic 6:1-8 and discerns not only what the role/s of the hrym, gb‘wt, and ’tnym msdy ’rts (Mic 6:1-2) are but also the presence and function/s of other members of Earth community in the pericope. Guided by the principle of voice that “Earth is a subject capable of raising its voice in celebration and against injustice,” our study investigates the various ways (gesture, sign, image or sound) in which Earth community communicates with humans, other members of Earth community, and YHWH. We endeavor to reclaim the voice of Earth community in Mic 6:1-8 in four steps. First, we consider the role of the hrym, gb‘wt, and ’tnym msdy ’rts as witnesses in the so-called ryb (Mic 6:1-2) in comparison with the role of the deities and natural elements in the ancient Near East treaties. Second, we attempt to listen to the voice of these witnesses by rereading the complaint of YHWH (Mic 6:3-5) from their perspective. Third, we allow these witnesses to raise their voice against objectification and exploitatively anthropocentric mindset which suggest covenant violation (Mic 6:6-7). Lastly, we show how hrym, gb‘wt, and ’tnym msdy ’rts witness anew the re-presentation of covenant relationship within the Earth community which allow for fullness of life for all life forms (Mic 6:8).

In describing his apostolic trials (2 Cor 4:7-18), Paul says episteusa, dio elalesa in 2 Cor 4:13 and expounds on it in vv.14-15. There are several issues here: (1) does Paul cite Ps 116:10 (MT) or Ps 115:1 (LXX)? (2) does Paul only refer to Ps 116:10/Ps 115:1 or does he allude to the whole Ps 116/115?; (3) who does Paul suppose the speaker to be in the psalm quote in 2 Cor 4:13? According to Stegman (2007), following Hays (2005), Paul understands the psalms Christologically and, therefore, Christ is the one who says episteusa, dio elalesa. In this paper, we shall critically evaluate this position and offer an alternative narrative-critical reading exploring the way Paul explicitly and implicitly uses Ps 116 (MT) and/or 114-115 (LXX) to create his own new psalm thus effectively characterizing himself as a psalmist in 4:7-18. We will also relate this to the use of psalms in the Corinthian liturgy (1 Cor 14:15, 26). Paul’s effectively acting like a psalmist is an expression of his theology-in-the-making in so far as the use of psalms in the Corinthian liturgy articulates a theologizing on suffering and deliverance as well as proclamation in 2 Corinthians by making use of an existing psalm to write a new psalm-like text in 4:7-18.

Taking as a point of departure the results of the research project Circumstantial Qualifiers in Semitic (Harrassowitz 2009) the author analyses the textual structures in Isaiah 52-53 with a reconsideration of the linguistic concept of subordination in the Isaiah text. As a result new light is shed on the text and on the Hebrew "tenses" (the verbal grammatical morphemes), which stand out as quite regular in a Westsemitic setting. The language in the text turns out to be a normal human language with a structure that is well attested among modern spoken languages seen in a crosslinguistic perspective. References: Isaksson, Bo, Heléne Kammensjö, and Maria Persson. Circumstantial qualifiers in Semitic: The case of Arabic and Hebrew. Edited by Bo Isaksson. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 70. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2009. Isaksson, Bo. “Circumstantial qualifiers in Qumran Hebrew: Reflections on adjunct expressions in The Manual of Discipline (1QS)”. In Conservatism and innovation in the Hebrew language of the Hellenistic period. Proceedings of a fourth international symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls & Ben Sira, edited by Jan Joosten and Jean-Sébastien Rey, 79-91. Studies on the texts of the desert of Judah 73. Leiden - Boston: Brill, 2008. Isaksson, Bo. “Semitic circumstantial qualifiers in the Book of Judges: A pilot study on the infinitive”. Orientalia Suecana 56 (2007): 163-172.

Second Language Acquisition research seeks to understand how adults learn second (or third or fourth) languages, and to identify and evaluate the factors that influence speed of learning, efficiency, and success in attaining a high level of proficiency. SLA theories on the social aspects of language have suggested major innovations for classroom activities. This paper will review some of the related research, including Paul Nation's Four Strands of input, output, grammar and fluency, and propose possible applications to teaching Biblical languages. [This is an invited paper by the ALBL Group to survey how Second Language Acquistion Studies may contribute to Biblical language pedagogy. -- Group chairs]

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In Psalm 137 we hear the haunting sound of a displaced people making sense of the reality of captivity. Their identity is fused with the land from which they came and “other” than their present location. Whatever the length and quality of their stay in Babylon (the foreign land), a longing to return to their home marks their presence in Babylon. Similarly, Psalm 137 holds a place in Caribbean culture giving voice to a generation and an experience of displacement and contending with an identity in colonial and post-colonial environment. Within the Caribbean interpretative frame of reference, the psalm also functions as a point of dissonance to the reality of captivity. This paper examines Psalm 137 along side the reggae song of Bob Marley—‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ as a case study in the fusion of biblical interpretation of the exile and cultural identity. This hermeneutical endeavor explores the assonance and dissonance of the psalm in relation to Caribbean existence—that is, the richness of that existence and the challenge to embrace the distinctiveness and multifaceted of Caribbean identity.

Our paper will explore an often under-appreciated aspect of popular film, the effect that the biblical word is perceived and represented as having. In Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) “quotes” Ezekiel 25:17 twice. The first serves as summary of Winnfield’s career-long use of scripture, which is largely unreflective. As he later says himself, “I never gave much thought to what it meant, I just thought it was some cold blooded sh** to say to a motherf***** before I popped a cap in his a**.” The second, coming at the end of the film, marks a shift in Winnfield, as he begins to think seriously about what the passage he has quoted means in his own life. In The Book of Eli (2010), Eli (Denzel Washington) struggles to balance protecting the Bible with living and acting in a way consistent with its principals, at least as he understands them. Eli strives to “stay on the path,” both the literal path of his journey to a place where his Bible (the last known copy) will be protected and copied—a path to which he has been called by God—and the figurative path of righteous, faithful living—a path to which he is called by his burden. In both films the biblical material, in concert with lived experience, works a change in the character in question. Each offers a thoughtful reflection on the impact of the biblical word and the likelihood that once encountered, once internalized, the biblical word will work as an agent of transformation. These uses of the biblical material are both integral to the messages of these films, and engaging interactions with biblical text.

Within Old Testament studies, the methodological designation, narrative ethics, primarily refers to the scholarly attempt to extract Israel’s ethical principles from their stories, whether through an analysis of the virtues and vices of the literary characters or the ethical vision of the implied author. In contrast, the discipline of Christian ethics understands a narrative ethical approach, not as a methodology confined to a particular genre, but rather, as a systematic understanding of the storied form of all reality. Exemplified in the early writings of Stanley Hauerwas, narrative ethics emphasizes the importance of the communally-accepted framing narratives, which inform its audience of the nature of God, the self, and the world. Further, these stories invite the community to live within the “ongoing narrative” in such a way that their ethical commitments demonstrate the veracity of their underlying narrative to the world. The goal of this paper, then, is to apply the methodological principles of Christian narrative ethics to the thanksgiving songs of the Psalms. As such, the thanksgiving songs will be viewed as evidence of the storied form of Israel’s ethical instruction, particularly in the psalmist’s personal confirmation of the validity of Israel’s communal narrative(s) and the consequent invitation to the community to live “rightly” within the ongoing narrative. Therefore, rather than merely providing a witness to the Lord’s deliverance, the thanksgiving songs are understood to be motivated by the ethical concern of character formation. This appeal to Israel’s character, however, is not made on the basis of isolated ethical principles or injunctions, but through the rehearsal of a story.

The author of the concluding verses of the Deuteronomistic History has written a deliberately ambiguous ending to that work. Scholars have variously interpreted this final scene of Jehoiachin’s release from captivity as signaling both hope for the displaced exiles and lack of it, but the passage itself avoids any specific reference to the future of the exilic community and the Davidides. This paper examines the reasons that 1 and 2 Kings as a whole presents for the punishment of dynasties, as well as the particular favor accorded to the Davidides in Dtr. While the author of the end of Kings had a variety of formulas available that he or she could have used in order to specify what future awaited the Davidic king and his fellow exiles in Babylon, 2 Kings 25:27-30 avoids all of them. The result is an ambiguous conclusion to the work that avoids looking to the past, and so that reflects the traumatic present of the displaced exiles.

This session is dedicated to examining the new contributions to the interpretation of particular texts facilitated by socio-rhetorical interpretation as this has been developed by the Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Group under the leadership of Vernon Robbins. Three scholars engaged in writing commentaries for the Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Series (Deo Press) will present what they believe to be the fresh perspectives or insights into particular passages from Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 John developed as a result of engaging the passage through socio-rhetorical interpretation. Respondents who have written commentaries from more traditional hermeneutical approaches will assess the relevant section of the presenter's commentary. The session as a whole seeks to nurture dialogue between practitioners of socio-rhetorical interpretation and scholars located in more traditional methodologies within the larger guild.

The paper responds to the discussions about Afghanistan in the U. S. and NATO countries, which have concentrated on the classical criteria of initiating and conducting a “just war.” Those criteria were relevant in 2001-02 but seem inappropriate after a long and contested occupation. Although barely mentioned in past debates over just war, the principles of jus post bellum seem far more appropriate in considering policy options in current circumstances of occupations following wars. Studies by experts in international law such as Alexander Moseley, Brian Orend, Juan Diego Garzón, Christian Schaller, Carsten Stahn and Jann K. Kleffner lay out aspects of a just occupation, but so far as I can tell, no biblical scholars have entered this discussion. The proposed paper would aim in a preliminary manner to apply to the issue of just occupation various biblical passages that are (1)critical of domination, (2) supportive of universal human rights, and (3) providing encouragement to prudence.

The Historical, Theological, and Ecclesiological Contexts for the Question Historically, the relationship between canonical criticism and textual criticism has been unclear. Is it the “Old Testament” or the “Hebrew Bible” that Christians hold as canonical? Or is it a Platonic theoretical ideal of the above? If the early church held some Septuagint-like Greek version of the Bible as canonical, why does the church today pay more attention to the Hebrew version? And is it the Masoretic version that is authoritative for the church, or the state of the text at some earlier point? Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 as Case Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Canon The textual-critical work on Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 has been extensive and conclusive. However, these passages continue to be included in the text of printed editions of the New Testament, unlike most variant readings deemed inauthentic by textual critics. When the New Testament in the Revised Standard Version appeared in 1946, Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 were relegated to the footnotes. However, when the second edition of the RSV New Testament appeared in 1971, they were both restored to the text, with brackets and explanatory footnotes. How and why did this happen? What kind of theological, ecclesiological, and political thinking went into that decision? And why should these two passages be treated differently from shorter passages, such as John 5:4 or 1 John 5:7b-8a? Hans Frei, James Sanders, and others have emphasized that biblical scholarship ought to serve communities of faith. This paper explores how the Society of Biblical Literature might serve the church in sorting out its Scriptures.

Most Indian Christian Theology has focused on Christological Ideas developed by theologians who have come from High Caste Hindu families. The Christology of Brahamobandab Upadhyaya, e.g. develops Christology around the Upanishidic idea of sat-cit-ananda. Unfortunately, these Christologies do not make sense to Low Caste and Dalits people of the Indian Church. Almost no thought has been given to a Christology based on grass roots stories of the Shudras- the hundreds of low castes on Indian society. This paper will present some ideas of the Messiah in the Old Testament, and correlate these to ideas of the Messiah found in Shudra or Other Backward Caste (OBC) literature.

I will be on a panel discussing "A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew."

In the 1970s, Moshe Weinfeld distinguished two types of ancient Near Eastern covenants: suzerainty treaty (conditional obligatory covenant) and royal grant (unconditional promissory covenant). Weinfeld suggested Yahweh’s covenant promise in Genesis 15:13-21 was modeled on the ANE royal grant and therefore was unconditional. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that subsquent passages articulate explicit stipulations upon which fulfillment of the covenant was conditioned (Gen. 17:1-2, 9-14; 18:18-19; 22:14-18; 26:5). Weinfeld suggested this tension could only be explained by the existence of two conflicting traditions—the early Yahwistic tradition which viewed the covenant as unconditional and the later Deuteronomistic tradition which concluded from historical realities of the seventh century that the covenant was conditional. This paper will reexamine the set of royal grant texts Weinfeld suggested was the closest parallel to Yahweh’s covenant promise of land to Abraham (Gen 15:13-21): Abban’s land grant to his faithful servant Yarimlim (AT 1 and 456). According to Weinfeld, AT 1 and 456 are classic examples of an absolutely unconditional covenant. This paper will show that Weinfeld misunderstood the nature of this royal grant, since he ignored the clear obligations that Abban placed on Yarimlim and his descendants (AT 456: lines 43-58). Whereas the original grant (AT 1) highlighted the promissory element, the subsequent document (AT 456) made explicit what was apparently implicit in the original grant: the obligation of Yarimlim and his future descendants to remain loyal to Abban. By mishandling AT 1 and 456, Weinfeld created a false dichotomy by viewing ANE royal grants as purely promissory and absolutely unconditional. This paper suggest that the presence of both promissory and obligatory features in AT 1 and 456 provides an important paradigm for understanding the presence of both promissory and obligatory features in God’s covenant with Abraham. Although the original covenant promise highlighted the promise (and thus seemed unconditional), subsequent passages in the larger narrative made explicit what was apparently implicit in the original grant: the obligation of Abraham and his future descendants to obey God. Consequently, the larger narrative dealing with God’s covenant promise to Abraham may feature more literary unity than Weinfeld recognized.

Were the strangers (/gerim/) integrated in the Qumran movement or were they a category with utopian significance only, as argued by some (Donaldson 2007)? Were the strangers part of some factions or stages of the movement but not the others? The relevant passages are, for example, those about the covenant where CD includes /gerim /but 1QS does not (CD 14:3-6; 1QS 2:19-25; 6:8-9) as well as the exclusion of /gerim /in 4Q174 and their partial inclusion in 11QT. On what basis are /gerim /rendered as proselytes and does this category bring us any closer to understanding what the status of such persons was? This paper investigates the textual data about the/gerim /in the Dead Sea Scrolls and also addresses the sociological significance of interpreting the /gerim /either as insiders or outsiders or something in between. The classic work by Max Weber saw the changes in the attitudes towards the strangers in the Hebrew Bible as one reflection of the development into a separated confessional community.

This paper reconsiders the meaning and function of the comparison in Mt 11:11//Lk 7:28 (“Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of Heaven/God is greater than he”). From ancient times to the present, this “Q” saying has been nderstood in various ways. To demonstrate the real ambiguity of this verse, I re-examine the interpretations of three ancient exegetes and three modern exegetes, all of which provide distinctive approaches to the interpretation of the verse. One popular view, for example, is to understand “the one who is least” as an allusion to Jesus, in which he indirectly referred to himself as being less than John. In this view, Jesus is considered, in a real comparative sense, to be “less[er]” than John either in age or earthly status. Another popular view is that “the least” should be identified not with any one individual, but with a group of persons associated with the kingdom of God. Naturally, the question of whether John is included in or excluded from the kingdom arises. I attempt to show that the comparison in this saying is explained via the idea in Lk 7:29-30, that an example of “the least” seems to be “the people and even the tax collectors” who responded to the call to repentance. I demonstrate further that the portrayal of John following Mt 11:11//Lk 7:28 is not only positive, but it is also likened to the role of Jesus. I argue that the comparison has nothing to do with John and should be seen as a rhetorical device to emphasize the greatness of the kingdom. The question of John’s personal status, then, is irrelevant.

The Theodotion Narrative of Susanna (and the elders) has been examined by various scholars in different ways. The methods used for examining this narrative vary greatly in style. Some are purely grammatical, others use semantics to arrive at meaning. However, only a few follow narrative analysis to determine meaning. The Greimassian semiotic approach has until now not been used as approach to scrutinize the Theodotion Narrative of Susanna. Reasons for this lack are many. One is that Greimas wrote in French thereby making it accessible to only a selected audience. A second reason might be the difficulty of applying this method to narratives. This paper applied the Greimas’ semiotic approach to the narrative with surprising results. The most prominent contribution is that the main question in the narrative seems to be “Who is a real Jew”. The answer is “Anyone who upholds and abides by the law, be it man or woman”. It shows that Susanna is indeed a gender equalizing narrative. Another result is that all the names in this narrative were not just randomly selected but indeed carry great significance in the Jewish tradition. Still another insight shows that there is a spatial tension between Babylon and heaven. Various other insights resulting from the Greimassian semiotic analysis are shown. This approach proved fertile for this popular narrative.

Some scholars argue that the passage in Lk 5:33-39 depends on Mk 2:18-22. It is accepted that the basic structure of the event in Luke is identical to that in Mark. Nevertheless, the differences are too significant to be ignored as trivial matters. To list some of the differences, 1) Luke adds a reference to prayer of Jesus disciples, whereas the question in Mark as well as in Matthew is limited to their fasting. In addition, the Greek word for ‘prayer’ is non-Lukan; 2) Luke describes the final verses (vv.36-39) as parabolic; 3) a proverb in v.39 is unique to Luke’s Gospel. It is probable, therefore, that Luke relies on other written or oral Greek sources. Non-Lukan locutions and characteristics in Lk 5:33-39, which are not found in Mark 2:18-22, may suggest that Luke was dependent on written source(s). This study demonstrates that the passage in Lk 5:33-39 relies on a written Greek source or sources.

This paper examines Origen's view of scriptural hermeneutics through his lens of the hexameron, as he presents it in De Principiis IV. I will argue that Origen's emphasis on the primacy of allegory and the s??p?? of Scripture over historicity allows Origen to work through the theological questions posed by human p??a??es?? (as a guiding principle) and divine foreknowledge and thus provide an alternative reading of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

The practice of depositio or inhumatio ad sanctos—i.e., seeking burial next to a martyr—is attested prior to the fourth century. With Constantine, however, the practice dramatically increased, and scholars have recognized the ritual’s Christianizing effect upon the urban sphere. Constantine himself provides a clear example of the phenomenon. In 336ce, the emperor violated Roman law and offended religious sensibilities in his translation of the relics of Andrew and Luke to his own mausoleum within the walls of Constantinople. Constantine’s actions prefigured the larger transformation from pagan to Christian city as ad sanctos practices challenged the purity/impurity divide lending shape to the urban versus rural arrangement of the Graeco-Roman world. This paper attempts a closer examination of the dynamics of religious as well as urban transformation carried within this practice by comparing two famous examples: 1) Ambrose’s inclusion of the bones of Gervasius and Protasius in the Ambrosiana just outside Milan and 2) Meletius’ translation of the Babylas relics to his own martyrium within Antioch. By reading these incidents in the context of the Arian/Nicene battles plaguing both episcopacies, I hope to elucidate the manner in which the miracles associated with those relics assumed a theological edge inscribing the religious demographics within and around their respective cities. To that end, I propose that Ambrose and Meletius intended the arrangement and specific location of the (holy) dead to define not only the orthodoxy and heresy but also the legitimate residency of the (not so holy) living.

This presentation will consist of a brief overview of the author's new book.

This paper will build upon a paper titled "Using Later Iconographic Analogues to Identify Apocryphal Scenes in Early Art" which I presented at the 2009 SBL International Meeting. That paper reviewed sixth century images identified by art historians as Mary at the Test of Bitter Water -- a scene from the Protevangelion -- and then showed that these images have several points of contact with the unusual left hand scene in the main fresco in the Cubiculum of the Velata. In the current paper I will briefly review the methodology of using later iconographic analogues to identify scenes in earlier art, illustrated by the images of the 2009 paper. Then I will compare the center figures in the catacomb fresco -- an orante female beneath the Good Shepherd inside a circle -- with fifth century and later extracanonical scenes known as "The Ascension of Christ." These later scenes depict an orante Mary beneath Christ inside a circle. In some of these later scenes, apostles flank Mary and angels flank Christ, thus I propose that this iconography may depict a post-resurrection scene from the third century Gospel of Bartholomew where the apostles entreat Mary to lead them in prayer -- and then Mary stands before them, lifts her hands to heaven, and prays to her son above. I will show that the catacomb iconography has significant points of contact with the later iconography (examples of which are found in Rome). If correct, then the composition of the entire fresco can be seen as two smaller scenes about the miraculous birth of Jesus flanking a central scene about his Ascension. The identification of apocryphal scenes in the Cubiculum of the Velata would mean that apocryphal gospels were the source of some of the earliest gospel scenes in the catacombs.

The Synoptics and their putative sources are our fullest helpful consensus sources for historical Jesus research. While many approaches have provided much insight, reading the Gospels as one would read other biographies of recent figures from their era may invite greater appreciation for the traditions they contain. Likewise, concrete information about oral memory and written sources from the period invite the same tendency. One's specific approach to the sources is determined partly by the nature of one's historical interest (finding a critical minimum, maximum, or what is most probable on historical grounds), but often also by one's focus.

This study will read Psalm 8 in light of Gen 1:1-2:4, exploring how Psalm 8 picks up material from the creation account and reconfigures it in a new context. First, the study will re-examine the question of the historical relationship between the two passages, arguing that it is highly probable that Psalm 8 is reflecting upon either the creation account found in Genesis 1 or a very similar version of the creation account. Next, the paper will survey the points of contact between Psalm 8 and Genesis 1, identifying the themes from Genesis 1 that the psalmist gives her attention to; Psalm 8, it will be shown, contains two uneven reflections upon creation (a reflection upon elements from the fourth day of creation [Ps 8:2b, 4], and a reflection upon elements of the sixth day of creation [Ps 8:5-9]), while at the same time using language evocative of the entire creation account of Genesis 1 (Ps 8:2, 10). From there, the study will reconsider the content and structure of the first creation account. The study will argue that, in focusing on the creation of the heavenly luminaries (Gen 1:14-20) and humanity (Gen 1:26-30), the psalm turns the reader’s attention to the two climactic moments in the creation account. By reflecting upon the created things that Genesis 1 describes as God’s representative rulers of their respective domains, the psalmist meditates upon the way in which YHWH maintains the created order. Furthermore, the two uneven meditations also serve to clarify the place of the human in creation by contrasting the human with the heavenly bodies. As a result, when read as a hymnic meditation upon the first creation account, Psalm 8 emphasizes God’s maintenance in the created order through the exaltation of the seemingly insignificant human to a position of honor.

This paper examines depictions of withstanding persecution in the NT as examples of forms of contact with the supernatural and their role in the formation of early Christian religious identity. Rom 8:17 exemplifies the thesis in stipulating that if one has suffered for, or with, Christ, there is assurance that the believer will also be glorified with Christ. Likewise, in the Synoptic tradition the believer must take up his or her cross (Mark 8:34 par.; “daily,” according to Luke 9:23), in order to be Christ’s follower. Experiences of the supernatural by means of the persecution also play a role in Paul’s depictions of his experiences of Christ. E.g., in Phil 3:10–11, Paul wants to know not only “the power of [Christ’s] resurrection” but also “the sharing/fellowship [koinonia] of his sufferings,” to “attain the resurrection from the dead.” Experiences of hardship and persecution also come to the fore in Paul’s constructions of his apostolic authority. At Gal 6:17 Paul demands that “no one,” including his Christian opponents, “make trouble for me; for I carry the marks [stigmata] of Jesus branded on my body.” In this instance one could speak of a “privileged” contact with the supernatural, since Paul speaks of his particular authority as Christ’s apostle. Paul also accuses his Christian opponents that they proclaim a false gospel, in order to avoid persecution (Gal 6:12). One subtext of the construction of apostolic authority in Gal 6:12, 17 is that the Galatian agitators lack a privileged experience of, with, or for Christ that Paul can amply demonstrate through the stigmata of his previous persecutions. These NT witnesses, to which numerous others could be added (e.g., 1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; 3:1–6; Heb 10:32–34; 13:13; 1 Pet 2:18–25; 3:1–2), merit testing the thesis to what extent depictions of withstanding persecution contributed to constructions of religious identity in early Christian literature.

A literary reading of Genesis 29-31 in comparison with Genesis 24 reveals a striking parallel structure in the decision of each ancestress to migrate to Canaan. Narrative emphasis on these moments of choice highlights personal autonomy and responsibility for the matriarchs in their response to a divine call. Each woman makes an individual commitment to a new kin group and a new land, just as Abraham and Sarah made in their initial migration (Genesis 12). The matriarch’s responses to narrative representations of a divine imperative stand alongside, and challenge, narrative portrayal of male initiative in the choice of marriage partners. Results of the exegesis are interpreted using the sociological theory of Anthony D. Smith. Smith’s work on ethnic myth eschews a singular focus on boundary mechanisms in the construction of group identity, in favor of an emphasis on the cultural/symbolic content of origin myths and their power in identity formation. Current scholarly discussion regarding the endogamous structure of patriarchal marriages can benefit from the use of Smith’s thought to illuminate the importance of migration decisions made by Israel’s matriarchs, alongside the well-rehearsed significance of kinship structures as boundary markers. A close reading of the migration decisions made by Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah sheds fresh light in several areas. (1) The centrality of the migration motif in the origin stories of Israel and its nuanced significance for both male and female members of Israelite society. (2) The addition of a focus on female choice to the ongoing debate regarding endogamy in Genesis. (3) The uncovering of a structural parallel in the Genesis narrative that can generate further fruitful literary analysis.

In previous articles I argued that the central dynamic in the violence in Alexandria in 38 CE was Roman imperialism rather than disputes over Greek civic status or Egyptian religious practice (SPhA 17 [2005] 49-94; JSJ 37 [2006] 367-400; REJ 168 [2009] 1-49). Ethnic tensions only offered a staging ground for playing out immediate conflicts between Roman elites, including the imperial household and its Alexandrian supporters, Flaccus, and the Roman client Agrippa I. The manipulation of the public in their rivalries climaxed in the Judean violation of the Alexandrian funerary rites for Caligula's sister Drusilla and the subsequent Roman response. This included officially sanctioned attacks on the Judean community. In this approach, the edict of Flaccus was a punitive decree directed at a Judean crime. The present study sets this edict more precisely within the context of Roman political and legal policies. These included unresolved internal inconsistencies that had been created within the Roman legal system by the new program of deifying emperors, which was redefining the crime of treason. This inadvertently brought Roman policies of respecting provincial religious sensitivities (in this case Judean) into conflict with policies for expressing loyalty to Rome. Flaccus was invested with full discretionary authority to articulate his own approach to such tensions when dealing with the Judean crime. The edict's language and consequences suggest that he chose to reduce Judeans to a status historically assigned to enemies recently defeated in war. While Flaccus may have exploited legal ambiguities in response to a personal insult from Agrippa, his edict and the violence that followed were in harmony with established Roman policies. Caligula's plans for the temple indicate he agreed with Flaccus's interpretation of Roman law.

The issue of diversity in early Christianity has recently attracted a lively scholarly interest. In this field of research the Didache received a relatively limited attention. This contribution seeks to fill in this gap by juxtaposing the notion of "euangelion" from the Didache to that of the Pauline epistles. It is generally recognized that the Pauline "gospel" was focused unambiguously on the Lord Jesus Christ, particularly emphasizing His death and resurrection. The evidence of the Didache, however, is remarkably different. As opposed to Paul, the Didache is notably not centered on Christology. Focusing instead on the expectation of the ultimate arrival of the Lord God, this document presents Jesus as God’s servant, who revealed the will of the Lord. Accordingly the term "euangelion", which reappears four times in this short document, can hardly be associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, these crucial for Paul topics, are not even mentioned in this text. The notion of "euangelion", however, is found there predominantly in the paraenetic context. The evidence of the Didache, radically different from that of the Pauline epistles, which is echoed in the rest of the New Testament, yields invaluable information about the origins of Christianity. This paper highlights the importance of the Didache, insisting that its investigation would advance the ongoing research on the diversity in early Christianity.

Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:1 "Be imitators of me, as I imitate Christ." Paul calls upon his hearers/readers to engage in mimesis, a concept familiar in the ancient world. Cognitive Learning Theory emphasizes the importance of models for shaping behavior. By observing the behavior of the model and internalizing it, an individual can create an internal reinforcement for desired behavior. Paul, however, is no longer with us in the flesh. What happens when a model is no longer an external phenomenon but is itself an imaginative construction? Who is the "me" of 1Cor 11:1, and who is the "Christ" that is to be emulated? Through the lens of cognitive learning theory we will explore the role of the imitation of Christ from Paul to the contemporary WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) movement.

Given the shocking metaphorical depictions in the prophetic literature of Zion/Jerusalem as YHWH’s adulterous wife and of YHWH’s resultant rejection and humiliation of her (e.g., Hos 1–3; Jer 2–3; Ezek 16, 23), some contemporary scholars, such as Julia O’Brien and Linda Day, denounce these texts as promoting a picture of God as an abusive, authoritarian husband and thereby implicitly legitimizing such practices in human marriages. They accuse commentators who follow more traditional approaches to these texts of romanticizing the relationship between YHWH and Zion/Jerusalem and ignoring the more troubling, violent aspects of these texts. This paper seeks to reexamine this prophetic image (1) by focusing on the anthropopathic motif of divine jealousy through an analysis of the usage of the qn’ root in the Hebrew Bible, (2) by comparing these prophetic texts with pentateuchal legislation concerning adultery and spousal jealousy in order to consider whether the divine response to Zion/Jerusalem’s “adultery” may be seen to legitimize a similar human response, and (3) by determining how the marriage metaphor functions rhetorically in the prophets. The paper will argue that, while the violence in these texts should not be glossed over, in using the metaphor of marriage and adultery the prophetic authors draw on their experience of the harsher realities of their world in order to shock Israel into recognizing its betrayal of YHWH and to portray YHWH as Israel’s passionate protector, who will bring judgment if necessary in order to drive Israel away from idolatry and back to him. Within the context of the Hebrew Bible these texts do not legitimize abusive behavior in human relationships but operate on the premise that, unlike human husbands, YHWH alone, as the holy and transcendent God, is judge.

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Ilimilku was a scribe in the house of the high priest Attenu of Ugarit, which was located on the Mediterranean coast of Syria at its height from 14th to 12th century B.C.E. Ilimilku’s three major Ugaritic epics —the Baal Cycle (1.1-1.6), the Keret epic (1.14-1.16), and the Aqhat epic (1.17-1.19, cf. 1.21-1.22)—offer a unique opportunity to explore the concepts of death and the Netherworld because the tablets were the works of a scribe (or an editing author) in a limited period of time and place. This study aims at exploring the concept of death and the Netherworld, focusing on Ilimilku’s three major works in conjunction with other Ugaritic texts. This paper is organized into three main parts. The first part will be an examination of certain patterns of death themes in Ilimilku’s three works, especially between the Baal Cycle and the Keret epic, showing several patterns of themes, such as death and drought, the reception of a report of death and the reaction of listeners, the search for corpses and burials, and revenge by sister/female figures. The second part will mainly focus on the concepts of death and the Netherworld in relation to each character of Illimilku’s works. The concepts of death and the Netherworld include descriptions of the Netherworld, human mortality, immortality, resurrection, chthonic deities, and funeral practices. In the third part, the natures of Mot and Raphaim (rpi, rpum) in Ilimilku’s works are explored in the light of the larger Ugaritic cultural context. Mot is regarded as a main deity of death and the Netherworld in the Baal Cycle; however, he is totally absent both from the Ugaritic god list and from the sacrificial and ritual texts. This raises the question whether Mot should be regarded as the god of death and the Netherworld. Another investigation explores the nature of Raphaim. In Ilimilku’s tablets, Keret and Aqhat are associated with Raphaim. Their association with Raphaim opens the interpretation possibility that they could become deified beings after their death.

This paper will consider how social memory theory can contribute to the study of Jesus traditions.

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The set of memorizing techniques in rabbinic learning and their Graeco-Roman background have been studies extensively in recent scholarship. However, the mnemonic aspect of rabbinic spatial practices such as the Shabbat Boundary (tehum shabbat) and the agricultural laws of charity (leket, pe’ah, shikheha) have so far received very little attention. Through a comparison between Roman manuals of land survey and rabbinic texts dealing with such practices, this paper will examine the similar procedures and understandings of memory employed in these two traditions of spatial organization. Roman manuals such as the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum were never explored in the context of rabbinic literature, in spite of the striking parallels they contain with Talmudic methods of defining space. As shown by scholars such as Frances Yates, the mental links established in the Graeco-Roman world between language and space for the purpose of memorizing, had significant cultural implications, which extended beyond the functionality of mnemotechnics. This paper will make a similar claim, drawing on architectural, visual and textual material pertaining to rabbinic spatial practices.

Biblical texts and ancient Near Eastern pictorial images and material culture are separated by thousands of years from people living in the twenty-first century. This is, however, not only a temporal divide, but also represents a significant ideological (or worldview) divide. Following a brief introduction to important principles of adult-educational theory, this paper describes an experiment of using ancient Near Eastern images and material culture to connect modern, often secular, people to the world of the Bible. It suggests that these images represent helpful means to initiate a truly cross-cultural conversation, linking twenty-first century people (outside of academia) to the concerns and issues of those living in the biblical world.

In more than 250 instances the text that is attested for the Gospel used by Marcion and the Marcionites concurs with variant readings of the so-called “Western” text (D it sy) of Luke. These variants include minor differences of little semantic influence but also highly significant differences, among them some of the famous “Western Non-Interpolations”. Since the publication of P75, these “Western” readings vanished from the focus of textual criticism. The problem of the distinct Western text, however, has yet to be solved. In this respect the great number of concurring Marcionite-Western variants poses a particular problem, since it is hardly possible that the heavily criticised “heretic” text exerted such a massive influence on the catholic textual tradition. The paper proposes a new solution, assuming that the Western readings concurring with the Marcionite text are traces of an older pre-canonical Gospel which is basically identical with the Marcionite Gospel. Although it does not solve all the riddles posed by the “Western” text, this assumption closely connects the emergence of the canonical Gospels with the history of the NT textual tradition, thus bringing together research areas that once were closely linked to each other but increasingly drifted apart in the 20th century.

In the classic work of Gerhard von Rad, P reflects a Kavod-Moed (Glory-Meeting) Theology, in which YHWH’s presence is primarily located in heaven, but descends to earth through the Tent of Meeting. In contrast, Deuteronomy’s Shem (Name) Theology is an attempt to spiritualize earlier cultic traditions which conceptualized the tabernacle as the dwelling place of YHWH. Deuteronomy demythologizes the older view by asserting that it is YHWH’s name, not the deity himself, that resides at the tabernacle. Recently, Benjamin Sommer has argued that D and P, in contrast to J and E, reject the concept of a fluid divine body in favor of their respective Shem and Kavod-Moed theologies which locate God primarily in heaven and as indivisible. I will argue that the D source neither rejects the anthropomorphic deity of the J and E sources nor does it assert that God is only located in heaven, an assumption heavily influenced by Von Rad’s Name Theology. I submit that in D, while the cult site is legitimated by divine mandate and not divine presence, YHWH is still present at the cult site. At the same time, YHWH is located in heaven. Instead of rejecting one or the other concept, the D author embraces both.

Prior to the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy, Cyril of Alexandria wrote a monumental commentary on the book of Isaiah. The commentary appears to be tacitly familiar with other Christian interpretations of the great prophetic book, and it exemplifies much early Christian commentary on the Hebrew Bible in that it reveals a consistent focus on Christ as the "*telos* of the Law." Despite the fame of the author and the importance of the commentary, however, it has only recently begun to be published in translation. In this paper I will examine this important and representative work of early Christian exegesis; however, my focus will not be Christology but rather the intersection of pneumatology and soteriology, as it finds expression for Cyril in the sacrament of baptism. The paper will focus on a variety of non-traditional Isaianic texts; as the essay will reveal, Cyril rarely speaks of the Spirit, salvation, and baptism all together, but the many occasions on which he explicitly names two of them suggests that there is an entire conceptual complex at work in this regard. That this complex, constructed as it is of specifically Christian stages in the history of these ideas, can be birthed in Cyril's mind by texts from the *Hebrew* Bible provides for modern interpreters a rich field for understanding how the Hebrew Bible in general, and the book of Isaiah specifically, has been interpreted theologically. Further, the paper's focus on non-traditional lenses for Christian exegesis of the Hebrew Bible (pneumatology, sacramental thought) will add interest for those hearers accustomed to Christological interpretations. Finally, because the commentary is unfamiliar to most scholars, the paper will add to the growing understanding of the commentary itself and early Christian interpretation of Isaiah.

This paper sets out to examine the Christology of the early second century apocalypse known as The Ascension of Isaiah, whose provenance is almost certainly Syria. It collates the evidence and draws some conclusions about the development of Syrian Christianity at the end of the New Testament period.

In the narrative world of the Gospel of John the accounts of communal meals and the metaphorical use of food and drink language play an important role. Communal meals are a central locus for the formation of community and group identity in antiquity. Historical investigations suggest that Christianity spread primarily through the practice of communal meals. The present paper aims to link the Johannine narrative with the Fourth Gospel’s historical world. The Gospel reaches out beyond its narrative borders to directly address the implied reader. I take this implied reader as a bridge to an extratextual audience. If a real meal of a certain group of Christ-believers formed the “Sitz im Leben” of the Johannine meal accounts, the very accounts of meals would have given significance to these meals that surpassed the intake of calories and contributed to the formation and strengthening of the community’s identity. This will be illustrated with the motif of mutual indwelling that clusters in the meal scene and farewell discourses prior to Jesus’ death (Jn 13-17).

Bat Tsion presents a plaintive figure in the book of Lamentations. From the beginning, an anonymous narrator describes her shame and dishonor in graphic detail. Yet when she speaks, Bat Tsion herself does not dwell for long upon her own suffering. Rather, she continually interrupts the narrator on behalf of her children. This maternal protest is not uncommon in parallel literature; the weeping mother goddess is ubiquitous in the Sumerian Lament for the Destruction of Ur. This mother figure also takes the form of a female personified city in the Nippur Lament. In light of the divine paternal rejection threatened in the Prophets and apparent throughout the book of Lamentations, Bat Tsion is rightly concerned for her children, who are orphaned without a father, and upon whom it follows she herself is now dependent. Attention to Bat Tsion’s maternal role reveals a poetic arc throughout the book of Lamentations, peaking with her central protest to YHWH on behalf of her children, the people.

The direct object marker yat/iyyat appears in Aramaic texts from Old Aramaic and on, but it has long been observed that it does not occur in all texts or all dialects. In this paper the distribution will be re-examined, taking into account the recent arguments of M. L. Folmer on this issue, as well. It will be argued that geographic and dialectal differences explain some of the data, but not all of it, and that a model other than a Stammbaum is needed to account for the Middle Aramaic data in particular. Epigraphic Judean Aramaic uses yat often, as does neighboring Nabatean; it is attested sporadically in Qumran Aramaic but never in the Genesis Apocryphon. Rather than positing a geographical explanation for this distribution, it will be suggested that documentary texts (such as the material from Nahal Hever, Wadi Murabba‘at, and the Bar Koseba letters) were written in a different dialect than literary – and possibly biblicizing – texts such as the Genesis Apocryphon.

This paper will explore the use of the term ekklesia (“assembly”) as a socio-religious tool for reconciliation and peace between Christ-followers and Jews, particularly within the book of Romans. In the NT, ekklesia is appropriated as a distinctive term for voluntary associations of Christ-followers who met within, or separately from, Jewish synagogues and/or synagogal gatherings. William Campbell (2006) has incisively examined Paul’s project in Romans 9–11 from the perspective of “Christian” identity formation. Campbell’s work, however, could be expanded to incorporate the theological implications of ekklesia in its role as a creator of group identity for Christ-followers. Of particular import for his argument is the (deutero-) Pauline predilection for portraying those “Christian” voluntary associations (ekklesiai) as sacred space (e.g., living Temple, body of Christ). This sacralisation of the universal and local body/bodies of Christ-followers (ekklesiai) makes even more persuasive Campbell’s claim that in Romans 9–11 Paul presents the Abrahamic covenant as the common theological thread that ties together Christ-followers and Jews in their shared status as the chosen people of God, but which, at the same time, still affirms ethnic diversity within that theological unity. The present paper will argue that the (deutero-) Pauline appropriation of ekklesia can be said to serve a reconciliatory function in Romans 9–11 in that it: (1) differentiates Jewish Christ-followers from non-messianic Jews within the semi-public synagogue association, even while at the same time maintaining their sociological interconnectedness as covenantal ethnic Israel, and (2) provides theological continuity between the multi-ethnic communities of gentile Christ-followers and the socio-religious reality called “Israel,” while still upholding the ethnic discontinuity between gentiles and members of ethnic “Israel”, otherwise called Ioudaioi (“Jews”).

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This paper will offer a comparison between the Jewish Diasporas of Elephantine and Alexandria. According to the sources preserved we find here two forms of Judaism: at Elephantine we encounter a lesser known non-biblical Aramaic-speaking form of Judaism while at Alexandria we find a known expression of biblical Judaism, though Greek-speaking. How to explain these different forms historically remains a vexing question. Here we have to take into account also the third Jewish Diaspora known to us, i.e. the temple in Leontopolis. Lastly we will look at the relationship between Egypt and the Jewish homeland (Judah and Samaria).

The Passion Narratives contain several occasions in which more than one language has been involved. John 19:20, for example, mentions a title on the cross of Jesus, written in three languages: Greek, Latin, and Hebrew in order to give the reason for his crucifixion. Although there is no papyrological evidence for such a “titlon” a lot can be said about official and private multilingual texts in the papyri and their purpose. One example are the so called “leukomata” of Ptolemaic times, but also bilingual hearings (III–IV CE) that offer a clear difference in the importance of the different languages. While Latin can be characterized as a “language of power” (J. N. Adams), Greek and also Aramaic (in certain parts of the East) have been administrative languages for pragmatic reasons. This arises also the question in what language Pilate and Jesus communicated. Next to an official correspondence with the people, also private examples of bilingualism are given in the papyri. This paper will address the issue of multilingualism in the Ancient World as it shows itself in documentary papyri and ostraca, and will deal with the question how much Latin and Greek average Galilean or Judean people like Jesus and his disciples might have spoken and understood.

Almost all work on postcolonial biblical interpretation in Africa to date has been based in West Africa and South Africa. This paper comes from a different context—East Africa—where the use of the Bible is and has been complex. In the mid twentieth century, African nationalists such as the Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta used texts from the Bible as the Ibuku ria Ngai (the book of God) to defend customs and values like polygamy, female circumcision, ancestral veneration, African names and other practices that missionary Christians were campaigning against. Later, biblical principles were used to criticise leaders such as Mwai Kibaki and Iddi Amin. The Bible widely circulates as a source of unquestioned moral authority. For example, Bible texts are inscribed on the sides of buses and other passenger service vehicles. In this paper I will focus on the use of the figure of Jezebel to describe prominent female figures in Uganda and Kenya. In Uganda, Janet Museveni, the President’s wife, has been equated to the biblical Jezebel—specifically in the case of the murder of Aron Kagondoki, a young Makerere University undergraduate who protested against land seizure. In Kenya, Lucy Kibaki, the President’s wife has been described as the ‘dreadful First Jezebel of Kenya’ who ‘has become a law unto herself and literally out of the bounds of legal restraint and due process…’. Considering these and related cases from a feminist and postcolonial perspective, I will address questions such as: ‘How do such accusations relate to the rise of female influence in East African politics?’; ‘How can we interpret the unsettling combination of misogyny and campaigns for justice in relation to the Bible?’; and ‘How do these East African cases relate to the use of Jezebel in, for example, the southern United States (Pippin)?’

Job’s “bitter parody” of Ps 8:5 in Job 7:17-18 has become a “scholarly commonplace,” but the question which naturally follows has rarely been pursued: if the author of Job interacted with this psalm in such a knowing and sophisticated way, what other allusions to the Psalms may likewise make significant contributions to the dialogue between Job, his friends, and God? This paper will attempt to address this question by tracing some other psalmic allusions as they weave through the speeches in Job 3–27. In particular, I will address connections between Job and two so-called “wisdom” or “didactic” psalms: Ps 1 and Ps 73. It is often suggested that the book of Job was written as a reaction to the type of retributive doctrine dictated in Ps 1, and that in his struggle with this doctrine, Job’s experience matches that of the author of Ps 73, sometimes referred to as the “Job psalm.” I will suggest that the correlation between Job and these two psalms is not mere coincidence, but that it instead results from an intentional intertextual interaction with them both signaled by several allusions over the course of the dialogue by both Job and his friends. This technique of dialogical reinterpretation of earlier texts contributes a further facet to the hermeneutical nature of the wisdom movement (cf. Sheppard 1980). Their use in Job also illuminates the tensions within these “wisdom” psalms.

In their depiction of the Johannine Community as a sectarian group both within Judaism and early Christianity, a number of recent sociological commentators on the Gospel of John have drawn on a concept from the discipline of sociolinguistics. This concept, that of "antilanguage", denoting the sociolect of a distinct and subordinate group opposed to wider society (an "antisociety"), was first proposed by the British sociolinguist, Michael Halliday (the founder of systemic functional linguistics) in an essay published in 1976. The concept was applied to the language of the Gospel of John by Bruce J. Malina in a paper given in 1984 and it has since been adopted by a number of other commentators, including Norman J. Petersen, Jerome A. Neyrey, Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Philip F. Esler and Ronald A. Piper. I suggest that the use of the term "antilanguage" may be perceived as lending interdisciplinary weight to the arguments of those who support a sectarian view of the Community. However, I will argue that a close examination of the way the concept and related terms, such as "relexicalization" and "overlexicalization", have been used by these scholars reveals a number of key ways in which Halliday’s original proposal has been misrepresented and that there is, in fact, no sociolinguistic support for modelling the Johannine Community as an "antisociety".

On the acropolis of Philippi, a plethora of images dot the landscape. These images date back to the time of Paul and give clues to women’s lives in ancient Philippi. Images of women and Artemis are by far the dominate reliefs carved from the stones on the hill but there are few inscriptions to explain why they are present. In this paper, I will propose possible meanings behind these images as well as examine the rituals they might represent. Lastly, I will suggest how women’s ritual background might inform their reception of Paul’s letter in the Jesus community in Philippi.

A comparison of the treatment of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) in Terry Gilliam's Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), Pier Paulo Pasolini's The Gospel according to St. Matthew (1964), Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), and Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) reveals a great deal about the message conveyed by each film. All four of these films incorporate the Sermon on the Mount in a key segment, and a close examination of the details of each scene exposes the filmmaker's distinctive interpretation of this portion of Matthew's gospel. But just as revealing as the details of the films themselves are the divergent reactions that each film garnered among critics, audiences, biblical scholars, and censors/watchdog groups. To the degree that these reactions were based on the portion of the film that represented the Sermon on the Mount, they reveal something important about the interpretive assumptions of the various audiences. "Readers" of these films—depending on their interpretive communities—approach them with some definite ideas about the "proper" use and treatment of this key biblical passage, ideas that can be challenged by biblical studies but to which biblical scholars should be attentive.

This paper will discuss the function of the Exo 34:6-7 credo within the macro and micro structures of the Psalter. Three major parallels of the credo appear in the Psalter,the most significant coming in Psalm 145. The covenantal name and attributes of the credo dominate this final psalm before the section of ‘hallelujah psalms’. From a macro-canonical vantage point, parallels also occur in Psalms 86 and 103. Both of these psalms also appear near the seams of Books III/IV and IV/V. All three of these “psalms of David” characterize YHWH’s reign over the cosmos as compassionate, gracious, and, in particular, marked by divine hesed. The Psalter excises the punishing/wrathful attributes of YHWH’s reign to stress God’s goodness. The covenantal attributes are used in these psalms to show the extension of the God’s goodness to the ‘poor and needy’ (86:1), the ‘oppressed’ (103:6) and the ‘humble’ (145:14). The paper will also identify micro-level connections that are based upon the stock of images from the credo and affirmed in the aforementioned macro-canonical structures. This language appears at several of the seam psalms. For example, “iniquity” and/or “rebellion” figure prominently in 89:33; 90:8; 103:10,12; 106:43; and 107:17. Also, the lament of David calls into question the hesed of YHWH in 89:34,50, as opposed to Moses requesting YHWH’s compassion and hesed (90:13-14). The juxtaposition of the macro level emphasis on compassion, hesed, and the graciousness of YHWH with the micro level use of the iniquity and rebellion of the people assumes that an eschatological hope for the nation rests only in the graciousness of God’s reign over the cosmos. This character of YHWH's reign will ensure justice and righteousness in kingdom citizens.

The universal assumption among interpreters of Jesus’ discourse in Luke 17.22-37 is that the subject is the parousia. Setting aside the fact that parousia is a term Luke never uses, and perhaps deliberately avoids, this assumption that ‘the end’ is in view here generates several exegetical difficulties. These include, but are not limited to: 1) Jesus’ prediction that the disciples will long to see ‘one of the days’ and not ‘the day’; 2) the shifts in the entire discourse between the restrictive (‘one of the days’), the plural (‘days’), the singular (‘day’), and then the differently specific (‘in that night’); 3) the presence of a passion prediction (v.25); 4) the logic of the Noah and Lot parallels, which describe a departure and not an arrival (vv.26-29); 5) the warnings about returning for goods or turning back when the parousia should be sudden and decisive (vv.31; cf. vv.34-35); and finally 6) the disciples’s question about locality when they should be expected to ask about temporality (v.37a). In this essay I offer a reading of 17.22-37 as a discourse on the subject of the Son of Man’s impending passion in Jerusalem. I demonstrate that, if not approached from the perspective of a Synopsis, there is not a single image, term, or expression that necessarily signals that the topic of the discourse is the end-time return of the Son of Man. Though several of the images and terms are utilized by Matthew in his formal treatment of the parousia (Mt. 24), they are not repeated by Luke in his parallel treatment in ch. 21. The ch. 17 discourse is a Lucan creation, woven together with both unique and redacted material; the setting is the journey to Jerusalem, and the teaching, as in the surrounding context, concerns issues of direct relevance to those disciples in that narrative.

Memory and place are interrelated phenomena, as the latter represents continuity, forms a locus of memories, and invokes personal and collective nostalgia. The wilderness is a recurring spatial trope in ancient Israelite and Jewish collective memory. Wilderness narratives and imagery in the Pentateuch depict an oscillatory space that sits between the benign and the malign, an in-between space of possibilities and identity formation, where ethno-religious identities are negotiated. Likewise, a diasporic environment is a betwixt space, a dual ontology as the diasporic subject gazes in two directions: the historical identity and the society of relocation. Philo and the producers of 1QS and CD represent the dual ontology of a diasporic experience—the memorialization and rememorialization of the past of the former home and the present realities of the new home, the relocation outside of the former home, and the experience of an identity constructed simultaneously by similarity and continuity with the past and with difference and rupture in the present. This paper examines ways in which the ancient Israelite memory of the wilderness, an ambiguous space of both punishment and revelation, was appropriated to represent a place of purification and revelation and used to construct identity in diasporic environments. More specifically, this paper analyzes ways in which Philo (De Decalogo and De Vita Contemplativa) and the producers of 1QS and CD deploy wilderness imagery to connect mnemonic communities to idealized pasts and exemplary figures such as Moses, a cultural hero who received revelation in the wilderness and lived and died outside of the homeland. Thus, the wilderness, which for Philo and the producers of 1QS and CD is juxtaposed with the city, is a natural locus for those in Diaspora to form mnemonic communities that create continuity between the present and the idealized past.

One of the key features of the late Hugh W. Nibley’s scholarship was his research on and use of the hypothetical annual enthronement festival suggested by scholars to have been celebrated in the ancient Near East annually at the New Year. Nibley built on the work of some of the major proponents of this theory in the early 20th century, including Sigmund Mowinckel, Aubrey Johnson, and S.H. Hooke. Nibley adopted the principles of cultic ritual outlined in the Ancient Near Eastern “patternism” of the time and applied them to many societies, including, ultimately, to cultural/religious gatherings attested in the Book of Mormon. He suggested at one time that, in his opinion, the rituals of the New Year were “the most convincing evidence yet brought forth for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.” Nibley’s work on the New Year Festival has greatly inspired succeeding generations of LDS students and scholars, leading many to do further research on the topic, both in its ancient settings in the Old World, and in relation to our understanding of the Book of Mormon. Their valuable contributions to LDS scholarship on this subject have been based on the assumption that arguments for the annual New Year Festival are valid. I propose to address the status quaestionis of the suggested New Year Festival in ancient Israel. To what extent is it reasonable to use this theory as a basis for argumentation? In the last few decades, biblical scholarship has largely distanced itself from the conclusions of the “Myth and Ritual School” and condemned ideas of a universal pattern of ritual across ancient cultures. However, a number of scholars have recently argued in favor of the validity of the general theory. I will explore what is being said about the New Year Festival in today’s scholarship, and will present an evaluation of Nibley’s work on the subject in light of this analysis.

This paper will outline a set of theses that will add to the development of a new profile of eucharistic origins.

Hebrews 6.1–6 has proved to be a nettlesome passage throughout its interpretive history. The author of Hebrews has embedded three stubborn obstacles in the path of 6.4–6, which, taken together, have made it difficult to walk an exegetically straight course. First, the text seems to describe actual members of the Christian community, not pretenders (6.4–5). Second, it seems to speak of a true falling away (6.6). And third, it warns of the real impossibility of repentance after the apostasy (6.4, 6). These three obstacles have created a series of stumbling blocks for interpreters throughout history. Perhaps as early as the Shepherd of Hermas, the belief that Christians could not repent of certain sins—based partly on Heb 6.4–6—has vexed pilgrims traveling the Way. Understandably, modern scholarship has repeatedly attempted to steer a course around these difficulties by illuminating the path with a variety of historical backgrounds, none of which has achieved anything like a consensus. This paper argues that the first-century catechetical Two Ways didactic pattern, as exemplified in the Didache, proves to be an illuminating historical background to Hebrews 6.1–6. Though not evincing literary dependence, compelling conceptual parallels exist between the Didache and Hebrews 6.1–2. Further, the descriptors in Hebrews 6.4 correspond closely with the experience of catechumens at conversion in the Didache. In this light, parapiptõ in Heb 6.6 does not refer to irreversible apostasy, but to a failure to advance on the Way of Life.

The biblical concept of holiness continues to be a subject of debate among source critics and theologians, in several respects. These include the basic meaning and distribution of the term qodeš, the relationship between holiness and danger, and the morality or amorality of the holy. This paper offers a fresh examination of these issues. In addition, the paper assesses the significance of the fact that the root qadaš is almost totally absent from the book of Genesis, concluding that this is not merely a case of “vocabulary rather than substance.” While aspects of holiness are anticipated in Genesis and intimated by several characters, the lethal danger presented by the holy enters the biblical world only in Exodus, where it is intimately connected to Yahweh’s taking on the role of Israel’s exclusive divine suzerain. After this change is discussed in general terms, two specific events which illustrate this difference are examined, one which takes place before the initial mention of holy ground in Exodus 3 and one which occurs shortly after. In each instance God attacks the person to whom he appears. In the first case, the patriarch Jacob successfully wrestles a blessing out of God. In the second, Yahweh seeks to kill Moses (or one of his sons). The paper concludes with an analysis of the new character traits Yahweh displays after Genesis, including the relationship between his deadly wrath and his need to guard his prerogatives as the holy and jealous divine king to whom everything under heaven belongs.

The paper gives an inter-contextual analysis (see Latvus, Reading Hagar in Contexts) of central Hebrew Bible debt texts (Ex 22: 24-26; Deut 15:1-11 and Lev 25) in relation to the letters of the indebted Finns. The social context of the paper is rooted into the Finnish (and global) economical crises: the banks were supported and saved while the individuals may be trapped by non-ending debt payments and the lost of homes. The data analysed includes the letters written by 278 indebted persons. The letters were collected in open invitation by the Lutheran church. The exegetical analysis of biblical debt texts illustrates the development of debt problem and changing attitudes concerning the interests and release of the debt from pre-exilic Covenant Code to Post-Exilic Jubilee text. This paper uses the scheme created by W.Domeris (in Touching the Hearth of God, 2007): distinction of power-powerlessness, shame-honour plays a central role both in modern and in ancient debt issues. The comparison with the current debt texts illuminates the attitudes of the Biblical writers. The debt texts in the Hebrew Bible leave the indebted as an object and structure of the society unchanged (exception: the utopian plan in Lev 25). The indebted may be named as “a brother” or “a next” but he is never seen as “you” (sg 2) but “he” (sg 3) or “the poor”. Questions of the inner world of the indebted person are seldom dealt with by the biblical writers because probably they were themselves not poor or indebted (cf. J. Unsok Ro). Analysis of the indebted poor Finns reminds about silent role of the poor behind the Bible.

In Ezek 36:17, Ezekiel uses highly charged rhetoric to accent the potency of the defilement unleashed by Yahwistic community’s transgressions against Yhwh. He likens the community to a menstruant who disregards the purity regulations of the priestly legislation. The dynamics of this rhetoric raises questions of gender and power within the priestly cult. Issues to be examined include: purity and impurity in relation to gender and power; gender reversal for the men when the community-as-a-whole is addressed as a woman.

The prologue to Philo's De Opificio Mundi frames the creation account as Mosaic pedagogy introducing the Torah as both "legislation" and "instruction" embedded in the natural order of the universe. While clearly apologetic, this narrative frame also positively links legislation integrally to the education of the "world citizen.” Philo blends together a Stoic theory of natural law, the narrative shape of the Pentateuch, and a conception of the lawgiver as pedagogue to interpret the cosmogony in a canonical context. At the same time it unites the particularity of Israel’s Torah to the universality of God’s sovereignty; legislation for Philo is not simply the code for an individual people but a device to school the world into an authentic understanding of reality. This paper will focus on the hermeneutical dynamic between particularity and universality in Philo’s conception of Mosaic pedagogy and its reorientation by subsequent Alexandrian Christian exegetes, especially Didymus. At the outset of his Genesis commentary, Didymus turns the Philonic motif in an anti-Judaic direction. For Didymus, Moses’ educational aim is to separate Israel from the tendency toward idolatry it had developed during its sojourn in Egypt, and Moses is turned from being an educator of the "world citizen" into a restrainer of Jewish vice. It would seem that for Didymus the particularity of Israel plays at best a restricted, if not outright negative, role in the education to God’s universal sovereignty. It is possible, however, that the extant commentary omits valuable information that would allow us to see a fuller and more positive role Didymus provides for Mosaic pedagogy in Genesis 1. The possible evidence comes from Procopius of Gaza's commentary on the Octateuch, which borrows extensively from Didymus. This paper will consider this evidence and its possible effect on the assessment of Didymus' Genesis commentary.

A basic political paradigm of empires features the bilateral relationship between the central government and local subunits. The Achaemenid imperial power ruled over an unprecedented number of tribes and tongues stretching as far as the Indus Valley to the east, Anatolia to the north, and the Nile Valley in the south west. This paper proposes that “the law of your God and the law of the king” in Ezra 7:26 must be interpreted for its propagandistic yet pragmatic value that contributed toward an effective and symbiotic relationship between the central and local government. Based on the Achaemenid Foundation Charters, Judea only constituted a second-tier province among the company of imperial subjects. Based on insights garnered from Persian legislative interactions with other vassal states, this paper argues that this biblical phrase witnesses an instance of convergence between the central government and local subunit’s respective political interests. The imperial government’s desire to assert its authority and dominion on the westernmost front collided with the Jewish people’s desire to attain a higher political status from among the minor vassal societies.

This paper shares the results of an effective, co-teaching methodology by an American biblical scholar and a South African activist of an undergraduate course entitled, The Prophets: Visions of Social Justice. The biblical study included readings of the biblical prophets with American and African students through the perspectives of African biblical scholars, consideration of traditional African practices related to seers (so-called shamans, or sangomas), liberationist and post-colonial approaches (to the Exodus narrative and the biblical colonizing problem of Mosaic and subsequent land claims). The teaching methodology led students to critically define ancient prophets, and social justice, in their contexts (including Muhammed for Islam) but also to compare them to ‘prophetic’ figures today, particularly in South Africa’s anti-apartheid and other global justice movements. This approach to reading the Bible was brought to a focus through an innovative use of live, online video technology in the classroom in which students from two cultures (South Africa and U.S.), in two places, discussed the above topics, and older ‘prophetic’ activists from anti-apartheid and U.S. civil rights movements—foremost concerned with injustice—shared their firsthand experiences, with one another and with students. Thus, cross-cultural and experiential study of biblical prophets and their influences on later movements were made real for teachers and students through hearing stories and interpretations that happened ‘on the ground’ from the African and African-American perspectives, and without students having to travel.

Interest in the Greek Jewish Scriptures (OG) has grown considerably in the past few decades as is demonstrated through the increasing volume of publications. Besides using the OG in textual criticism, scholars have exerted much effort on the task of constructing a theology of the OG and its background in the Jewish community. The motivation behind this is the gradual recognition of the important contribution of the OG to the earliest reception history of the Hebrew Bible. This paper attempts to depict a theological tendency in reading prophecies in the Old Greek version of Second Zechariah (OG-Zech 9–14). It argues that the scribe-translator of OG-Zech 9–14 would have considered the corpus as a prediction of events in a period of history in which s/he lived and these chapters would have been read and interpreted by him/her as predictions about events in his/her time, as well as events hoped for in the new future. At the outset of the paper, the historical and cultural contexts which have affected the translation of OG-Zech 9–14 will be looked into by analyzing two important questions: (1) who was the translator(s) and (2) which mode of reading prophecies was prevailing at the time of translation? Then we will attempt to identify a theological tendency in reading prophecies in OG-Zech 9–14 by applying the findings discovered in the previous section to a selection of representative verses expressing theologically a different understanding than that expressed in the MT. Since OG-Zech 9–14 is part of the OG-Minor Prophets (OG-MP), which is to be treated as the work of one translator, some relevant verses in OG-MP will also be examined to support the argument.

The list of temple vessels and description of the dismantled temple furnishings in 2 Kings 25:13-17 are unusually detailed. Vessels of which we have read little in 1-2 Kings are listed as the temple is dismantled, and the description of the bronze pillars repeats many of the details of the original description in 1 Kings 7:15-22. By comparing the initial description of the pillars with the description in 2 Kings 25, and by examining the place of this passage within the structure of 2 Kings 25, this paper will expound on the literary effects and theological significance of this description, especially highlighting the "bridal" features of temple architecture in 1-2 Kings.

There are few known Jewish composers in any era, and still fewer that tried their hand at setting a story from the Bible. One 19th century example is German composer Ferdinand Hiller, who wrote oratorios based on Abraham and David. But for operas by Jewish composers, we have to wait until the 20th century. Kurt Weill (1900-1950), one of the outstanding composers in the post-WWI generation, emigrated to New York in 1935 to collaborate on The Eternal Road with Franz Werfel and Max Reinhardt. In this vast spectacle, the history of the Jewish people is recounted by a rabbi to his community at a time of persecution. The original German version was never performed. The English-language version premiered on Broadway in 1936. Joseph Rumshinsky’s (1881-1956) 1949 opera Ruth, written in Hebrew, is a powerful example of a biblical story’s transformation into a different medium. Most of Rumshinsky’s life was devoted to writing Yiddish music for the Second Avenue Theatre in New York. Ruth, his last work, was never published or performed. Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), one of the 20th century's most prolific composers, dedicated his monumental opera David to the people of Israel, on the occasion of the 3000 year anniversary of the founding of Jerusalem. Written in 1952, its world premiere in concert form was in Jerusalem in 1954, and as a staged work at La Scala in 1955. The 1956 American premiere was at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Aminadav Aloni’s (1928-1999) short Ruth opera was commissioned in Sherman Oaks, California and has been performed twice, in 1989 and 2001. Aloni used a different traditional trope (biblical cantillation) for each movement. Excerpts from these four rarely heard works will be both played and performed. The particularly ‘Jewish’ aspect of the music will be highlighted and explained.

Although recent studies have explored disability in ancient Israel and Mesopotamia, less attention has been given to how this topic was understood in ancient Egypt. This paper surveys disability in the land of the Pharaohs from Old to New Kingdoms. Particular attention will be given to how physical disability relates to the Egyptian ideal of beauty and to Egyptian perspectives on the afterlife.

Codex Schøyen is a substantial but fragmentary Coptic manuscript of Matthew’s Gospel which only became public in 1999. It dates perhaps to the early fourth century, and may be the earliest witness to Matthew in 13 entire chapters, and to many portions of other chapters. However, its textual character has not yet been adequately analysed. Analysis of its textual character has been hindered, in part, by the atypical translation method reflected in its text which often makes the Vorlage difficult to discern. This paper demonstrates how an understanding of the version’s translation technique can help discern its Vorlage. Analysis of important test passages will show its textual character and relationship with other manuscripts. Ultimately, the paper will address the issue of whether Codex Schøyen is the closest ally to Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in Matthew’s Gospel.

Many scholars view the "maskilim" references in the book of Daniel as a key to identifying the scribal circle responsible for the book's authorship. A study of the hermeneutical methods standing behind several important literary hinges in Daniel suggest that these maskilim were strongly influenced by Levitical tradition, witnessed most significantly by the interest in the cult, legal exegesis, and especially the apocalyptic form. Set within the context of the increased emphasis on Levi in other 3rd-2nd century Jewish texts, the book of Daniel abstracts scribal and exegetical traditions fostered by Levites for centuries and establishes a literary conduit for their re-emergence as the intellectual curriculum of the maskilim as a non-sacerdotal caste. In this way, the authors of Daniel move beyond older sacral categories at a time when political and military conflict threatened their viability, paving the way for the rise of sectarianism in the wake of the Hasmonean revolt.

I will suggest that Augustine’s City of God offers a way forward for understanding the nature of history, and provides an example of what happens when we fail to understand the nature of history properly. I will briefly survey the five parts of City of God: (1) Books 1-5, (2) Books 6-10, (3) 11-14, (4) Books 15-18, (5) Books 19-22. Part One shows the nature of history when viewed from the perspective of paganism: history is basically inexplicable, the gods partake of “linear” history along with humans, the gods cannot truly act, and astrological fatalism becomes a privileged way of understanding the nature of history. Part Two shows the nature of history when viewed from the perspective of the best pagan philosophy. Platonism allows for not only a linear understanding of history, but also history as participation in God. Yet Platonism lacks a way of overcoming sin. A participatory understanding of history requires the sacrificial redemption of history accomplished by Christ Jesus. Part Three takes up history in its origin. History is a created participation in God; evil has no existence of its own, the world is not eternal, death is not the final word, and history has union with God as its goal. Part Four explores linear history as depicted by Scripture, and shows that this history is radically participatory, with earlier events participating in later ones and the City of God present at all times. Part Five explores history in its final goal. Perfect peace in God is the goal of history. Even eternal punishment does not negate the accomplishment of this goal. Miracles show that linear history has this participatory nature and goal. The goal of history is the vision of God, deification, or radical participation in the Trinitarian life. In conclusion, I will suggest that the shift toward a strictly linear understanding of the nature of history promotes a re-paganizing of culture of the kind that David Hart sketches in Atheist Delusions.

The four books of the Deuteronomistic History each draw a different “map” of the Land that was conquered. The basic theme of Joshua is that (almost) the entire Land was conquered, “From Mount Halak… to Mount Hermon” (Josh. 11:17). While admitting that there was a “land that remains to be conquered” (Josh. 13:1), the tribal territories described in chapters 15-21 basically assume that the entire land was possessed or would be possessed in the near future. The book of Judges, while part of the same Deuteronomistic History, assumes a very different reality: after the death of Joshua, the tribes lacked the will to continue to conquer the Land, and remained in possession of the central hill country alone – and not even all of that area. The “map” drawn here is “from Dan to Beer-sheba”, with several large enclaves of Canaanite territory nearby. This situation continues into Samuel, and even David’s conquests do not change the picture. Solomon’s empire in 1 Kings 5:1-5 ruled over all of “Across the River”, but Israel and Judah still only dwell “from Dan to Beer-Sheba”, and the land that David and Solomon conquered remained populated by Canaanites. The tribes’ failure of will leads them into direct contact with these Canaanites – which leads to sin, punishment and ultimately to exile. Even the death of the “Messiah” Josiah occurs near one of these “Canaanite” cities – Megiddo. The northern tribes, those with most contact with the Canaanites, sin more and are punished more harshly; Judah, who did conquer most of its allotment, sins less and survives to return. Thus the Deuteronomist builds upon a major theme of Deuteronomy itself in order to explain the actual history of Israel and Judah.

The line between true prophet and false prophet is very thin. In situations where multiple prophets claimed that their words came from the God of Israel, there was no independent verification. Prophets, such as Elisha, Micaiah, and Jeremiah, express concern about their audience trusting them amid prophetic competition; others certainly felt the same way. Deuteronomy clarifies the nature of true and false prophets, and establishes a test to distinguish between them, and a punishment for the false prophets. Jonah, a book canonized among the prophets and that contains a prophetic story, otherwise does not fit in with the other prophetic books. Instead, we may take the literary clues in the text – from Jonah’s flight, to the renewed call that is different from the first, to the fact that Jonah is disheartened to the point of death – as indicating that Jonah is a false prophet. The point of the book, however, is not to accuse Jonah in this way; there are too many other problems with the story. Rather, it stands as a thought experiment in prophetic self-doubt. Reading the book as describing this fine line between true and false gives us some insight into the prophetic mind. It also provides a way to explain the whole text without claiming some elements of the story as simply augmenting the narrative.

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In the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco stands a fountain inscribed with the following words: “No, No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until ‘justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.’” Despite the quotation marks around the last phrase, the fountain attributes the entire sentence to Martin Luther King Jr. Of course King is quoting the words of Amos, a prophet he admires. However, Amos is hardly the only prophet to whom King alludes or refers in his speeches. In fact, the Bible inspires much of King’s works and had a great influence with many leaders in the Civil Rights movement. Scholars have recently begun to pay more attention to the influence the church and theology had on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, but not much has been done on how the leaders exegeted the Bible for their sermons and speeches. This paper intends to begin this process by looking strictly at Martin Luther King’s sermons in his last three years and how they incorporate the Hebrew prophets specifically. I have chosen the last three years of his life because the sermons from those years are often overlooked. They tend to display more anger and calls for God’s judgment than one normally associates with King, but through that anger he distills a prophetic message calling for social and economic equality and an end to militarism. What also emerges in these sermons, sometimes through a flurry of allusions to the prophets, is a vision of the Day of the Lord and Kingdom of God that is universal and stretches well beyond the immediate problems in the United States.

The current paper introduces three attempts to translate the Protestant Bible into rhymed Chinese texts from 19th century to 20th century and discusses the role of these translations when Chinese society moved from oral-based to literacy stage. Rhyme was one of the dominating features of the texts used in oral-based stage. The three rhymed translations introduced in the present study will illustrate how the role of rhymed texts changed as China moved into a literacy society. The first translation was done by Medhurst. He adopted the Bible into a small tract with three-character sentences that rhymed. This format was similar to the widely used Three Character Classic. The translation was used as a tool for missionaries to spread the message of the Bible to Chinese who were used to oral knowledge transmission. The second translation translated the Lamentation into a comparable genre from ancient Chinese poem Li Sao. This translation opened the way for inter-cultural conversations by matching a lament in Hebrew to an ancient Chinese lament with which Chinese scholars are familiar. The third translation was done by Wu Ching-Hsiung. He translated the Psalms into classical Chinese poems. The motivation was to create a “classic” way of presenting the Biblical messages so that the Protestant Bible could be appreciated by Chinese scholars. It is hoped that by reviewing the history of rhymed translation of Protestant Bible into Chinese, we can explore the role of rhymed Chinese translation in the present second-orality society.

A multidisciplinary review has demonstrated that the de facto approach used to identify fragmentary texts of antiquity displays substantial limitations. These limitations produce two kinds of systemic error; the failure to find actual matches (false negatives) and the failure to reject false candidates (false positives.) An analysis of the causes that contribute to these errors has yielded a reengineered approach to fragmentary textual identification. This reworked protocol consists of four elements; a redesigned component-based approach to scoring textual readings, a redesigned approach to measuring alignment (stichometry), the development of a text-critical database of 205 Jewish and early Christian texts, and the development of specialized search software. To test and validate its performance, the reworked protocol was exercised upon the enigmatic 7Q5 fragment from Qumran. The search results demonstrated that for the 26 highest likelihood readings, 2,773 matches for 7Q5 were found in the LXX, Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament. The intersection of the highest scoring stichometric and orthographic matches yielded ten final candidates; four within 2 Esdras 15:19-20, three from Deuteronomy 14:1-2, and one each from Isaiah 17:3ff, I Enoch 5:9, and Sirach 14:23. Of these, one of the 2 Esdras candidates consistently ranked first both stichometrically and orthographically, even as assumptions were varied. While it may be argued that the line length of this match does not correspond to other 7Q fragments, marked textual differences between 7Q5 and the other 7Q fragments obviate the need for any such correspondence. Finally, the 2 Esdras match fits not only the traditional Essenic context of de Vaux, it also does no violence to more recent proposals that posit a non-Essenic Qumran. Overall, the evidence seems to suggest that the reengineered protocol has both increased the sensitivity of textual detection, as well as improved its ability to eliminate false candidates.

Amittai ben Shephatiah (9th century, Apulia) composed a wedding hymn on the occasion of his sister Cassia’s marriage to Hasadiah b. Hananeel in order “to crown her with charm and beauty” (Megillat Ahimaatz, Klar ed., 27). The first section of this lengthy epithalamium, a yotzer le-hatan that begins “The Lord who from the beginning tells the end,” reads the opening chapters of Genesis as the wedding of Adam and Eve. This paper will examine how this piyyut intersects with extant prose midrashic traditions; it will also explore how the liturgical-performative setting of the piyyut and its poetic structure generate uniquely payyetanic kinds of aggadic creativity.

Several scholars have argued that the Septuagint copy of p967 traces back to a Hebrew parent text that is different from MT. However, unlike other cases of variant literary editions, the book of Ezekiel enjoys little early Hebrew manuscript evidence that would shed light on its stages of textual development. Due to the lacuna of evidence from our Hebrew manuscripts, the fluid textual tradition behind the variant editions is harder to discern and describe. This paper will examine the Hebrew texts from the Judean desert that shed light on Ezekiel’s textual history. Several types of manuscripts from the Judean desert bear on the textual history of Ezekiel, including: (1) fragments of Ezekiel’s text, such as those from the roll of Ezekiel (11Q4), (2) MasEzek, (3) the so-called excerpted text (4Q73), (4) Pseudo-Ezekiel, and (5) select quotations of Ezekiel in other types of texts, such as 37:23 in 4QTa. The current study will reflect on the nature of these various types of evidence and their utility to textual questions about the literary development of Ezekiel.

Exile was the most formative event in Ancient Israel’s history and provided the context in which, and for which, the majority of the Old Testament was written and edited. Certainly one can speak of an exilic theology or exilic theologies. What is striking is how such influential literature arose from such a short period of time. Consequently this theology was largely lived out in a post-exilic/2nd Temple context. Not only does the Old Testament narrate how the Jews put into practice these texts, but it also demonstrates how they adapted theologically to a new situation. This paper aims to describe how the theology of the Servant in Second Isaiah (SI) defined the identity and the mission of the community of Servants in Third Isaiah (TI), and how this community put into practice their theology as narrated in Ezra-Nehemiah. Isaiah’s Servant theology was born in exile, and TI and Ezra-Neh describes how this theology was transferred to a different context. This Servant theology provides a religious challenge to Israel by calling her to re-evaluate what it means to be the people of God. By observing how the post-exilic community continued the exilic legacy of the Servant into a new era, hermeneutical suggestions can be drawn regarding how the people of God ought to read Scripture afresh in new contexts. Since the theme of the Servant reappears in the New Testament, suggestions will be made as to how to this theology contributes to the missio Dei revealed in Jesus Christ, and announced through the apostles. Isaiah and Ezra-Neh, then, may provide a template by which the Church today may faithfully read and obey the Scriptures in light of great social-cultural shifts.

This paper aims to revisit the matter of political economy of idol meat consumption as symbolic practice in 1 Corinthians 8 through the lens of sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. I claim that Paul undertakes to subvert the dominant socioeconomic system of the Roman Empire by replacing the habitus of consumption with the habitus of abstention. In Bourdieu’s terms, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians reveals the city of Corinth as a religious field, in which there exists a struggle over cultural, religious, and symbolic capitals between the strong and the weak. Via a rhetorical strategy of status reversal, imitation, and love, Paul empowers those weak of less capitals with their agency to refuse and resist the social structure as em-bodied in the habitus of eating idol meat, while persuading those strong of more capitals to surrender their authority to the social order. When all is said and done, Paul deconstructs an old, colonial habitus of consumption and thus reconstructs a new, postcolonial habitus of abstention. To support this thesis, I have good reasons to take Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology as a method to explore 1 Corinthians 8: first, because Bourdieu pinpoints an economic and religious field where social powers in relation and religious discourse interact; and second, because Bourdieu’s work provides probably still more room for subversion of the dominant culture, in particular, related to the mode of consumption than he seems to envisage. To this end, I shall begin with a summary of Bourdieu’s main ideas such as cultural/religious/symbolic capitals, field, habitus, and strategy. Then I shall consider the benefit of Bourdieu’s method for approaching the specific case of 1 Corinthians 8, a case that demonstrates the advantage of Bourdieu’s model in a noticeable way.

Although the book of Ruth is in many respects a classic example of biblical Hebrew narrative, with its stripped-down prose style and the opaqueness of its character’s inner lives and motivations (à la Erich Auerbach), there are two examples of formal poetry in the book (1:16-17 and 1:20-21). Biblical poetry works with a very different set of literary conventions than narrative, and by taking note of those conventions we can see the distinctive contributions made by these poems to the book as a whole. I suggest that the author of the book of Ruth shifts into the poetic mode here in order to give the reader access to the inner lives of Ruth and of Naomi – such access being typically denied in biblical prose narrative -- and to signal to the reader that he or she is doing so. Why? In the first place, the shift foregrounds the importance of Ruth and Naomi for the book, since they are the only two characters who get such treatment; Boaz, then, the other major character, is confirmed on this reading as secondary to these two women. But I think also that the specific content of their speeches is important to the formation of the book’s plot, introducing as it does two basic narrative tensions (personal and theological) between Ruth’s and Naomi’s view of their situation. While many translations and commentaries recognize the verse form of these passages, virtually none has expended any energy on interpreting the significance of poetic form here. By paying attention to both the form and the function of the two speeches, we can gain insight both into their literary art and their crucial role in the plot of the book, a role that could not have been easily served by the resources of prose narration.

The reference to King Og's huge iron bed (eres barzel) in Deut 3:11 has long been a source of puzzlement for biblical scholars. Rather than referring to a literal “iron bed,” scholars have traditionally understood the phrase as denoting King Og's final resting place in the form of a basalt sarcophagus or dolmen. Proponents of this view have reasoned that some type of tomb would be better suited as a memorial of King Og's defeat than would a bed. I will argue, however, that a giant iron bed fits quite well within Deuteronomy’s conquest account, as the image can be shown to support Deuteronomy's broader ideological concerns and is also meaningful within the historical context of the Assyrian empire. In particular, King Og’s iron bed becomes significant when seen in light of the Neo-Assyrian custom of seizing royal beds as booty. As a war trophy, the size and substance of Og's bed take on greater import. Not only does Og's huge bed legitimate his identity as one of the Rephaim, but in citing the specific dimensions of Og's bed, the author also seems to allude to the bed of Marduk, a famous battle trophy and political status symbol in seventh-century Mesopotamian politics which is also said to have measured 9 by 4 cubits. By placing Og on the same level as Marduk, the author bolsters Og's status as a superhuman warrior. The description of Og's bed as iron further emphasizes the power of this formidable foe who is defeated by Yhwh. By recounting how Yhwh crushed the colossal King Og and captured a royal bed as grand as Marduk's, the author asserts that Yhwh is capable of competing with current international superpowers, thereby encouraging the nationalistic hope that Yhwh might again rise to battle on behalf of his beleaguered people.

Readers of Romans agree that there exist an unusually close correspondence between Romans 1.18-32 and Wisdom of Solomon 13-15, but when it comes to assessing why this is the case and what it means for an interpretation of Romans things are decidedly less clear. The standard (though by no means only) explanation reads Romans 1.18-32 as a strategic restatement of the Hellenistic Jewish polemic against false religion which functions within the argument of Romans 1-2 to elicit the initial agreement of Paul's Jewish interlocutor. This agreement, however, is a set up for the rhetorical turn of 2.1ff which effectively demonstrates the soteriological equality of the interlocutor and those whom he judges. Read this way, Romans 1.18-32, while contextualized within a subversive argument, is an essentially faithful representation of the Diaspora's anti-Gentile polemic, especially as it comes to expression in Wisdom 13-15 (cf. Douglas Campbell's recent radicalization of this trajectory). This paper intends to question this assumption, arguing instead that Paul's textual engagement with Wisdom is situated within a dramatic theological disagreement with Wisdom. The functional inclusion of the 'judge' of Romans 2.1ff within the scope of his own polemic invites a reconsideration of content and characters of Romans 1.18-32. Rereading this section in close conversation with Wisdom demonstrates that Wisdom 13-15 and Romans 1.18-32 articulate antithetical anthropologies. In Wisdom, the anti-Gentile polemic serves to reinforce an irreducible distinction between Jew and non-Jew. Romans 1.18-32, by contrast, consistently alters Wisdom's polemic so as to include Israel within the Verdammnisgeschichte it narrates. The result is an anthropology that presses behind the Jew-Gentile difference to identify a single category, the human.

The lecture proposes a new chronology for the lmlk and the the so-called 'private' Judahite stamp impressions. It suggests that the lmlk stamp impression system was introduced in the final quarter of the 8th century BCE when Judah became an Assyrian vassal kingdom, and that it should be interpreted in light of the new economic and administrative policies that became operative in Judah during this period. The paper maintains that the lmlk system persisted and developed after Sennacherib’s 701 BCE campaign, reusing old jars from sites not destroyed in the onslaught and also producing new jars with new types of stamp impressions. The lecture further suggests that the jars with the so-called 'private' stamp impressions were limited in number and restricted in distribution (primarily to the Shephelah of Judah), and were manufactured for only a short time (from 704–701 BCE) as part of Judah’s preparations against the impending Assyrian campaign (701 BCE).

The odd juxtaposition of beholding God in a mirror and transformation in 2 Cor 3:18 has incited many commentators to grasp for some parallel from Greek magic (R. Reitzenstein), catoptromantic ritual (H. Achelis), Dionysian mysteries (Chr. Wagner), “vision mysticism” (A. DeConick), Greco-Roman mythology (A. Weissenrieder), Wisdom traditions (M. Thrall), or Jewish hydromancy (J. Scott). All of these proposals, it is contended, fail to note the key importance of Moses in 2 Cor 3. Ancient Jewish exegetical traditions based on Num 12:6-8 portray Moses seeing God through a mirror on Mt. Sinai (Lev. Rabb 1:14; Philo, Leg. All. 3.99-101). Although most commentators note an allusion to Moses in another famous Pauline reference to a mirror (1 Cor 13:12), the allusion to the Mosaic mirror in 2 Cor 3:18 has not been explored. Using the Mosaic mirror traditions, this paper argues that Paul knew and used Mosaic mirror vision as the model for Christian catoptric seeing in 2 Cor 3:18. The Mosaic model indicates that the Christian vision through a mirror was thought of as both clear and involving a Mosaic-like metamorphosis into glory (Ex 34:29-35).

Ezek 16 presents problems for the reader and has prompted various responses. For example, Linda Day analyses the husband’s (i.e. YHWH’s) actions in terms of the behavioural patterns of wife bashing and postulates that much of the woman’s alleged activities were projections of her overly jealous and possessive husband. Van Dijk-Hemmes in her discussion of the parallel story in Ezek 23 argues that the prophet misnames the abuse and blames the victim. ‘Both are degraded and publicly humiliated in order to make clear that their sexuality is and has to be an object of male possession and control.’ But does the woman have to be the victim of either earlier abuse or male projection? As has often been noted, the woman is voiceless throughout Ezek 16. The speaker is YHWH, the allegorical husband of the oracle, and he presents the plea from his perspective and also utters the judgement against her. The conventions of speech predispose us to give him the benefit of the doubt, until such time as we hear the other side. But this never happens and so the reader is left with a one-sided account. Attention must be given to the voice of the female character. To facilitate this, a comparison will be made with the autobiographical character of Brenda in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The women in both texts utilized their sexuality against the dominant male. The question is raised as to why? Ezek 16 recounts a one-sided reproach of the woman for her adulterous behaviour, and this impairs our ability to discern the motives behind her actions. Jacobs’ story, however, explains from the woman’s point of view the reasons behind her actions; we clearly understand her circumstances and how self-interest and revenge played a part in her defiance.

A central element of the preaching of Jesus was the proclamation of "good news to the poor," in which he announced radical change for his people, especially in their poverty and need. It informed both his eschatology and his action in ministry, as through healing and exorcism he addressed some of the drivers of poverty in the ancient world and looked to God's rule replacing the rule of his time. As the Jesus movement faced a world beyond Galilee and Judea and beyond Jesus' own Jewish people, it had to come to terms with what it might mean to proclaim good news for the poor in the wider world, whether through universalizing Jesus' message, or through retaining its promise to God's people into whom Gentiles now might be incorporated and so share its promise. The paper will argue that while this aspect of Jesus' preaching appears to have been lost in the Johannine tradition, a closer examination suggests that the Johannine community had appropriated it like most other branches of the movement at the time on the model of incorporation in Israel, and that beyond the mere solidarity of defensiveness its message of mutual love also had roots in this tradition - not least in the implications of such teaching for the poor and impoverished in both means and status. The first letter's challenge about poverty is not a one-off illustration but reflects what is mainstream in the Johannine tradition. In any such development there is both continuity and discontinuity, loss and gain, and the paper will seek to address this issue.

While some characters in the Hebrew Bible express wishes to die (for example Elijah, Jonah, Moses) we find a few characters who not only wish to die, but wish they had died before they were born. As part of their laments Jeremiah and Job ask “Why did I come forth from the womb?”, “why was I not buried like a stillborn child?” This paper will look into the rhetorical function of wishing away one’s birth, the Geburtsverwünschung, in Job and Jeremiah. The texts in question are Jer 20:14-18 (and 15:10), and Job 3 and 10:18-19. Why is it not enough to wish to die in Job and Jeremiah? Why this wish for one’s whole life to be eradicated? Other death wishes in the Hebrew Bible function as negotiation, but Job and Jeremiah do not seem to be bargaining. The Job and Jeremiah texts construct a notion that it would be better never to have been born. This paper will study the Geburtsverwünschung in the broader context of death wishes in the Hebrew Bible and the function of death wishes in lament.

This session is dedicated to examining the new contributions to the interpretation of particular texts facilitated by socio-rhetorical interpretation as this has been developed by the Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Group under the leadership of Vernon Robbins. Three scholars engaged in writing commentaries for the Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Series (Deo Press) will present what they believe to be the fresh perspectives or insights into particular passages from Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 John developed as a result of engaging the passage through socio-rhetorical interpretation. Respondents who have written commentaries from more traditional hermeneutical approaches will assess the relevant section of the presenter's commentary. The session as a whole seeks to nurture dialogue between practitioners of socio-rhetorical interpretation and scholars located in more traditional methodologies within the larger guild.

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In the 2009 Coen brothers film, A Serious Man, featuring the unraveling life of Larry Gopnik, a junior Rabbi tells Larry that he should view his misfortunes “as expressions of God's will. You don't have to like it, of course.” Larry responds, “The boss isn't always right, but he's always the boss.” Due to Larry’s unforeseen, unfortunate, and seemingly undue problems in his life and quest to find religious meaning in the midst of it all, many viewers have described A Serious Man as a modern adaptation of the book of Job. Hailed as the Coen brothers’ “most Jewish film” to date, this paper analyzes in what ways audiences have seen A Serious Man capture, with a particular Jewish lens, themes from the book of Job. The Coen brothers have stated that they did not consider Job at all when writing the movie. As a method of investigation, Reception History offers a unique perspective because I explore how the viewers of the film ascribe meaning to a particular Jewish take on Job in A Serious Man, regardless of the Coen brothers’ original intentions. In their assumptions about the film acting as a modern version of Job, audiences reveal significant perceptions and assumptions about the book of Job. The paper will address several questions, including what makes viewers see Job in A Serious Man. Do variances across communities and groups affect the way people receive Joban themes in the film? What do audiences mean for the book of Job when they categorize A Serious Man as “dark Jewish comedy”? In discussing this last question, notions of Jewish humor, comedic suffering and the book of Job will surface. The paper will incorporate multi-media elements to draw attention to these questions.

Most of the writings on the iconography of Hebrew seals were published more than a half century ago and a fresh look at the connection between the engraved name and the icon has been a desideratum for some time now. The paper is designed to provide examples of how an integration of the meaning of the icon and the owner's name leads to a better and broader understanding of the message of the seal. In addition, it throws light on the cultural life of the biblical period.

Based on a rhetorical analysis of the prevalent use of the terms _pertransire_ and _saeculum_ in the extant Latin of 4 Ezra, this paper argues that the theme of travel functions to delineate an intellectual space for reconstituting a Jewish scribal community after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. According to Michael Stone, the use of _saeculum_ reflects a development within Hebrew usage in which the term _‘lm_ denotes not merely time but the space of the “world.” Similarly, the verb _pertransire_ in 4 Ezra denotes both physical travel as well as the passage of time, as it does in Latin more broadly. Travel indicates Ezra’s social location as a sage, one who has “traveled widely” (4 Ezra 3:33), a motif found elsewhere in wisdom literature. At the same time, the verb expresses the wandering existence of inhabitants of the present, evil age (e.g. 5:11). Travel evokes an ancient commonplace whereby itinerancy connotes both status and shame, life and death. As the visions and expositions develop through the text, Uriel introduces the theme of eschatological travel: attainment of a promised, heavenly kingdom requires a journey through a narrow and treacherous path (7:1-16). The “passing” of the _saeculum_ as “era” also features prominently, as do the events and tortures that visit the living and various fates of departing souls. The journey of time is ambivalent, in that the advent of the new age brings suffering and promises salvation. Read in conjunction with the anxiety 4 Ezra expresses concerning the human quest for divine knowledge, the ambivalent connotations of travel motifs function to create a social location for scribal wisdom despite affliction, as sages meditate on the revelatory nature of societal suffering.

This paper honors Eldon Epp's work on papyrological sources, especially as it relates to the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

In its final pages, the Gospel of Matthew accentuates its aspect of a “manifesto” defining the identity of the communities the members of which were accepting – or going to accept – Matthew’s teachings. Apparently, the counterposition against the Jewish authorities and, more in general, the non believing Jews, is at its apex. This paper will try to identify first of all what the real object of confrontation is (the conversion and salvation of the Gentiles is at stake, given the competition of different proselytistic activities) and secondly how important the conflict with external adversaries was for the intramural contentions.

Scholars have long studied the social processes expressed through “shame” terminology in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., bosh, klm, and ?pr). However, considerably less attention is paid to way that “shame” terminology involves bodily representation. This paper explores conceptual and behavioral links between social shame and bodily harm in the Hebrew Bible. It argues that physical diminishment or debilitation of the body is a common response to social shame (loss of status, sanctioning) in the Hebrew Bible. For example, some shamed individuals would publically display shame on their bodies by afflicting themselves. This “sociosomatic” impulse was so strong that several prophetic texts call attention to cases where bodily representation failed to occur. This paper will examine several such instances, and will also reflect on differences between biblical and modern ways of understanding the body’s response to social shame.

Wisdom’s appeal to its reader in the book of Proverbs has a robust emotional component in that it urges the reader to desire certain values and loathe others, notably by describing characters both desirable and detestable characters (the righteous and wise, the gangs, the loose woman, Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly, to cite the most colorful ones). More than simply explaining why certain moral choices are better than others, the discourse utilizes emotional appeals to influence its readers and shape their characters according to its paradigms. The presumed target audience of the moral discourse appears to be not the wicked (deemed incorrigible and doomed) but the impressionable young people who struggle to define themselves through their actions. Proverbs recognizes that the character, namely the total makeup and disposition of a person, is the link between human actions and their consequences. Actions are bound to shape and alter the human character, and in the end the human character determines the course of the human lives. In fact, Proverbs teaches that wisdom and foolishness are dimensions of character rather than of individual actions. Given that character formation is a chief concern of the moral discourse of Proverbs, it is not surprising to find the emotional appeals playing such crucial roles. It is generally accepted as clinically proven that a person learns better when emotional aspect is incorporated into the learning process, and techniques like aversion therapy is found effective to alter behaviors. The use of emotional appeals in Proverbs therefore represents a key pedagogic strategy toward its goal of shaping the desirable character out of its readers.

A distinctive form of Calvinism is observed in certain of the Western Isles of Scotland, with a spirituality that from the outside can appear cold and hard (as it is portrayed in, for example, Lars von Trier’s film, Breaking the Waves). In fact, the outward solemnity of worship can mask a warm and emotional appreciation of divine presence that is distinctively expressed through the medium of Gaelic psalmody, the exclusive form of sung worship in such traditions. While such “exclusive psalmody” is practiced elsewhere, it has a distinctive association with the Western Isles and the Gaelic language that survives in density only there. The psalms furnish the key spiritual vocabulary of Island Presbyterians and, as the sole form of sung praise, require to be translated Christologically. They also, however, require to be translated geographically: the frequent naming of places in the psalms creates a profound sense that God is encountered in specific locality, but these named localities must be subconsciously transferred to the Island. Thus, the psalms furnish a powerful theology of place for those who sing those psalms exclusively. Combined with the celebrated “thinness” of the Western Isles—the felt immanence of the other world—this creates a potent local theology. This paper will examine this theme, approaching it through contemporary island literature and, particularly, non-liturgical songs that embody such a spirituality. It will be suggested that the phenomenon highlights a dimension to the psalms that can easily be overlooked in other contemporary contexts and pinpoints one distinctive contribution that the psalms can make to contemporary worship.

Scholars typically reconstruct Q by comparing content common to Matthew and Luke and by eliminating Marcan influence; consequently, one would assume that hypothetical reconstructions of the lost Synoptic source would have little in common with Mark. On the contrary, text established by the editors of the Critical Edition of Q, for instance, shares with Mark more overlapping content than exists between any two ancient documents for which one would not require direct literary borrowing. Many interperpreters thus insist that Mark knew and used Q. In this paper I will argue that Mark indeed knew Q but that the Q he used was nearly twice as long as appears in CEQ. I call this lost text the Logoi of Jesus or Q+ and reconstruct it primarily on the basis of inverted priority, that is, from evidence that Matthew and Luke preserved content in a more original form than in their surviving sources. Although some of these units may derive from oral tradition, it is more likely that they, and Mark, knew a document, now lost, with this more primitive material. This assessment permits far more precision in identifying Marcan redaction and precludes the need to posit any other missing source.

This paper is a response to the four papers of the session on The Future of Biblical Studies.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the most eschatologically oriented books in the NT. The author repeatedly expresses his conviction that the Christ event had inaugurated the eschaton (1:2; 9:26), thus signaling the imminent end of both the earthly realm and the present age (9:28; 10:12-13, 25, 37-39; 12:25-29; 13:14), and the present accessibility by faith of the heavenly realm and future age (4:14-16; 10:19-23). Perhaps the most conspicuous indication of the imminent “end of the ages” was the miracles and profound spiritual experiences that were apparently occurring in the community addressed by Hebrews. The author considers these manifestations of the “powers of the age to come” (6:5) to be divinely sent “testimonies” to the truth of the gospel (2:4). Though accounts of these eschatological experiences are found throughout Hebrews, they are particularly concentrated within the most rhetorically charged contexts: the warnings against apostasy (2:1-4; 6:4-6; 10:26-31), and the exhortations to persevere (3:6, 14; 4:1-11, 14-16; 10:19-23; 12:5-17), where they perform a similar testimonial function. This paper examines both the nature of the eschatological experiences as well as their rhetorical function in the warnings and exhortations of Hebrews. In these two contexts, warnings and exhortations, nearly every aspect of the community’s eschatological experiences is vitally connected to the author’s hortatory strategy. His warnings of the dire consequences of forsaking the community are almost entirely substantiated by appeals to the community’s eschatological experiences. The severity of the warnings may also have been conditioned by his perception of their import. Similarly, the author’s exhortations to persevere, offered in response to societal opposition the community was probably facing, are largely supported and empowered by both reminders of their past and present supernatural experiences and promises of future eschatological blessings. This analysis of the eschatological experiential elements and their rhetorical function in the warnings and exhortations of Hebrews therefore contends they be considered integral to the author’s hortatory effort.

This paper will discuss a new database and online tools for dealing with patristic citations, particularly in the production of a new critical edition of the Gospel of John.

In this paper I will present an overview of the archaeological finds from Tell es-Safi/Gath dating to the late Iron Age I and Iron Age IIA (ca. late 11th/early 10th to mid/late 9th centuries BCE), as revealed in the last 15 years of excavation at the site. Based on these finds, I will try to assess the role, size and character of Philistine Gath during this period, and discuss the implications of these finds for understanding the processes and structures that existed in Philistia, the Judean Shephelah, and other regions of the Levant, during this time frame.

Scholars have noted that the Fourth Gospel provides historical and archaeological information including references to sites in Jerusalem which is not contained in the Synoptic Gospels. This suggests that John drew on or incorporated some different sources than the Synoptic accounts. Is the additional information provided by John historically and archaeologically accurate, and does this information preserve authentic traditions relating to the historical Jesus? This paper examines selected details surrounding food and clothing in the Fourth Gospel which are not contained in the Synoptic Gospels, in an attempt to ascertain whether this information might be connected to the historical Jesus.

The synoptic Gospel story of the healing of the hemorrhaging woman is portrayed in a number of Early Christian art works. My presentation will investigate the significance of the appearance of the scene—especially its significance in relation to other scenes on the same work—on about half a dozen well-preserved fourth-century sarcophagi (now mostly in the Museo Pio Cristiano of the Vatican Museums) and on the ivory carvings on the Brescia casket (box). In addition, I will be investigating references to this New Testament story in several fourth-century writers: church historian Eusebius, theologian and bishop Augustine, and poet Ephrem the Syrian. My focus will be how the story of the faith of the hemorrhaging woman is incorporated into the differing contexts of these writers and artists to serve their distinctive agendas.

Many of the current medical standards for the “management” of intersex(ed) populations rely upon and reinstall particular normalizing trajectories of gender, sexuality, and embodiment, trajectories that show surprising resonances and reflections from an ancient biblical domain. The challenges brought by intersex(ed) activists and scholars suggest a number of alternatives to these continuing trajectories, alternatives that should also transform ethically and politically accountable interpretations of texts like Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Galatians and its interpretation should prove particularly relevant since the persistent scholarly focus on a Paul focused on the circumcised penis itself focuses upon, obsesses over, and reinstalls the normative place of Paul’s perspective on embodied practice in the community. However, the correspondences between these two loci of debate and deliberation (ancient Galatia, hypermodern hospital) also indicate that any normalizing argument cannot finally foreclose its subversion or anticipate solidarity between unexpected allies. These attempts at initiating people into constrained forms of community, both biblical and beyond, can (and do) become sites for resistance. Thus, pursuing an analysis attentive and accountable to these sets of arguments can lead to rather idiosyncratic, or even queer potentialities for a critical present that reframes the meaning and meeting of baptisms, bodies, and belonging (religious or otherwise).

In the Hebrew Bible as well as in its Greek version, the Septuagint, we can find non-dualistic and non -naturalistic concepts of living beings and their senses. The most important keyword of these concepts is soul (Hebrew: nephesh; Greek: psyche). This observation corresponds to concepts of soul that are proposed by pre-Socratic philosophers and authors (e.g. Aischylos, Antiphon, Aristides, Euripides, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophokles) as well as by the post-Platonic philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), especially in his De anima. It is helpful to explore non-naturalistic concepts of the human person and his senses which are at the same time non-dualistic. The background is the Aristotelian concept of the soul. In the Aristotelian context the soul was considered to be the particular “forma substantialis” of a living organism. “Forma” refers to the nature of an individual determining its identity -, continuity -, and existence - conditions and identifying its typical powers and capacities. In the field of (neuro-) biological descriptions there are findings which seem to fit well into a Biblical and Aristotelian framework. These findings stress the importance of the organizational and functional structure of the human organism for an adequate conception of human identity. Because of these scientific data we consider the Biblical and Aristotelian concept of the soul superior to the concept of self. The notion of the soul refers to functional organisation as well as to biological and cognitive capacities of the human person and their mutual interdependence. The notion of self, instead, is traditionally bound to cognitive processes alone. We take the soul to be a useful concept for conceiving the human being as psycho-physical unity. There is just one subject – the animate organism – which in virtue of its nature is able to do the things a living being of this specific kind typically does (if circumstances permit).

A number of the biblical prophets present a clear link between Israel’s relationship with her God, societal ethics and the wellbeing of the land. This is epitomised in Hos 4:1-3 which in just a few verses presents this relationship in terms of cause and effect: the people’s neglect of YHWH results first in social breakdown and then in desolation of the land. This paper will explore this interconnection in more detail in order to establish more clearly how the relationship is construed in Hosea as well as in other prophetic texts. It will also assess the extent to which similar themes may be found in other ANE writings, in particular those from the neo-Assyrian period and suggest that Hosea and his contemporaries develop more fully ideas that are embryonic and perhaps marginal in other literature of the region. This development is the product of the biblical prophets’ unique emphasis on the personal nature of Israel’s relationship with her God, as depicted in Hosea in terms of metaphors of marriage and family.

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Luke Timothy Johnson, following Richard Bauckham (1999), claims that Kierkegaard “does not so much try to figure out what James meant as to consider what his own life means in light of James” (2004, 243). The purpose of this paper is to challenge the either/or implicit in Johnson’s assessment by attending to Kierkegaard’s interpretation of James 1:18. In the intense scholarly debates surrounding this passage, there are three basic options concerning who is brought forth by the “word of truth”: humanity, Jews, or Christians. In his idiosyncratic “upbuilding discourses” devoted to James 1:17-22, Kierkegaard seems oblivious to the minute details of this debate. Yet, this paper displays how a careful reading of Kierkegaard’s 1843 “Every Good Gift” discourse places him right in the middle of the debate. In short, this paper shows how Kierkegaard’s exegetical reflections on James 1:18 provide a sort of theological anthropology, an account of how God’s grace is the first word: God extends grace to all humanity in that God creates everyone with the absolute need for God, a good and perfect gift that (a) must be awakened and (b) can only be satisfied by the gift of the received Word (James 1:21). The proposed paper begins by briefly summarizing the scholarly debates surrounding this verse. Second, in conversation with Timothy Polk (1997) and Bauckham, it carefully examines Kierkegaard’s cryptic comments in the second of “Four Upbuilding Discourses” published in 1843. Third, it explores related texts in Kierkegaard’s corpus—“To Need God is a Human Being’s Highest Perfection” (1844), Philosophical Fragments (1844), and Works of Love (1847)—to illuminate the depth of Kierkegaard’s interpretive insight. In conclusion, coming full circle, the paper argues that it is precisely through considering his own life in light of James that Kierkegaard passionately sought to interpret what James meant.

Utilizing a literary/theological approach, this paper attempts (1) to place Balaam’s oracles within context of the Torah and the book of Numbers and (2) to assess their significance for Pentecostal theology. In the Balaam story, God speaks both through an ass and through a stubborn diviner, while Israel is not active in the events. It is proposed that God's speaking through Balaam can contribute to our understanding of how God speaks in the world outside Israel and the Church. In light of the statement that “the Spirit of God came upon” Balaam (Num. 24:2), it is argued that the Holy Spirit plays an important role in the Balaam narrative.

The prophet Ezekiel portrays Egypt as a monster twice in his collection of oracles against Egypt (Ezek 29:3; 32:2). After YHWH’s spectacular defeat of Egypt/Pharaoh who is embodied as a monster of chaos (Ezekiel 29:3-5; 32:2-5), YHWH intends to restore Egypt to its southern origin (Ezekiel 32:12-16) and he commands the prophet to send Pharaoh/Egypt down into Sheol (Ezekiel 32:17-32). Many scholars have discussed how Ezekiel appropriates the Chaokampf tradition in order to proclaim the divine judgment over Egypt. One of the motifs that scholars have not dealt with in relation to Ezekiel’s appropriation of the Chaoskampf is the notion of putting the power of chaos under check. In this paper I will argue that by minimizing Egypt’s political power, pushing its borders to the south, and sending pharaoh down into Sheol YHWHH restrains the power of chaos embodied by Egypt. In this way YHWH will maintain the boundaries between Egypt, the monster that perpetuates chaos, and Israel. In other words, I believe that Ezekiel puts Egypt, the monster of chaos, under check in two different ways that correspond to both empirical and cosmological geographies: first YHWH minimizes Egypt geographically and politically by making her a lowly kingdom that occupies the southern region of the land of Egypt, therefore it will be at a greater distance from Israel (Ezekiel 29:14-16). Second, by sending pharaoh and Egypt's hordes into Sheol, YHWH positions Egypt at the periphery of the cosmos, where it occupies even the periphery of the nether world. There Egypt will be accompanied by the impure uncircumcised and the slain by the sword (Ezekiel 32:17-32; Cf. 31:18). This study will be illumined by the work of Mark Smith, who has provided a structural analysis of the relationship between the anthropomorphic gods and the monstrous gods in the Ugaritic religion. Whereas the anthropomorphic gods occupy the centre, the monsters inhabit the periphery, be it a steppe (mdbr) or the nether world. In the case of Ezekiel, whereas Israel occupies the centre, Egypt the monster occupies the periphery. The boundaries between chaos and the ordered world will be restored and tightly maintained.

Genesis 29-30 presents among others, the story of the origins of what would later be referred to as the “twelve tribes of Israel”. This paper will not focus on the traditional rendering of the story. It will instead use African love songs to engage the narrative of Leah (and women in her life) with a view to foregrounding the experiences and struggles of women in a polygynous partnership. The lead singer of the main song is an African man with the main respondent being one of his co-wives. On account of her “dripping” nails, she refuses to engage in ordinary household chores. However, she cannot hide her excitement when invited to go to the hut. In the second song, a male lead singer openly chooses a girl (monyana) to a woman(mosadi). In present day South Africa whose head of state has more than one wife, the debate on polygyny is neither strange nor insignificant. This is also pertinent in a context which attempts to resuscitate the African culture among others. The present text seeks to use the preceding African songs to investigate women’s struggles with their desires within polygynous marriage settings. Read through the lenses of the two songs, which light can be thrown on women’s views about female sexuality as these are reflected in the story of Leah and her co-wives?

This paper explores the expanded understanding of asceticism and contemptus mundi as understood by G.G. Harpham and others, in terms of the way that these complexes have been embraced in contemporary pop culture, comparing hagiographic materials from the 4th century, specifically Jerome’s “Malchus the Prisoner” with the Batman saga. Pop culture is a power medium in Western Culture—one that is constantly evolving and is in constant dialogue with other facets of life, including religion. The pervasiveness of pop culture in part has caused it to intersect in such a major way with religion so that, today, in a sense, pop culture is religion and religion is pop culture. I focus on the two most recent offerings of the Batman series to show how ascetic ideals play a major role in the development of the superhero persona. These movies are cultural statements that bring together ascetic complexes including contemptus mundi, authority, and resistance, and because this complex of ideas was a part of the early church in the late Roman period, a comparison will be made that will highlight similarities and identify differences. By focusing primarily on the “Life of Malchus” and comparing it with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, this paper highlights the way asceticism is used in pop culture. Other points of comparison involve the similar role that both media play in terms of entertainment and communication. Both of these media are involved with discourse. Since all discourse has an agenda, the parallels of genre are comparable. As far as broad conclusions are concerned, this research points toward the fact that religion is not fading away as some recent sociologists and such had declared, but religion is evolving and a certain aspect of it is coalescing with different strands of pop culture.

Cestius Gallus, Nero's legate in Syria at the outbreak of the Judaean War, became one of history's losers. Josephus' comments on his failure seize Jerusalem while he had the chance (War 2.539–541), in late 66 CE, have largely shaped scholarly inquiry into that episode. Assuming that Jerusalem's reduction was Cestius' aim, scholars have debated the real reasons for his curious withdrawal, soon after arriving. Standard treatments of the incident reflect general tendencies in our study of Roman Judaea. This paper re-examines Cestius' campaign from a different perspective, using it to raise questions about the nature of history and, particularly, about our methods in studying ancient Judaea when Josephus is our main or only source.

The language of Revelation 18 has been examined in detail for its many allusions to the Hebrew Bible, in particular the oracles against the nations of Tyre and Babylon in the prophetic tradition (Is 13, 23; Jer 50-51; Ezek 27). Yet a transformation of the language by the author is evident in his explicit denunciation of riches. Those who have dealt with this text in light of the biblical tradition have identified this transformation, though without an analysis or explanation that accounts for this shift. This raises the question: To what degree might more recent Jewish interpretive traditions related to wealth in the Second Temple period inform John’s portrayal of the faithful Christian community? The proposed study will examine the author’s sharp denigration of the rich (3:17) and praise of the poor (2:9) in the seven messages in connection with the critique of wealth in Revelation 18 and the call for the faithful to ‘Come out’ of Babylon. In light of a tradition-historical reading the study will compare the author’s language of wealth in the seven messages and the reformulation of prophetic traditions in Rev 18 with similar themes found in the Epistle of Enoch. The essay hopes to demonstrate that the worldview presupposed in the Apocalypse that distinguishes between the righteous and the wicked in terms of economic status has been shaped by the Enochic tradition. This allows us to suggest that John’s concerns over economic involvement among the Christian communities was not an ad hoc response to the Roman Empire, but was influenced by traditions already circulating in the Second Temple period that associated faithfulness with poverty and the rich with the wicked.

This paper argues that Acts' narrative of the Stoning of Stephen and Hegessipus' narrative of the martyrdom of James are variations on the same trope. While Hegessipus is typically characterized as a "Jewish-Christian," and the author of Acts clearly privileges a more Hellenistic, "Pauline" Christianity, both authors employ nearly identical means to construct the first Christian martyr.

The audience is a vital element for the communication of a story; without audience participation, the narrative fails. Ancient rhetors were quite concerned with engaging the audience—who at the very least should pay attention and in many cases helped the author create the story, making the audience more inclined toward moral formation. Strangely enough, one method used by the rhetoricians involved silence, or gaps, relying on the audience to complete their thoughts. Modern rhetoricians label this phenomenon literary gap theory, but long before the modern theories, ancient rhetors used gaps to encourage their audiences to become “fellow-workers” (Mor. 48:14) with the speaker. In this paper, I will focus on the gaps left by open-ended gospel characters – characters whose decisions are left untold, whose stories remain unfinished. In particular, I plan to explore the fearful women who silently leave the empty tomb in Mark 16; the ruler who remains without action in Luke 18, and Nicodemus, a rather ambiguous character whose response to Jesus remains unresolved in the gospel of John. Should the gaps left by open-ended or unfinished characters be understood as prompts to the listening audience – invitations to participate in finishing the story? Ends left loose require the creative completion of the characters’ stories in the lives of the audience. The rhetorical effect had on the audience is not unbounded, because the open-ended characters act within a literary context. An attentive audience would have heard clues in the earlier narrative that guide their response. This paper will also explore narrative information to which the audience has privileged access, details woven into the story that act as instructions for the attentive listener who would live out the unfinished gospel characters’ lives.

Ten excavation seasons at Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley since 1997 revealed parts of an unusually large Iron Age city (10 hectares in area) which, unlike most other Iron Age sites in Israel, was a dense urban settlement throughout the Iron I and Iron IIA periods (12-9th centuries BCE). The excavation enabled us to examine aspects of cultural continuity and change throughout this period, based on stratigraphic observations, large ceramic assemblages, numerous artifacts and radiocarbon dates. The lecture will concentrate on the definition and significance of the 10th century levels at Tel Rehov and their implication for broader issues. Topics to be addressed are: the urban sequence and planning, ceramic continuity and change, the meaning of selected objects, the identity of the population, and trade relations. Implications for the current debate relating to the archaeology of the 10th century BCE and related historical issues will be briefly mentioned, in particular the new radiocarbon dates from the massive destructions at the end of Iron Age I, which lead to the dismissal of basic tenets of the 'low chronology' for the Iron Age, particularly the dating of the end of the Iron Age I to the time of the Shoshenq invasion.

At sites from Syria to Iran, protective amulets and associated incantations have been recovered from the second and first millennia B.C. that feature a ferocious, transgendered demoness. This paper decodes the sex/gender symbolism of the lamashtu iconography, looking in particular at how traditional portrayals of the lamashtu’s gender inversion shift abruptly in the Hellenistic period. The earlier tradition uses exaggerated musculature, nudity, and an aggressive posture to indicate that the female entity is masculine. In the period of extensive Greek contact, the demoness acquires a beard and a penis. Defining and decoding how different sectors of the ancient world understood transgenderance may provide a frame of reference for situating polemics about male and female gender variance in the Old Testament.

The book of Deuteronomy provides a number of valuable and unique insights into early Israelite perspectives on the nature of God, his relationship to other divine beings, and the diachronic development of both. For example, Deut 32:8–9, as found in 4QDeutj, attests to a likely early distinction between Yahweh and Elyon and presents the latter as the overseer of the gods of the several nations of the earth. Deut 4:19 represents a later recasting of the relationship of Elyon (now identified with Yahweh) with those deities (now represented astrally). Multiple historical layers and theologies are represented. The Greek translation of Deuteronomy, however, redefines and harmonizes the nature of God and his relationship to the deities of the surrounding nations. Whether as the result of dynamic equivalence, translator exegesis, or a variant Vorlage, the perspective offered is one of the earliest of developing Hellenistic-Jewish monotheism. The unique nature of Deuteronomy’s references to other deities provides a rich backdrop against which to read the Greek translation. This paper will examine the view of divinity presented in LXX Deuteronomy and evaluate its relationship to that of the Hebrew text as it has been preserved to us.

While Cana of Galilee is given a prominent role in the Gospel of John, the village is never mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels. Why did the Gospel of John pick this village to initiate the ministry and cycle of miracles? This paper will present the evidence for identifying Khirbet Qana as Cana of Galilee and will go on to argue that the excavations of the first century village have revealed aspects of the village that bear on the question of its role in the Gospel of John. Our excavations disclose a village that grew substantially after 70 C.E., and that growth included the construction of a large public building that we have identified as a synagogue. This archaeological evidence sheds new light on the narrative strategy of the Gospel writer and in particular suggests that the wedding feast and attendant miracle may be part of the larger Johannine-Jewish rhetoric of the Gospel of John.

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The development of suspense in the Gospel of Matthew has never been examined. Using a structural-affect model, Brewer has studied the impact of narratives on human emotion, with particular emphasis on suspense. His definition of suspense has been verified by cognitive appraisal theory which views suspense as caused by an oscillation of the prospect-based emotions, viewing suspense as involving a hope emotion and a fear emotion coupled with the cognitive state of uncertainty. In relation to biblical literature, this paradigm was originally theorized by Meir Sternberg. Fear and hope, and their relation to suspense, have been examined in appraisal models and verified in studies of advertising and television news. This paper will apply suspense theory to Matthew as a whole, with specific attention granted to Peter. Jesus comes to save his people as revealed at the beginning of the Gospel (Mt 1:21). This initiating event allows for development of significant consequences for the narrative’s characters, including Peter. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus’ didactic proclamations and parables emphasize understanding of and dedication to himself. These criteria, when used to evaluate Peter’s words and actions, emphasize his failure and set up a tension with Jesus’ salvific mission. Throughout, readers hope for Peter’s salvation, and at times he is exemplary, but readers also continually encounter his shortfalls and return to a state of fear. The back and forth play of these emotional responses builds suspense as the narrative draws to its conclusion. Finally, it will be shown that the promised presence of Jesus at the Gospel’s conclusion leaves readers in a perpetual state of suspense regarding Peter’s outcome. This tension induces fear regarding their own failure along with hope for their own success as disciples resulting in an existential suspense.

I argue here that the story of the healing of the centurion’s slave in Luke 7:2-10 is an act of empire-negotiation that reinscribes the blueprint of power dynamics of imperial Rome. First, I assemble data to show that Luke’s centurion is not a benign figure, but rather a highly valued retainer of the empire, and thus a powerful agent of an exploitative governing class with every interest in the maintenance of an unjust status quo. I also contend that his patronage of the synagogue is not a disinterested act, but a species of euergetism by which he gains honor and co-opts the local elite establishment, thus partially incorporating its members into the imperial hierarchy that he represents. Next, I demonstrate that despite these characteristics and actions—indeed, because of them—the centurion is unreservedly approved by the narrator, by secondary characters, and by the character Jesus. In a complementary argument, I further maintain that the centurion’s address of Jesus as “Lord” here does not, as some have claimed, “subvert” the nature of the centurion’s relationship to the imperial order in any meaningful way. Finally, I assert that in the outcome of the story the character of Jesus moves beyond complicity to outright imperial collaboration. In addition to voicing his abstract endorsement of the centurion, Luke’s Jesus here enables the restoration of an exploitative, possibly pederastic relationship—one that serves as a kind of personal microcosm of the abusive imperial proprietary model—by rejuvenating the centurion’s “dear slave” and returning him to his servitude.

Interpretations of ‘the elements of the cosmos’ in Paul’s epistle to the Galatians have represented a variety of pejorative opinions of what has typically been described as an empty or even evil ‘pagan’ religious tradition. These ostensibly second-order interpretations have often been modern replications of ancient stereotypical representations of Hellenistic thought and practice – the Galatian recipients being charged of willfully worshipping demons, evil spirits, or inconsequential physical elements. Two discussions of the elements stand out as taking a more promising approach to understanding why the Galatians still worshipped, or were in some way devoted to, the elements: Eduard Schweizer, who considers the importance of the four elements of fire, earth, air, and water in terms of their effect on the weight of the soul as it strives to return to heaven, and Gail Armstrong, who is the first to recognize the ethical component that is implicit in Paul’s discussion of the elements. In this paper, I argue that the elements of the cosmos are still best translated as the four physical elements, but that this translation can be explained in terms that respect the integrity and dignity of Hellenistic thought and religious practice and that also connect the elements to ethics, time, space, and the gods. I outline the place of the elements in Greek cosmological thought and religious practice to show how the Greeks understood the interconnection between the heavens, the earth, and humanity through the elements and their effects on people and places. Such an understanding of the cosmos was common in antiquity and is still held to be true in many parts of the world. This interpretation thus clarifies the meaning of ta stoichea tou kosmou in Galatians and helps us to understand why the Galatians may have valued the place of the elements in their lives.

What would a dramatic reading of Romans 1-4 sound like? Who would speak which lines, and with what tone? Recent “revisionist” readings of Romans have highlighted the significance of these questions. If one reassigns the voices or reinterprets the tone, a radically different theology can emerge. This presentation will look at several patristic commentators on Romans to see how they went about answering these questions, focusing on a passage for which these questions are particularly acute, Romans 3:1-8/9. As readers intimately familiar with ancient Greek and the beneficiaries of an education that placed a heavy emphasis on rhetoric, one would expect that they would note rhetorical markers in the text and interpret it accordingly. However, comparative explications of Origen’s, Chrysostom’s, and Pelagius’s interpretations of this passage will show that they assign voices and tone in the passage in radically different ways based on their expectations of what the passage should say. Origen reads it as reassurances for believing Jews reeling from 2:17-29; Chrysostom as a clever ploy to set up Jewish privilege only to undercut it; and Pelagius as an argument between Paul and a combative Jew trying to evade the argument of 2:17-3:1. These interpreters do appeal to rhetorical arguments, but they do so to overcome elements of the passage that are problematic for their expectations. This diversity suggests that, although the text clearly demands rhetorical analysis, it lacked clear rhetorical markers even for ancient readers. The value of these patristic readings for modern interpreters is the variety of plausible readings they suggest, not the narrowing of interpretative options.

There has been much discussion about the degree of importance of the original context of a Scripture which is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament. Matthew 2:23 provides an interesting test case, since what Scripture(s), if any, the author may have had in mind remains uncertain. This paper will consider similarities between this instance and other examples in the New Testament where the assertion that something happened “according to the Scriptures” appears to have been more important than clarifying which Scriptures were in view. It will also explore the possibility that the term Nazoraeans may have denoted an already-existing Jewish religious group with which Jesus and his followers were being associated (cf. Acts 24:5). Concluding considerations will be offered focused on methodology and intertextuality, noting that our inability to identify what Scripture was being referred to suggests that the specific text, much less its original context, was not always important in New Testament citations and allusions.

This paper will consider the implications of the science of memory for biblical studies.

The effectiveness of placebos has remained a medical curiosity for many years and has often been set aside or ignored because there was no place to understand the effect within the dominant Cartesian medical understanding that was, and is, prevalent in Western cultures. There, ‘disease’ was a damage to, or malfunction of, the human body with—usually—an identifiable cause such that the damage could be repaired or the cause removed or inhibited and the ‘patient’ be ‘cured.’ (Pilch, 2008) Recently, however, an understanding of the placebo as either activating the individual’s power of self-healing or as a way of decreasing whatever stress, or anxiety was currently inhibiting that power, has become more commonly accepted. In other cultures, ‘disease’ has not been so understood; there persons suffered ‘illness’ which affected not only the individual, but also their family and social standing. It mattered to those communities that such ‘sick’ persons could be ‘healed’. (Pilch, 2008) In all forms of healing intervention, however, whether by surgery, drugs, touch, application of lotions, incantations or psychodramas (Lewis, 1971), a definite input from ritual may be observed. This paper will explore whether the performance itself of a psalm of lament may produce such benefits by means of effects within the performer’s own mind and consciousness.

Mikhail Bakhtin approached the novel, ancient and modern, in terms of its special sense of space (understood as social) and time (understood as historical). The spatial and temporal indicators of a given narrative fuse into one carefully thought out concrete whole which becomes a key indicator of genre. Bakhtin calls these genre marking entities “chronotopes”. Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope, this paper will argue that the book of Jonah, the lone, largely narrative chapter in the Book of the Twelve, should be understood as a kind of historical romance, where the action is spread across a global stage involving multiple countries and settings fused together with several “chance” happenings. Additionally, as Jonah progresses through the various episodes of the story he does not experience any change, neither biographical nor ideological. The spatial contexts of Joppa, Tarshish, the ship, the sea, and Nineveh tend to be mere background against which the character of Jonah is presented as following a predetermined character path that the context may obstruct but not essentially shape. This “historical romance chronotope” has the effect of giving substance and flesh to a whole realm of cultural assumptions and values underlying the book of Jonah.

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This paper will examine images of the Judge Gideon and the stories in Judges 6-8 as examples of the images available in the Digital Images Archive at Pitts Theology Library, Emory University. This collection represents a sampling of woodcuts and engravings from the 15th to 19th centuries and contains 63 images related to Gideon. The images typically reflect the common interpretation of scripture of that time period, but are significant for the details they highlight from the texts of the Book of Judges. Recent approaches such as reception history suggest that the interpretation of Biblical materials by later audiences and the influence of those materials are both interesting and significant. These artistic representations may, in fact, suggest readings that expand the possibilities within a given text. The primary stories illustrated are the call of Gideon, Gideon’s fleece, the selection of the soldiers, and the defeat of Midian. The stories that are not illustrated are also interesting, and those include, the execution of the Midianite leaders, the offer of Kingship, and Gideon’s Ephod that becomes a snare to the people. This collection of digital images is an important resource that deserves wider recognition for the rich illustrative material available for scholars and teachers of scripture.

Forty years ago, the Syriac Peshitta (S) was called a “daughter version” of the Septuagint (G). Agreement between S and G was sometimes understood in terms of a dependent relationship on the part of S. Yet, scholars, such as Michael Weitzman, have established criteria to show that agreement may not always indicate dependence. Other factors (polygenesis, common exegetical tradition, and common Vorlage) can account for agreement besides direct dependence. When one is able to dismiss these factors as reasons for agreement between S and G, only then is one able to posit that S is dependent on G. Analysis of Ecclesiastes indicates that S is dependent upon G in this book in a non-systematic and sporadic fashion. Once one has discerned these places of dependence, S becomes an early witness to the text history of G.

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The Letter of Mara bar Serapion to his son, probably written from Roman custody shortly after the conquest of Commagene in 72/73 CE is a document whose potential to make contributions to New Testament studies has been highly underestimated in scholarship. The letter does provide what seems to be the first non Christian attestation of Jesus, called the wise king of the Jews who is not dead because of the laws he left behind and who is compared to Socrates and Pythagoras in a chain of paradigms which could be reflecting a (pre-Matthean) Christianising interpretation of divine punishment visited on the Jews. The letter is one of the few extant testimonies dealing with Roman Imperialism from a non-Roman point of view which provides interesting points of comparison with Christian utterances in the Synoptic tradition or by Paul and Ignatius. Mara's letter contains a unique fusion of Greek (in particular Stoic) philosophy and traditional Near Eastern wisdom in Syriac language which parallels early Christian attempts of merging Jewish and Hellenistic traditions in many ways.

The notion that rituals and natural languages both follow sets of implicit rigorous rules led scholars in the last century, harking back to pre-modern grammarians, to speak of a “grammar”, or “syntax”, of ritual, particularly sacrificial ritual. Despite insightful examples of ritual complexes that follow hierarchical rules akin to syntactic structures in natural languages, on the one hand, and ambitious attempts to imagine a Universal Grammar of sacrificial ritual on the other hand, no single, complete “grammar” of any ritual system has yet been composed. This paper presents one such “grammar”—one that centers on the (idealized) Israelite sacrificial system formalized in the Priestly laws in the Pentateuch. It is argued that despite far-reaching diachronic developments, the sacrificial system in biblical and post-biblical texts (Hellenistic, Qumranic, rabbinic), historical as well as utopian, retains a highly unchangeable “grammar”—a rich set of unstated, simple, rigorous underlying generative rules. One example of the generativity of the system is offered from the sequences of blood-application acts in the sanctuary according to P and according to other biblical and post-biblical texts. Thus, it is argued that the Israelite sacrificial system is describable in terms of a finite set of concise rules which are internalized in part unconsciously, and serve as the basis for the development of a potentially infinite number of sacrificial sequences. However, this finite set of rules is dissimilar form the rules that constitute the grammars of natural languages. Therefore, it appears that ritual systems may have grammars, but that these are very different from the grammars of natural languages.

Six of Jesus’ long teaching sessions as reported in the Gospel according to Matthew were read on the basis of cognitive and constructive psychology and Aristotelian rhetoric. The following question was posed: “What kind of mnemonic tools Jesus used in his talks to enhance retention?” The texts show, first, that Jesus used a wide variety of mnemonic tools. Second, using theories from cognitive and constructive psychology and classical rhetoric, it is evident that these mnemonic tools were effective. Third, there seem to be some techniques which are common to all six of these talks; namely, the expression of extreme values, the expression of counterparts, Argument, the expression of opposites and the weighing of important matter. Fourth, Jesus seems to use specific techniques in certain speeches; there are no parables in the speeches such as the “Commissioning” or the “Sermon on the Mount.” Fifth, examples of shorter sequences of Jesus’ teachings show that in one sentence there can be over ten different mnemonic triggers to help the audience store the message in their memory.

P. Macquarie inv. 375 and Sethian Gnosis This paper introduces a soon to be published Coptic magical codex, P. Macquarie inv. 375 (M. Choat & I. Gardner, A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power [Brepols, in press]), and discusses issues of provenance, contents, and relationship to other texts of ritual power. Of particular interest is a series of motifs in the magical codex recalling themes in gnostic texts, specifically Sethian texts, including names of exalted divine characters, descriptions of Seth and other heavenly figures, and a laughing Jesus reminiscent of Jesus in the Gospel of Judas and similar texts.

In “Ruth” 2:14, at the commencement of the barley harvest, Boaz offers Ruth the foods that Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 forbid during Passover. Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 lay out the Paschal rites. Boaz directs Ruth--in his field--to ceremonially dip (tbl) a morsel (ptt) of bread in a leavening agent (chametz), as in Exodus 12:18-20. Biblically, tbl and ptt are predominantly used ceremonially. Using an hapax legomenon Boaz “grasps” (tsbt) [Sasson: Ugaritic,“tongs”] to Ruth parched ears of new barley (kli), which are forbidden until after the Passover’s Sabbath in Leviticus 23:14. Kli are prepared from green barley ears (abib), and the Hebrew word for Spring is taken from this stage of barley growth. By offering to Ruth the first fruits of harvest, following Passover, Boaz may be indicating that as an avatar of Naomi (1:16-17), Ruth can initiate and accept offerings. Or, perhaps, Boaz is reifying Ruth’s inclusion in the community of Israel as given in Exodus 12:48-49. Naomi tacitly accepted Ruth’s changed identity as an Israelite and a functioning member of Naomi’s own family in its own territory (1:18). Boaz’s instructions and offerings may formally signal that Ruth is a serving member of Naomi’s clan, qualified to eat ritually sanctified food, and with rights to tribal land’s sustenance. To my knowledge no one has remarked on the ceremonial freight of the food and apparent ritual context in Ruth 2:14. Ruth is here called n’arah (native-born indentured servant), shiphchah (woman’s handmaid), later ‘amah (man’s handmaid). Boaz and Ruth later beget the royal ancestor Obed (servant) for Naomi. Ruth 2:14 really demands close examination, probably revealing diverse Israelite religions.

Biblical scholars have often regarded God’s unconditional covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7 as royal propaganda meant to bolster the claims of the Davidic dynasty. While the Davidic covenant historically may have came to serve this ideological function, a close reading of the text of 2 Samuel 7 reveals a less-than-flattering portrait of David, perhaps even a critique of David. The narrative of the Davidic covenant occurs in the context of 2 Samuel 5-8, which portrays the newly ascendant king taking a series of royal initiatives to consolidate his rule, including capturing Jerusalem, building the royal palace, expanding his family, defeating the Philistines (chapter 5), bringing the ark to Jerusalem (chapter 6), proposing to build a temple for YHWH (chapter 7), extending his empire over surrounding nations, and expanding his administration over Israel (chapter 8). Only three times is this series of initiatives interrupted—twice by God and once by Michal. This paper will focus on the third of these interruptions, when YHWH refuses David’s offer to build him a house/temple. Instead, God takes the initiative and proposes to build David a house/dynasty. Instead of accepting this gracious offer, David (much like Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28) tries to retake the initiative from YHWH in a series of deft rhetorical moves that suggest either the young king is suspicious of the offer or is simply not satisfied to be the passive recipient of God’s hesed. The paper will trace David’s jockeying for control of the “bridge” of the “starship” Israel in the dynamic interaction between YHWH and David narratively presented in 2 Samuel 7.

Elaine Pagels long ago observed that certain ‘Gnostic’ groups’ views about the crucifixion of Jesus affected their views on the efficacy of martyrdom. As in some of such texts Jesus escapes crucifixion, so his followers should not only eschew radical forms of voluntary martyrdom, but do everything possible to avoid being killed. By contrast, in early Christian texts where martyrdom is promoted as exemplary behaviour for Christians, martyrs are often cast as imitators of Jesus, or even second Christs. However, further work is required to extend the question of how interpretations of the Jesus’ death relate to advocacy of martyrdom for believers in the New Testament. This paper seeks to begin to address this question by examining the relationship between the death of Jesus and martyrdom in both Mark and Revelation, two communities for which Jesus is independently a ‘first martyr’. First, it will be argued that both documents advocate martyrdom for their readers, and that both sets of readers are experiencing roughly similar levels of external hostility. Next, the paper will demonstrate that the contrasting responses to the situation of hostility rest on the writers’ differing emphases on Jesus’ death, which in turn affects the rhetoric of, and reasons for believers’ martyrdom. Markan Christians are asked to identify with a suffering martyr, whilst the Apocalypse invites its would-be martyrs to join in battle with an exalted warrior-martyr. These different interpretations of Jesus’ death, together with the promotion of martyrdom of his followers subsequently affect not only the ways in which the State is presented in the two texts, but also creates surprising and contrasting views of the violence employed by the State against the Church.

The relationship between Luke and the Roman Empire has often been regarded by many in the biblical guild as essentially positive, with the evangelist playing a conciliatory role between church and state. But as is becoming ever more clear, imperial negotiation is seldom that straight-forward and simple. The work of James Scott on hidden resistance is a valuable resource in bringing to light the complexity of Lukan engagement with Rome and its local elite allies. Specifically, songs and other folklore that announce, celebrate, and enact status reversals are a major theme in the third Gospel, particularly in special “L” material; they are also a major component of the hidden transcript of resistance and its veiled public declaration. This paper will engage this connection through the lens of one pericope, Mary’s song in 1:46-55. Thus it will explore the impact of the subversive sentiments stated so boldly in this poem, which becomes almost a theme song for the rest of Luke. It will be shown that the status reversals of the Magnificat are indeed part of the hidden transcript, but with subtle changes to the usual tone of pure revenge. They indicate a dissatisfaction with Roman dominance, but also convey the evangelist’s vision of Jesus’ and the Church’s ministry as one which carries out status reversals without becoming oppressors themselves. According to the song’s tenets, Jesus embodies reversal, as he himself is both a ruler who is (voluntarily) thrown down, and one of the lowly whom God lifts up. The Magnificat sets the stage for Luke’s contention that resistance must work toward good for all, including not only non-elites, but also retainers and rulers willing to fully commit to and use their power in service of Jesus and his vision for a different social order.

In Biblical Hebrew, a noun is described as grammatically definite if any of the following circumstances obtain: it is prefixed with the definite article, it is suffixed with a possessive pronoun, it is in construct with a definite nomen rectum, or it consists of a proper noun. Appositional phrases are generally described as juxtaposed noun phrases which refer to the same entity, have the same syntactic function within the larger phrase or clause, and agree in definiteness. The main reference grammars acknowledge, however, that not infrequently appositional phrases do not agree in definiteness (e.g., Joüon & Muraoka 2006: §138; Waltke & O’Connor 1990: §12c). This paper re-examines an important sub-set of those exceptional cases, namely, appositional expressions occurring within vocative expressions. Since vocative expressions are inherently deictic, they provide a unique and insightful syntactic and pragmatic context within which the patterns and limits of this lack of agreement can be explored.

Current models of scripturalization view the process as linear: First, oral stories circulated among storytellers, and eventually, these were written down. Those texts, perhaps as soon as they were written, were recited orally to the illiterate masses, a process that continued through the Masoretic vocalization in a step sometimes called “re-oralization.” This model must be abandoned. This paper applies current theory on orality (Ruth Finnegan, Lauri Honko, Terry Gunnell), evidence from the ancient Near East, and ethnographic analogy (Icelandic and Arabic) to describe ancient Israel’s dual nature as an oral-and-literate society. Most people in ancient Israel both before and after the Exile received the message of the “text” aurally. A narrative circulating by word of mouth only was virtually unknown, and one circulating by text only was equally rare. Written texts circulated in spoken form by recitation long after they were committed to writing, and those recited forms begat oral forms that were not in writing, or were once again recorded in writing. Transmission was through the interaction or combination of the concurrent oral and written versions. This paper also details the nature of the narrative modules that moved through this large and echoic pool of tradition and how they produced the narrative books of the Hebrew Bible. A detailed new understanding is presented that will move us beyond the image of stemma-like lines of traditions history that has lasted since Gunkel.

The gospels depict the trial of Jesus before the Roman governor, Pilate, and his execution as the rebel King of the Jews. This portrayal, however, raises questions about his followers. Why do the gospels not record any traditions describing the rounding up and arrest of the disciples? Does this omission imply that Jesus' disciples are not considered a threat to the Roman imperial world? In Mark and Matthew, the disciples flee at the arrest of Jesus but Luke does not include this tradition reflecting his tendency to omit negative views of the Twelve. In John's Gospel Jesus is in control throughout his arrest, and he commands the soldiers to let his followers go. In all four gospels, moreover, women are the witnesses to Jesus' death, and no member of the Twelve is present at the crucifixion. These features suggest that the Twelve feared that they too would be arrested and put to death. One of the key ways in which Jesus traditions are seen to negotiate the Roman imperial world is illustrated by the account of the denial of Peter. The questioning of Peter is modelled on the trial of Jesus. In Mark's Gospel, however, Peter begins to curse Christ, and in John's Gospel he specifically denies that he is one of Jesus' disciples. By the time the gospels were written Peter had died a martyr's death. The evangelists wish to highlight the unique identity of Jesus as the Son of God who has courage to stand alone against the Roman Empire. The remorse of Peter has the function of encouraging the gospel audiences to acknowledge their own fear of death, and also to overcome their terror of persecution as they know Peter has done.

The paper continues the themes of pain and suffering in my previous work on Alterity, Pain and Suffering in the major prophets and adds into this discussion spatiality as a particular reading lens for the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, exploring the narrative construction of text as ‘deathscape’. In my 2007 volume I addressed the topic of pathos, the fully embodied prophetic experience of grief, investigating the ‘traumatised messenger’ as a mirror image of the community existing on the border between life and death. I drew out from the study of Jeremiah an image of the unstable cosmos; meanwhile I also explored the issue of a wasted landscape, using the work of human geographers, as a means of understanding the imagery of Isaiah. This paper will take the latter perspective, that of literary landscapes as cultural representations, with regard to the subject of death. A deathscape is a narrative space which performs cultural meaning – the end of a community. In this context Lamentations is viewed as evoking both horror and attraction on the part of the ‘passers by’ who gaze on urban trauma.

I will develop a dialogic reading of the David and Goliath story as it stands in the MT focusing on the contrasting views of David, the different voices depicting him: the pious young shepherd of tradition who kills Goliath with the stone (1 Sam 17:50) and the violent, would-be usurper who kills him with the sword (v. 51). David, and we the readers, can have at least two views of Goliath: huge, fearsome warrior – the view of Saul and the army – or big oaf weighed down by his armor. I will locate this latter view in the text and its details. The two versions of the tale – one, the story in LXXB that is considerably shorter than that in the MT and, two, the extra material in MT – are significant since they point to the dialogism but I do not simply equate them with the two views of David since the latter are already in evidence in both of the versions. The chronotope is also important in the reading because of the play and tension between specific sites at the beginning and close of the story and the general “valley” and “battle line” of the rest of the story. The lack of specification of time, other than the “this very day” of vv. 10 and 46 and the “forty days” of v. 16, is integrally related to this tension between specificity and generality.

Recent work by scholars such as Jacob Milgrom on the relationship between ritual blood manipulation and purification, particularly as these inform the logic of the Levitical sacrificial system, has highlighted the importance of the victim’s life in the sacrificial process. While some have begun to explore the possible significance of blood imagery in Hebrews along similar lines (e.g., Christian Eberhart), this ancient homily continues to present a source worthy of examination. Indeed, no other New Testament text illustrates such a detailed and consistent application of sacrificial concepts to the Christ event. In this paper I argue that the commonplace assumption that “blood” language in Hebrews functions synecdochically for Jesus’ death potentially obscures the way the author develops the link between Jesus’ purifying offering (1:3; 9:14, 23) and Yom Kippur. The offering of blood in the Levitical system was not a presentation of death before God, but a presentation of life (Lev 17:11). Similarly, Hebrews’ application of the central blood ritual of Yom Kippur to Jesus’ offering is, I suggest, best understood in terms of the post-crucifixion life of Jesus. The author’s emphasis on Jesus’ ascension and living presence in heaven—the location identified in the homily for where Jesus offered his blood (9:11–14, 23–24; cf. 8:1–4)—implies that it is not Jesus’ blood/death that effects atonement, but (in keeping with Yom Kippur) the presentation of his blood/life before God in the heavenly holy of holies. If these points can be demonstrated, then Hebrews’ appeal to Yom Kippur appears to show more concern with explicating how the purification rites of the Mosaic Law elucidate the theological implications of Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and exaltation than with how they provide a hermeneutical lens for understanding the event of his crucifixion.

This paper is based on a book in progress on Josiah’s reform as defilement ritual, in which I argue that the use of ritual language in the account of the reform reveals two main compositional strata: an early priestly text generated by a scribe trained within the circles of the Jerusalem-centered, holiness school; and a post-monarchic, deuteronomistic revision that sought to transform Josiah into the paradigmatic example of ideal royal leadership in pre-exilic Judah. In this paper I will argue that considering the deuteronomistic material in the account of the reform on its own terms, dissociated from the source material that underlies it, calls into question the widely held assertion that the deuteronomistic authors of 2 Kings 22-23 were working directly in the service of an ideology of centralization. I will propose that for the post-monarchic author of this text, the ideal of centralization, tied as it was to Yahweh’s covenant promise to David, did not resonate as powerfully as the ideal of limited kingship. This deuteronomist's revisions to the account of the reform sought to redraw the lines of royal power, rendering it subservient to textual authority, the latter having had the potential to transcend the spatial and political constraints of his day. While these two Deuteronomic principles are hardly mutually exclusive, they lived on differently in the post-monarchic imagination, and suggest a greater degree of heterogeneity within deuteronomistic writing than is generally understood to be the case.

Inspired by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg’s remark on the messianic hope rooted in the Song of Songs (1853), this paper proposes that the dominant type of messiah in the Fourth Gospel is a King Solomon redivivus, as in the Wisdom of Solomon, and this type radically stands against “the disciples of Moses” (John 9:28), possibly of the Mosaic tradition in Philo of Alexandria. For this purpose, it uncovers the echoes of the Song (LXX) in John from a mimesis-critical perspective to show that the Song provides framework for the intimacy of Jesus, not only with Mary Magdalene (cf. A. R. Winsor, 1999), but also with the other disciples throughout the Gospel. The verbal and thematic parallels between the two texts suggest an intertextuality, and the Johannine Jesus as the lover, bridegroom, shepherd, garden dweller, and king of the Jews resonates with the epithets of the lover in the Song. The fourth evangelist further uses the other canonical and non-canonical attributes of Solomon, such as the prince of shalom (eirene), emblem of wisdom, temple-builder, son of the Father, healer, and miracle worker (cf. 1Chr 22:9-10; Ps 72; Isa 9:6; Zech 9:9; Wis; Josephus, Ant. 8.42-49; etc.). Jesus in John more palpably represents a new Solomon, who rivals Solomon in temple-building (2:19-20), and walks in the stoa of Solomon (10:23). Moreover, some early Christian authors, such as Origen and Augustine, compare the Johannine Jesus to Solomon. This paper complements Wayne A. Meeks’s identification of the Johannine opponents with “Israel the Seer” in Philo (1976) by contrasting the Johannine king with the Philonic Moses. Notably, Philo the prolific author, mentions Solomon by name only once in his works, not as a king but as “one of Moses’s disciples” called “a man of peace,” who ironically supports Philo’s advocacy of slavery and reproach (Congr. 177).

The Lamb has long been the elephant in the room of Revelation scholarship. What does it mean—theologically, philosophically, ecologically—that Jesus trots through most of Revelation on four legs? This paper will have recourse to Derrida’s two animal books to defamiliarize this animal Christology. Instead of the asymmetrical, antithetical human/animal dyad endemic to post-Cartesian modernity, Revelation presents us with a divine/human/animal triad, each of the three terms bleeding into the other two. Yet the triad is hardly symmetrical. All humans are now subject to the animal domesticated to serve humans (Rev. 5:11-14), that animal itself, however, having first been subjected to slaughter by humans (5:6, 9). If the crucial question is not whether animals can reason or speak but rather whether they can suffer, the Lamb both answers and complicates the question. It suffers without speaking, but it is also a source of suffering (e.g., 14:9-11). It is also singular in that it is an emblematic challenge to the logic, as ancient as Genesis 4 and as recent as factory farming, that sacrificing an animal, exploiting it to death, does not constitute murder. The Lamb presents us with the ethical paradox of a sacrificial animal whose slaughter constitutes unlawful killing. Derrida writes apocalyptically of a sacrificial war against the animal that, if unchecked, will result in a world without animals, without any animal worthy of the name, whose purpose is not altogether predetermined by human need. This both is and is not the world with which Revelation presents us in the end, and as the end (chs. 21-22), an animal-depopulated urban space containing but one animal—the only animal that has become other than a means to human ends because now all humans are its slaves (22:3). (This abstract has not been submitted to any other program unit.)

In Ephraem’s heresiographical attacks against Daysanites and Manichaeans he acknowledges that his opponents manifest qualities of Christian virtue. Ephraem has a problem—how to address the righteous deeds of false teachers. His response is direct. He demonstrates that his opponents’ seemingly virtuous deeds are in actuality cunning traps with which they hope to ensnare the unsuspecting devotee. His response is also exegetical. He attacks his opponents’ interpretation of the synoptic passage that discusses good and bad trees bearing fruit in accordance with their nature (Luke 6.43-5/Matthew 7.16-20). Ephraem refers to this passage twice in his Prose Refutations, and in each case he quotes from this pericope after a long section in which he refutes the Manichaean teaching that there are two primal entities, often called roots, one good and one evil. The Manichaeans are known to have used this pericope to support this cosmological teaching. Ephraem, however, applies the passage to humanity rather than to eternal beings. In the first instance, he quotes Luke 6.43: “there is no good tree that bears evil fruit,” and applies it to the human condition generally, arguing that whether the human does good or evil, according to Manichaean teaching both a good soul and an evil body are complicit in the act. Ephraem, thereby, demonstrates that the Manichaean cosmological interpretation of this passage was inconsistent with Manichaean anthropology. The second instance, which comes in the conclusion to the Fifth Discourse to Hypatius, is applied to Ephraem’s opponents directly. Here, Ephraem quotes Matthew 7.16/20: “you will know them by their fruits.” He suggests that the “fruits” of his opponents are their teachings rather than their deeds, since their deeds are a deceptively innocent façade, while their teachings are obviously in error. In this way, his opponents are made to sound like the “false prophets,” of Matthew 7.15, “who come… in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (exceeded 350 words)

This paper explores the way pistis and fides are represented in Graeco-Roman culture: as an emotion, a cognitive state, an action and a relationship. The interaction between these aspects of pistis/fides is subtle and revealing; it tells us a good deal about how relationships of trust are perceived to work in Roman imperial society, and why they are fundamentally important for that society’s success. I shall give some examples of how pistis/fides operate in relations between people, between people and gods, and between people and ideas. I shall then draw some parallels between the use of the terms in Graeco-Roman culture in general and in early Christianity, and try to elucidate both how much Christian understandings of pistis/fides owe to their cultural context, and where they are distinctive.

In its canonical form, Deuteronomy 7 reflects the interests of the exilic and/or early post-exilic period to identify a program for recovery after the trauma of subjugation by foreign powers. Its demand for the destruction of Canaanite culture can be analyzed from a perspective that combines insights drawn from anthropology, the psychology of trauma, and postcolonial studies. There is a convergence between the colonial experience and forms of personal trauma because of the need to manage identification with the aggressor. The violent expulsion of the foreign is a manifestation of “nativism,” a term used in anthropology to describe various movements for cultural renewal. In Native American history, incidents such as the Pueblo revolt of 1688 and the Ghost Dance of 1889-90 are examples of nativistic movements which either dreamed of or attempted the expulsion of the foreign in order to reassert a fragmented cultural identity. Deuteronomy 7 expresses a desire for social renewal associated with the traumatic experiences of Judah’s captivity, deportations, and displacement. Both holiness thinking (cf. Deut 7:6) and the polemic against Canaanite culture fear “pollution” of the body (politic); for both uncleaness and idoltary represent foreign intrusions in an idealized Israel. It should not be surprising if biblical writings present its readers with programs for ridding the faith community of both sorts of contamination. In analyzing Deuteronomy 7 as an expression of nativism, it is important to note that there is no evidence its destructive program was put into practice by returning exiles; it remained a literary phenomenon. The concept of “imagined community,” drawn from postcolonial studies, helps to explain why Deuteronomy 7 was important for its first readers even if there was no intention or possibility to act upon its stipulations literally.

This paper uses sensory criticism to examine intersection of language of audition and vision with the notion of discipleship in the Gospel of Mark. The language of audition and invocations to “hear” serve both to signify the Jesus-follower as hearer and also to demarcate certain pericopae as especially relevant for this ideal disciple. The construction of the ideal Jesus-follower as the one who uses his or her senses correctly creates a contrast between the disciples in the audience and the disciples in the account. Language of audition, for Mark, serves a rhetorical function in constructing the addressees as a community of hearers.

The letter to the Ephesians employs various communicative strategies in responding to the rhetorical situation of its implied recipients. The first half of the letter is distinguished by its epistolary use of liturgical forms and elements of anamnesis, while the second half is distinguished by a concern with parenesis. Focusing on the recipients’ new identity and ethos in Christ, the text emphasizes supernatural elements such as resurrection, ascension, heavenly places, revealed mystery, spirit and power. At the same time it adopts a rich mosaic of traditional materials, inter alia echoing the Hebrew Scriptures, Hellenistic traditions, and early Christian liturgical traditions. Reference to motives from the Hebrew Scriptures as a possible explanation for the letter’s religious background has not previously attracted much scholarly attention. This was probably due to its few direct citations as well as the focus on Christian traditions and cultic language from Qumran. A widespread assumption that its audience was predominantly Greek has also frequently contributed to the notion that its roots mainly represent Hellenism and early forms of Gnosticism. Scholars such as Lincoln and Barth, however, challenged these ideas through their interdisciplinary studies on the functioning of Jewish material in Ephesians – particularly as expression of conflicting intercultural relations among Mediterranean religious groups during the first century CE. The paper explores the dynamic yet complex intertextual fusion and reappropriation of (mainly Jewish) traditions in Ephesians, as the author’s experience and understanding of the crucified, resurrected and exalted Christ. Special attention is given to the use of LXX Psalm 68:19 in Ephesians 4:1-16 – analogous forms of contact with the supernatural in the construction of Christianity. Through the metaphorical processes of identification, estrangement and reorientation the implied receivers’ adherence to Christian convictions and values is intensified. In conclusion, the paper investigates the intended effect of the letter’s use of material from the Hebrew Scriptures as construction of Christian identity in continuation with the story of Israel.

Textual historian Roger Chartier wrote that the electronic representation of texts “introduces a lengthy navigation in textual archipelagos that have neither shores nor borders.” This paper proposes that digital media's new metaphors and models for thinking about reading and text production can also help invigorate our understanding of the way the texts we now call “biblical” were produced and imagined in Jewish antiquity. Scholars have long argued that the concepts through which we view ancient texts – in terms of authorship, textual fixity and authority, canonical limits, and even “books” – are anachronistic, and based on notions of textuality more appropriate to the age of print than to a scribal, pre-canonical, scroll-based culture; but few alternatives have been proposed for how to imagine the way textuality might have been imagined in a world without codices, printing presses, publishing houses or intellectual property laws. Using the theme of the “canonical process” and the development of Psalms collections in the Second Temple Period as my example, I argue that insights from digital textuality can help provide the conceptual language for thinking about the fluid, interrelated, performed, and collective network of textual traditions in the context of which “the Bible” came to be.

The Masoretic text of 1Sam 1:24 presents the only instance in the Hebrew Bible of a woman offering a bull to YHWH on her own account. This preeminent role constitutes a sharp contrast to Hannah’s rather marginalized position at the beginning of the story where she figures as but one among many participants in a sacrificial meal. In addition, the textual evidence suggests that, starting with the ancient versions, scribes and exegetes of all times have tried to downplay Hannah’s contribution. Even more, the informed reader who would expect Hannah to ask Asherah for help in fertility questions does not find the slightest hint at the cultic reverence of any other deity than YHWH. Is it too far-fetched to assume that YHWH and (His) Asherah were revered together in Shiloh, like in pre-Josianic Arad, but that the involvement of Hannah in the cultus of Asherah would have posed a severe problem to the portrayal of Samuel as the embodiment of a true prophet of YHWH in the final text? Stylistic features do not support the thesis of either a late origin or heavy deuteronomistic reworking of the story, though, and leave this observation unexplained. An adequate understanding of Hannah’s sacrifice thus calls for a multifaceted approach using legal, archeological and literary evidence as a conceptual framework for a close reading of 1Sam 1.

When Larry Hurtado’s book, One God, One Lord, was published in 1988, Martin Hengel observed that a new History of Religions school was forming, one that looked to Jewish literature and tradition for insight into the Jesus’ mediatorial significance. Most recently, Susan Garrett’s No Ordinary Angel (2008) has further explored a cognate interest of this “school” by setting Christology against the backdrop of angelology. In this vein, the apocryphal text of Tobit sheds light on concepts of angelic mediation that were emerging in the literature of Second Temple Judaism and provided a context for the early Christian conceptions of Jesus preserved in Gospel literature. In this familiar text, the misery of two Jewish families is overcome by the active presence of an angel in human disguise. This figure from heaven soon alleviates the suffering of two miserable Israelites and then returns to heaven. With this intriguing character, Tobit’s author has produced a provocative savior, who compliments and contrasts with angelic figures in other Jewish texts, and also shares many characteristics with Christian accounts of Jesus. While there have been a number of studies on the book of Tobit in recent years, few have explored its conception of angelic mediation in relation to early Christianity. This paper seeks to address this oversight by setting Tobit in the context of early Christology.

Dead Sea Scrolls

Scholars have long observed that the verses found in Judg 6:7-10 are an aberration from the normal cycle of apostasy, oppression, repentance, and deliverance found in the book of Judges. Here, rather than immediately sending a hero to deliver the errant Israelites after their cry for help, YHWH first sends a prophet to rebuke them. It is only after the arrival of this prophet and his formulaic reprimand invoking the Exodus tradition that the narrative introduces the newly appointed Gideon as the expected hero. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls – with 4QJudga amidst them – raised the tantalizing possibility that there was an earlier literary edition of the book of Judges. In 4QJudga the aforementioned four verses are absent: the dominant recurring pattern of apostasy, oppression, repentance and deliverance follows without the interruption of the theologically laden prophetic appearance. The omission of 6:7-10 in 4QJudga provides an opportunity to reflect on the theological significance of textual criticism, a method that is often thought to be useful simply for attempting to restore the original text or for mere observations on errors and additions that crept into texts. This narrow view of the value of textual criticism detrimentally divorces the method from theological reflection. Yet Judges 6:7-10 is theological in nature, raising several questions: how does the absence of these verses in 4QJudga influence the text theologically? What does it mean if the theology of known manuscripts of the book of Judges has changed over time? This paper will explore the implications of 4QJudga, drawing connections between the theological significance of textual criticism and the very real possibility that the theology of the book of Judges has changed over time.

The lecture examines the story of David's sojourn in Keilah (1 Samuel 23:1-13) in light of the episode of the sojourn of a band of ‘Apiru in the same city in the Amarna period. The biblical story is analyzed in the first part of the lecture, and is followed by a reconstruction of the 14th century BCE historical episode on the basis of some Amarna letters. The remarkable accord between the biblical and extra-biblical descriptions with regard to location and social conditions opens the way to a better understanding of both. The pro-Davidic character of the biblical story is evident from what the narrator includes in his story, as much as by what he left out. The extra-biblical source is the key to filling in the missing details that the narrator deliberately left out of his story

Few names sound with greater honor among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than those of Isaiah, the Judean prophet, and Hugh W. Nibley, the Latter-day Saint scholar, author, and social critic. This paper examines Nibley’s use of Isaiah as a descriptor for both Zion and its counterpart Babylon. Volume nine of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, entitled Approaching Zion, contains many of his thoughts concerning education, politics, and society. While Nibley himself describes these essays as “disturbing and highly unpopular” and even “offensive,” he boldly stays his course in critiquing much of what is defined today as the “gospel of prosperity.” Nibley copiously utilizes the words of Isaiah in attempting to navigate through these controversial waters in displaying the role that monetary wealth plays in the lives of Latter-day Saints. Of the 18 essays in this volume, 13 reference Isaiah. This paper examines Nibley’s use of these scriptural passages by comparing and contrasting Nibley’s use of Isaiah with both the ancient historical background and also modern interpretations and literary and exegetical analyses of these passages. Additionally treated is Nibley’s habit of using other ancient scriptures, particularly the book of Revelation, to develop further his views of Zion and Babylon. These examples highlight the great influence that Nibley has had (and continues to have) among his readers and critics, as well as his perpetual exhortation to engage critically one’s own political and theological views.

Trade and Commerce

The quantifier kol may appear after the constituent with which it is associated, in which case it obligatory hosts a resumptive pronoun. The constituents are inter alia clausal subjects, direct objects of the verb, objects of subcategorized prepositions, objects of adjunct prepositions and vocatives. The paper will focus on two important syntactic features of quantifier float in Biblical Hebrew. First, it will be shown that although the floated quantifier ordinarily follows the constituent it modifies, other distributional patterns are also possible. Second, attention will be paid to the patterns of agreement between the resumptive pronoun and their referents. Although the resumptive pronoun ordinarily agrees with the constituent it resumes in person and number, there are significant and principled exceptions to this generalization, which will be described and explained.

Mark’s literary sources have remained an enigma throughout modern biblical scholarship and Mark has, for the most part, been seen as relying on oral traditions and pre-Markan traditions about Jesus which are now lost. Some scholars, however, have noted similarities between the theology and literary style of the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul. This paper will seek to explore these similarities and assess their validity. From here we will be able to ask the question: What is the nature and extent of this possible relationship and did Mark have access to Paul’s letters? I will then propose that Mark’s text may have used Paul’s letters as a source and provide some specific examples. In doing this, I will take account of two basic factors: 1) Greco-Roman literary techniques and how Mark may have used these in the treatment of his sources. 2) A recent development in literary studies, namely the criteria for judging literary dependence. The ultimate aim of this paper is to show significant evidence that Mark may have had access to, and used Paul’s letters as a literary source and that the question of Mark’s sources needs to be re-assessed.