*

During the first century Christians held communal suppers on Sunday evening. From the beginning of the second century Christians began to come together more frequently. In addition to their gatherings on Sunday evening, they began to meet early in the morning, first on one day, probably on Sunday, and later on more days of the week. The earliest evidence for Christian gatherings early in the morning comes from Pliny the Younger, who was the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus in ca. 110-112 CE. Scholarly opinions are divided with respect to the character of the morning gathering mentioned by Pliny and none of them provide a satisfactory explanation of this evidence. Moreover, there is no socio-historical explanation of the origins of the Christian gathering in the morning. Numerous evidence from Jewish, pagan, and Christian sources shows that coming together in the early morning for worship was a widespread phenomenon in the Graeco-Roman world. For Christians in Asia Minor about 100 CE, the idea of assembling by sunrise for worship was not something very difficult to conceive, therefore. This paper seeks to argue that the morning gathering formed the Christian counterpart of the meetings for prayer and worship which were held by many other religious groups in the Graeco-Roman world, including pagan and Jewish worshippers. Why the Christians in Bithynia placed their morning service on Sunday remains a matter for conjecture. Several possible reasons will also be presented in this paper.

*

This paper deals with the history of interpretation of Luke 14:16-23, particularly with verse 23. First, the paper shows how the passage was interpreted by the early Christian Fathers until Augustine. Second, since none of the Fathers before Augustine used it to support compulsion, we want to see the context in which Augustine was determined to use it as an argument for the use of force against the Donatists. Particularly, we want to see the unique interpretation of Augustine, and the fact that, although it is an important argument in Augustine's justification of the use of force in conversion, it is by no means the most important one. As one might expect, the Ante-Nicene writers found little use of the command "compel people to come in" in Luke 14:23 because before 311 Christians were the ones compelled to renounce their religion. Therefore, the references we find are rather to the Great Banquet generally than to Luke 14:23. We find references to the Great Banquet in Clement oof Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen, but none of these writers interpreted the passage as a way of supporting the use of force. After Nicea, we find references to the Great Banquet in Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and Jerome. As before Nicea, none of these writers thought to see it as a support for the use of physical force against schismatics. This paper will show that the Parable of the Great Banquet was interpreted by the early Christian writers depending on the circumstances in which they found themselves.

Even a casual reading of the Gospel narratives reveals a striking disparity between the synoptic words of Jesus and the Johannine words of Jesus. While the Church has accorded the same authority to both, leaving the impression for the average lay person that all Scriptural words of Jesus are verbatims of the pre-Easter Jesus, the issues of origin and transmission become clouded. If it is true that the only Jesus available to us is Jesus as he was seen and heard by those who first encountered him and formulated the traditions we now have, it is then imperative to consider the nexus of these traditions to those who spoke them. This paper proposes to examine issues of memory, orality, prophetic utterance, and literary construction as they apply to the Spirit-driven prophetic community of the Fourth Gospel in whose midst the living post-Easter voice of the Good Shepherd continues to be heard not as a tradition but as a contemporary experience.

The means of reason have co-existed with religious believes whether applied against religion or adapted for promoting religious thought or doctrine perhaps for as long as human beings acquired such level of intelligence. Schools of thought and religious associations are social institutions with links to individuals who have chosen to develop and practice such ideological convictions alone. Neither Xeonophanes of Colophon in Ionia (560-478 BCE), who criticizes mythology on philosphical grounds nor the rationalists of the early modern age or the empiricism of Francis Bacon‘s (1561-1626) concept of science (based on observation over against deduction) and Edmund Husserl‘s (1859-1938) phenomenology (based on pure consciousness) have ostracized religion or religious instituions from the cultural mix of the Western world or anywhere else for that matter. This paper discusses deconstructionist approaches to religion in which religious activities are thought to originate by pure coincidence to form social relations or changes subsequently expressed in fabricated texts (such as myth) following models suggested by comparative analyst Jonathan Z. Smith. It proceeds to discuss modern cognitive contributions to explaining religion with empirical models based on such different ideas as mental causistry (e.g. Andy Clark) and emotion (e.g. Martha Nussbaum and Antonio R. Damasio). In a final section, the paper compares ancient philosophical contributions to understanding religion as a human product to the modern models already mentioned using Cicero‘s (106-43 BCE) definition of religion as a neurotic phase of repitition over against the hysteric apperance of superstition in prayer and sacrifice.

John Chrysostom’s rhetoric against Jews, especially in his Adversus Judaeos, remains among the most infamous of patristic literature. Nevertheless, the function of the Jews in Chrysostom’s exegetical homilies has yet to be explored fully. Against the backdrop of fourth-century Antioch, in which Jews comprised a powerful and visible presence, this paper investigates the rhetorical function of the “Jews” in Chrysostom’s homilies on John – a gospel that ostensibly engendered the worst of patristic anti-Judaic trends. In order to shed light on his readings of Johannine Jews, this paper focuses on the role mimesis plays in Chrysostom’s homilies as well as the biblical text’s place within his vision of Christian education. Chrysostom, both implicitly and explicitly, casts himself in Christ’s role as the good but tough teacher, who seeks to shape his audience into Christ’s image. As such, there builds in these homilies a mimetic correspondence between, on the one hand, Christ and Chrysostom and, on the other, the Johannine Jews and Chrysostom’s contemporary Antiochene audience. Christ’s and Chrysostom’s virtuous and didactic goals are revealed to be one and the same, as are the faults and vices of the Johannine Jews and fourth-century Antiochene Christians. Contrary to modern assertions, Chrysostom does not wield the supposed hostility of the Fourth Gospel against contemporary Jews. Rather, Chrysostom, in keeping with his parenetic intentions, directs the gospel’s difficult words against contemporary Christians – despite the fact that he preached these homilies within a few years of his Adversus Judaeos. In this context of Chrysostom’s mimetic reading, this paper concludes with a consideration of the usefulness of the Alexandrian/Antiochene distinction, whose applicability begins to falter when the exegesis of the “spiritual gospel” takes center stage.

The paper deals with the examples of interpretation of the Bible in the Soviet times in Latvia, when theology experienced oppression. It also deals with the impact these interpretations have on today's hermeneutical tendencies after the political changes.

*

Approaching the Hebrew Bible as one who identifies as both an evangelical and a feminist can create tension between, on the one hand, wanting to affirm the text's ongoing authority and usefulness as “Word of God” to the church today; and on the other, wanting to recognise, resist, and reject texts that are so thoroughly steeped in their patriarchal world view as to be practically irredeemable. This cognitive dissonance and ambivalence towards the biblical text is recognised as an increasing issue for a growing number of evangelical feminists. The crux of the issue is determining what to make of the stated evangelical commitment to the authority of the text, when faced with texts that perpetuate the oppression of women. This paper explores the interplay of voices in the book of Lamentations, a book that includes the troubling metaphor of Israel as female Zion. That the book of Lamentations contains various voices and perspectives, including that of female Zion, is well established. Less clear, however, are the implications of Lamentations' multiple and resisting voices for contemporary hermeneutics and constructs of biblical authority. Based on the interplay and progression of voices and perspectives in Lamentations, this paper will advance an approach to the Hebrew Bible as Scripture that allows for a variety of voices to be heard, acknowledged, and – when appropriate – resisted. The paper will then demonstrate how this hermeneutic of conversation and participation might adequately address both feminist and evangelical concerns regarding the authority of the biblical text.

The oldest source for the “sacred prostitution” that biblical textbooks have made a characteristic feature of “Canaanite fertility religion” is a second century CE travelogue known as The Syrian Goddess (De Syria dea), attributed to the satirist and rhetorician Lucian of Samosata. Lucian prefaces his account of the cult of Hierapolis with a report on the other “Syrian” temples that he has visited or learned of in his travels, imitating Herodotus in tone and dialect. His most elaborate account is of the Adonis rites performed at the great sanctuary of Aphrodite in Byblos. As part of the mourning rituals, he reports, the Byblians shaved their heads. But the women who refused to shave were required to stand for a day offering themselves to strangers for payment that became an offering to Aphrodite. This sole reference from Byblos, and sole evidence for Phoenicia prior to Eusebius’ fourth century report on Heliopolis, established “sacred prostitution” in its assumed homeland--and provided its only link to the cult of a dying-and-rising-god, lacking in all other references. This paper sets Lucian’s account in the context of other accounts of Adonis rites, prostitution in honor of Aphrodite, and Lucian’s own report on the Ashtart temple of Sidon, to demonstrate how Lucian, in parody of Herodotus, made Byblos “Babylon West.”

This paper employs Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “symbolic capital” to show that religious discourse functions as a type of capital in Apuleius of Madauros’ The Golden Ass (Book 11) and in Pauline epistles. “Capital” is defined as any cultural product which can be exchanged for another culturally recognized form of capital, such as material goods or services involving human labor. “Symbolic capital” is capital which exists in narrative form (e.g., religious discourse). Symbolic capital in The Golden Ass consists of the promise of a beatific afterlife, a longer lifespan, and a more fortunate state in life, all of which are said to be mediated by the power of the goddess Isis. In the Pauline epistles, symbolic capital consists of promised deliverance from eschatological judgment, as well as a future existence in a heavenly realm. In the writings of both Apuleius and Paul, promises of post-mortem bliss, etc. are viewed as exchangeable for material goods or services involving human labor. In the Golden Ass, the protagonist, Lucius, devotes both considerable human labor and economic expense in return for the divine benefaction of a more pleasant afterlife (11.6). In Romans 15:27, Paul makes an equation between “spiritual things” and “material things,” and asserts that a donation of the former type is adequately recompensed by a counter-gift of the latter type. In 2 Cor 9:6–15, Paul declares that God’s “indescribable gift” (i.e., that of salvation from the eschatological judgment and subsequent existence in a heavenly realm) obliges the Corinthians to respond with their own material gifts to Jerusalem. Their property of exchangeability for material goods or human labor marks religious promises such as that of post-mortem bliss as forms of symbolic capital, and indicates that religious discourse, in Apuleius and Paul, at least, may perform a function properly characterized as economic.

It is well known that different images of God abound in the book of Hosea. Metaphors were used that became well-known ways of thinking about God in the Old Testament, but others remained unique Hosea images, not found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. In the light of contemporary iconography, the issue I wish to pursue is the origin of the images of God in the book Hosea. Were these images innovative constructs of the prophet/author, or do they reflect images known from contemporary iconographic depictions in the miniature art of Iron Age II in Israel. The issue underlying these questions is the problem of finding new information to facilitate research on the history of theological concepts. How do we come to a better understanding of an ancient text and ancient concepts? Archaeological results are by far the most productive source of new information on ancient societies. Archaeologists are often not the scholars who “translate” their finds to useful snippets of information for the historian of the religion of ancient Israel. Seals and seal impressions are some of the more common objects found in the archaeological process that shed light on ideological and theological ideas of the owners and of the period. More often than not, the depictions are presented text-less and the question is whether these depictions can lead us to a better understanding of the biblical text.

The martyrdom accounts of Eleazar and the seven brothers found in 2 Macc 6:18-7:42 are found again within the book of 4 Maccabees. These accounts are not simply re-told, but are re-interpreted in order to fit the purposes of the author of 4 Maccabees. This paper will focus on comparing and contrasting the martyrdom accounts of Eleazar and the seven brothers found in 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees. Special attention will be given to the re-interpretation of the martyrdom accounts in 4 Maccabees and propose reasons for the changes the author makes based on both cognate literature and historical context. It will propose that the shifts in focus, purpose, and function of the martyrdom accounts in 4 Maccabees play an important role in the development of the idea of vicarious sacrifice in second Temple Judaism. The re-interpretation of the martyrdom accounts, it will be argued, both meets the needs of the original audience of 4 Maccabees and functions as an important part in the development of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice.

In Mesopotamia and Hatti, liturgists counteracted omens predicting misfortune by using apotropaic rituals, including the Neo-Assyrian namburbis and the rituals of the Hittite bird-augurs. In this paper I compare and contrast performative speech in these two groups of texts with what I call “apotropaic intercession” in the Hebrew Bible—acts of intercession, primarily by Moses and a few prophets, against foretold doom. Although the literary genres differ, the three bodies of texts all seek to overturn divine decrees communicated to humanity, answering the deity’s message with their own. The nature of the speech acts in these apotropaic texts illuminate aspects of the cultures’ implicit theology.

This paper will be a brief comparison of some of the body language in the Hodayot with the catena of body quotations used and quoted by Paul in Romans 3. Attention will be paid to the character of the language used and how it is placed within the structure and rhetorical argumentation of the two bodies of text. Particular consideration will be given to similarities in purpose and differences in genre.

Analysis of marriage practices usually takes for granted the primary objects of study as “male” and “female.” Connecting marriage practices with the construction of identity focuses attention on the ideological aspects of these practices, on the ways in which marriage practices fit into the symbol system of a society, enacting and rationalizing meanings and power relationships both in and beyond the kinship group. Full appreciation of this ideological dimension of marriage requires critical attention to gender: the constructed-ness of “male” and “female,” and how this construction constructs other aspects of identity. This paper begins with the fundamental feminist insight that, in an androcentric, patrilineal culture, Woman is Other, which means, on a deep level, all marriage is intermarriage, a relationship that men both require and resist in different measures in different circumstances. In the Bible this female Other can and does stand for a range of other Others. The particulars vary: some intermarriages are tolerable, even desirable, others are abhorrent, but the line is shifting, not stable. This gender-critical stance means that we have to compare and contrast “intermarriages” of all sorts, beginning with the null set—the unfulfillable patrilineal desire for female-free reproduction—and including as well the (usually prohibited) practice of incest. Although this point of departure may seem abstract, I shall argue in this paper that it actually offers some leverage in dealing with texts that both beckon us to ask the question about the social significance of intermarriage and also veil any direct answers in the folds of ideological literature.

Laws and narratives in the Pentateuch are integrated in that the laws take up issues from the narratives. A prime example is how the idolatrous character of Joseph’s dreams in Genesis 37 inspires the five laws in Numbers 15. In his first dream, Joseph’s brothers as sheaves of grain reverently bow down to his sheaf. The first two rules lay out the proper role of grain offerings in Israelite worship. The third deals with unintentional offenses and with a deliberate, high-handed offense against God. The rule recognizes that Joseph is not responsible for his dreams but nonetheless takes seriously his hubris. The fourth rule judges a man who gathers sticks on the Sabbath. The offense parallels how the stalks of grain in Joseph’s dream have been gathered for an idolatrous purpose. The rule’s focus is on someone competing with God as Creator. Joseph’s second dream dramatically illustrates such a phenomenon: the sun, moon, and stars bow down to him. The stick-gatherer provides another example because the offender intends an idolatrous act, probably involving fire. The fifth rule requires the placement of colored fringes on an Israelite’s garment so that he is alert to observing all the commandments. In focus is how Joseph’s special (colored?) garment provoked envy. Not only did it signify Joseph’s importance but was intimately tied to the immediately following dreams that brought out his overweening arrogance. A later son of Israel has to provide himself with a tangible reminder of how easy it is to offend. The narratives that precede (spies creating trouble) and appear after (infighting among the sons of Israel) Numbers 15 similarly link up with the Joseph narrative. The same integrating process applies to the presentation of both laws and narratives throughout the Pentateuch.

This paper will review recent developments in sociological approaches to the city, urban life, memory, and spatial mobility (contrasting with earlier classic and modernist sociological treatments), from the perpsective of their potential use for the analysis of ancient biblical social worlds.

Ritual studies can shed light on the social rhetoric of the Apocalypse of John. Apc 1:3,10 give hints about the earliest Christians' worship and lection. In light of Victor Turner's ritual criticism (as well as others' ritual theories), the presumed service of the earliest Christianity is analyzed. The Apocalypse signifies all three stages of any rite of passage: (1) "On the Lord's day" (1:10) implies the stage of separation; (2) the lectionary reading in the presence of the Christian communities (1:3a) leads to the liminal stage; and (3) the observance of the prophecy in the everyday life (1:3b) belongs to the phrase of "incorporation". Besides, the epistolary genre offers the participant, on the one hand, a threshold in Apc 1:1-8 to gradually enter the new Communitas, and on the other hand, an exit in Apc 22:6-21 to return to his/her everyday life. In between, the apocalyptic genre (1:9-22:5) serves as a process of liminality. A literary device of John, which is similar to Mise en abyme (I term it as Mise en apocalypse or "Story within a story"), is found in the structure of the Apocalypse that can strengthen the "Communitas". By means of the aforesaid device, Christ meets his followers (i.e. participants) in the ideological communitas in the course of the rite. Thus, they engage in the liminality, just as shown in the studies of cultural anthropology. Consciously or unconsciously, they experience status change in the rite, which functions as a social critique. Lastly, according to Gerd Theissen's analysis, a combination of aggression reduction and intensification characterizes in the rites of the earliest Christian communities, and the Apocalypse of John is no exception.

Was Pharaoh flattened by the last plague and thus let the Israelites go? I suppose that is hardly the reason. In fact, Pharaoh was getting angry and had showed no interest in hearing further from Moses even after the previous plagues. I suggest that Pharaoh did not know about the last plague until it happened. In Exodus 10:28-29, Pharaoh had commanded not to see Moses again. Therefore, Moses had declared the coming of the last plague in front of the officers and the people, but not the Pharaoh. Moreover, if the last plague is so threatening, it is hard to understand why Pharaoh chased the Israelites after they had left the land of Egypt. In order to resolve the ambiguity, we need to take a close look at Exodus 11. The Egyptians suffered a lot and were completely fed up with the plagues. However, Pharaoh was still reluctant to change. Therefore, I suggest that the saying “Pharaoh hardened his heart” means that Pharaoh was not only unwilling to listen to Moses, but also to his people. In addition, most of the Egyptians and the officers were afraid of the Israelites and their leader Moses after the plagues. That explains why they were willing to offer gifts to the Israelites. The increasing discontentments of the Egyptians would create the political instability in the land of Egypt. Hence, I suggest that it was the political instability in the land of Egypt that made Pharaoh flattened. After the Israelites left the land of Egypt, discontentment of the Eygptians and the threat of the political instability were lessened. Pharaoh decided to chase after the Israelites with his army.

The treatment of so- called “mixed marriages” in the Ezra-Nehemiah narrative is to be considered as one of the most prominent and elaborated accounts on this topic in the Hebrew Bible. The dismissive attitude towards exogamous matrimonies contracted between groups of “Judean” men (cf. Ezra 9-10; Neh 13.23-28) among them prominent figures such as the High priest’s son (Neh 13.28) with women labelled alien is on the one hand conveyed by the use of specific terminology that creatively utilizes existing Pentateuchal law. On the other hand the relevant passages within Ezra- Nehemiah have been seen as one particular position in an ongoing inner biblical discourse on the question of legitimate access to the post- exilic community. Therefore the key- passages for the “mixed- marriage crisis” in Ezra- Nehemiah have been closely scrutinized with regard to their literary dependencies in order to elucidate a possible historical setting and to shed light on the operant logic leading to the condemnation of the exogamous marriages. Yet this has often been done by dissolving the relevant passages from their wider literary context as given by the narrative as a whole. This paper will deal with mixed marriages in Ezra-Nehemiah in a more “synthetic” approach arguing that concept and understanding of mixed marriages as Ezra-Neh unfolds it are essentially related to and influenced by the account on “Temple restoration” and the notion of Jerusalem as “Holy City” (e.g. Neh 11.2;18). For that matter Ezra-Neh is first of all to be taken as a literary unity where the comprehension of single sections is shaped by its textual embedment. For a profound understanding of mixed marriages a discussion of the other two parameters is therefore indispensable and can offer new insights into underlying concepts. The paper will discuss the rationale of Temple- building (Ezra 1-6) and the concept of the holy city with regard to the communicated community construction. Thereupon it aims at disclosing the interrelations with the mixed- marriages and implications for the book’s attitude towards them resulting from dynamics initiated by structure and representation of the respective topics.

The demarcation of postexilic boundaries is prevalent in the narratives regarding Nehemiah’s activities in the province of Yehûd. Within the debate on whom to include in and whom to exclude from the Jerusalem centered community the topic of marriage ties between “inside” and “outside” appears several times (cf. Neh 6.18; 13.23-27; 13.28). The thereby rejected or criticized spouses represent “the Other” with its ascribed negative and threatening influence to be held off, as it is also discussed with regards to other occasions within the narrative (cf. Neh 2.19-20; 4.1-3; 6.1-19; 13.4-9). At the same time the texts highlight the ideal picture of Judean identity drawn by the book of Nehemiah as a whole. Thus, at the critical point of marriage policy, boundaries are clarified politically as well as socially and religiously. According to its character as theologically shaped account on Judean history the narrative takes up and transforms earlier biblical traditions which reject “foreign” influence. Thus, the book of Nehemiah lends itself quite perfectly to investigate the relevance and function of the rejection of mixed marriages for self-definition at the beginning of Judaism. The paper will examine which kind of self-assessment of postexilic identity can be found in the texts on mixed marriage and, furthermore, how they can be related to the ideology expressed by the book of Ezra, the other half of the composition of Ezra-Nehemiah and prominent for its elaborated treatment of the topic. As will be shown, a clearly defined ideological picture of society after the Exile is drawn by the Nehemiah narrative. That has to be brought into discussion with other voices of Persian and Hellenistic Period identity discourse.

Hebrews 12:28 contains an allusion to Dan 7:14 and 18 where God promises that the saints will receive an everlasting kingdom. This is one of only three allusions to Daniel in the Letter to the Hebrews. A more careful look to the theology of Hebrews will reveal, however, that the relationship in Hebrews between the enthronement of the “Son”, the defeat or submission of the enemies, and judgment provide more points of contacts to Daniel 7. Furthermore, the sacrifice of the Son for the expiation of sin and the inauguration of a new covenant and a new sanctuary in Heb 9 resembles the theological argument of Dan 9:24–27 as well. These echoes of Daniel suggest a new perspective that will throw new light on the argument of the author of Hebrews who considered to be living in the “last days”.

In recent years there has been considerable controversy concerning the structure and nature of the Ancient Greek verb system. This has been the case particularly in the analysis of the Greek of the New Testament. Using a predominantly synchronic approach some, including Porter and Decker, have argued that tense is not encoded within the Greek indicative verb system. Rather they argue that the verb system encodes aspect alone, tense being expressed by implicature. In this paper I adopt computational methods to identify statistically significant patterns of collocation with particular temporal adverbs and clause types, focusing on the perfect, pluperfect and aorist indicative actives. I use for an ancient language a large corpus of approximately 1.5 million words stretching from the early first millennium BC through to the first century AD, including but not limited to the writers Polybius, Josephus and Plutarch as well as parts of the New Testament. By tracing the path of development of these verb forms over this period I show that the Greek verb system follows a cross-linguistically well attested path of development. By these means I intend both in general to demonstrate the necessity of diachronic study for understanding the verb system of a language at any given point in time, and specifically to set the current debate concerning the verb system in the New Testament in perspective.

More than twenty years ago Lawrence Zalcmann observed in his article 'Death and the Calendar' [Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts 16 (1988), 99], 'Italian Jewish poets of the early modern period wrote poems which could be read in both Hebrew and Italian.' That astonishing feat was regularly equalled by the musician-poets of ancient Israel, whose poems not only mean what they mean in Hebrew, but also contain their own musical notation. Every one of their compositions is 50% poetry and 50% music. The notes of a melody may be encrypted in the letters of consecutive words, in the first or last letters of consecutive words, or in the first and last letters of alternate words. In the basic system of notation the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet denote musical notes as follows: aleph = one-beat d, beth = one-beat e, gimel = one-beat f, daleth = one-beat g, he = one-beat a, wau = one-beat b, zayin = one-beat c'; cheth = two-beat d, teth = two-beat e, yodh = two-beat f, kaph = two-beat g, lamedh = two-beat a, mem = two-beat b, nun = two-beat c'; samekh = three-beat d, ayin = three-beat e, pe = three-beat f, tzaddi = three-beat g, qoph = three-beat a, resh = three-beat b, s[h]in = three-beat c', and tau = three-beat d'. We shall see how the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are married both to the pitches of the white-note scale of d (d, e, f, g, a, b, c', d'), and to different units of musical time. Then we shall observe how the melodies of Psalm 124 and The Song of the Bow are encrypted in particular verses of the Hebrew text. Finally, we shall explore the Davidic organum of Alamoth and Sheminith.

Within the inscriptional tradition of a single Assyrian king, this paper examines the changing ideological landscape of military activity and theology, as Assurbanipal attempts and fails to divert traditional cosmological language away from the problematic Babylonian Marduk and onto his favourite, the prophetic Ištar. Both the problem of Marduk and the choice of Ištar arose and were influenced by the political circumstances of Assurbanipal’s reign – emphasising the importance of analysing divine attributes and theological concepts in close connection with their concrete historical background in mind. The convergence of Esarhaddon’s and Assurbanipal’s indebtedness to the Ištar tradition with the ongoing troubles of Babylonian governance converge to create a novel, though ultimately unsuccessful, theological and mythological exercise.

The Cappadocians’ use of the figure of Moses has recently been explored by scholars such as Andrea Sterk (Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church, Cambridge 2004) and Claudia Rapp (Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity, Berkeley 2005). In continuation of two articles by Marguerite Harl, they have argued that the Cappadocians used the figure of Moses to advocate a particular monk-bishop ideal. In my paper I shall re-examine the Cappadocians’ use of the figure of Moses. I will argue that they employed the figure of Moses much more differently than argued in recent scholarship: while Basil compared the figure of Moses not only to bishops, but also to holy men, and Gregory of Nyssa set forth the figure of Moses as a ‘possible self’ for all Christians, Gregory of Nazianzus rather reserved the figure to himself and his closest kin. Rather than promoting a certain episcopal ideology, the figure of Moses and the book of Exodus were creatively rewritten and adapted to highly different contexts by each of the Cappadocians. I shall especially focus on the way Gregory of Nazianzus in his orations and his autobiographical poems took the figure of Moses as an exclusive figure in order to construct his own character and personal authority.

*

The BIBLE+ORIENT Museum Database Online of the BIBEL+ORIENT Museum in Fribourg (Switzerland) is a web based database created for the electronic management of ancient Near Eastern image and object data. The numerous data fields enable not only a precise cataloging of the museum inventory but also systematic searches for purposes of scientific research. The consultation of digitalized catalogs of the collections is of special help for scholars interested in different applications of ancient Near Eastern pictorial material. This introduction will access the database online and thus present the different possibilities and applications of the database. An survey of some other databases and some practical advices for employing images in Biblical Studies will round of the presentation.

This paper aims at adding one more aspect, so far mainly neglected, that may have influenced the choice of the LXX translators; namely, euphony. Some non-standard renderings, especially in poetic passages, create more regularity in rhythm and more alliterations than standard equivalents would do. For instance, in Exodus 15:1 the Hebrew "ashira lYHWH ki ga'o ga'a" was translated as "aswmen tw kyriw endoxws gar dedoxasqai". This line contains a few unusual renderings, and the best explanation for them seems to be the quest for a better rhythmic structure (cf. a more standard rendering "asw tw kyriw hoti doxasqai dedoxasqai"). The same we see in the next line where LXX has a highly unusual word order ("houtos mou qeos" instead of "houtos ho qeos mou") and in many other places. The paper will propose a number of examples from Genesis 49 and Exodus 15.

The Hebrew ideology of the kingdom as presented in Psalm 72 has customarily been interpreted as being influenced by the traditions of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia. In most cases, scholars focused on the traditions of enthronement, as well as on the everlasting idea of justice (Ma'at; kittum and misarum) to interpret Psalm 72 in the light of Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources. Without doubt, the idea of fertility is connected with these traditions: When the king is enthroned by god resp. the gods, he has to ensure both justice and fertility in the land. Nevertheless, the tradition of the king's responsibility for fertility seems to have strong similarities, not only with Egypt and Mesopotamia, but also especially with Ancient Syrian traditions. In this paper, the speaker will follow the Syro-Palestinian images and texts concerning the king's responsibility for fertility to interpret Psalm 72 in its Ancient Syrian context. At the end of the paper, the difficult Verse 5 is interpreted in the light of Mesopotamian as well as North-West Semitic inscriptions.

2007 saw something of a phenomenon in bible publishing when three separate publishers each produced a “Manga Bible”. These bibles are promoted as graphic, illustrated bibles employing the Japanese, comic illustration style known as ‘manga’. Manga is hugely popular with teenage and young adult readers. It is also controversial and known in some quarters for its darker, adult content. The treatment of female characters both visually and in storylines has been problematic for many readers and, indeed, artists. This paper explores the visual characterisation of the female characters in the Book of Judges across the three manga bibles. Judges presents us with a great diversity of female characters, including: Deborah and Jael; the mothers of Abimelech, Gideon and Samson; Delilah, Jephthath’s daughter and the so-called ‘levite’s concubine’ to mention but a few. As a very current, contemporary visual interpretation of these characters, in a popular and controversial graphic idiom, do these bibles offer us new insight into these characters? Or do they repeat previous interpretations found in traditional art forms and commentary? How have the female characters of Judges been interpreted and drawn in manga style? What is the relationship between the text and the manga? How has the violence in the text been dealt with in these manga bibles? This paper offers a critique from a feminist perspective.

In 1693, the English composer Henry Purcell (1659-95) composed his only sacred Dramatic Dialogue 'In Guilty Night' (Z 134), based upon the biblical story of Saul and the Witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28: 8-20). The reception of this text in music retells the story of Saul's visit to the Witch of Endor, and her summons of the ghost of Samuel to foretell Saul's fate. The reception of this biblical text in music enjoyed considerable popularity in the Seventeenth Century by numerous composers, and later in the Twentieth Century by Benjamin Britten (1947). Purcell retold this story in music by employing the techniques of the Italian seconda prattica, and setting the composition for three voices: Saul (counter-tenor), the Witch of Endor (Soprano), Samuel (Bass), and an ensemble. This paper will examine the reception of 1 Sam. 28: 8-20 in the text and music of Henry Purcell's 'In Guilty Night' (Z 134).

A good teacher in the old days was something quite different from a good teacher nowadays. The paper will explore what it means to be a good teacher today, arguing that the good teacher today must integrate many more perspectives and functions in order to meaningfully interact with today's students. This is in line with some theories of psychological development, like that of Clare W. Graves (2005), who argues that humans are growing and maturing in precisely the ability to reconcile more perspectives (not just our own) and that we grow in our ability to care for larger and larger circles of people. The paper will apply this theory to the role as teacher.

One of the limitations facing historical Jesus studies has been his virtual absence from contemporary historical accounts, outside of the New Testament. Considering the fact that other first century records, primarily the works of Josephus, depict in detail the Jewish political and messianic movements of the time, the most common conclusion has been that Jesus probably was less important in his own time than the gospel narratives suggest. However, in a comparison between the New Testament and the works of Josephus, a number of hitherto neglected parallel events were found, that in Josephus’ writings occur with a consistent delay of fifteen to twenty years. The parallel events are presented, as well as a hypothesis for why a time shift could have taken place.

This paper develops the relationship between David as mythic literary character, the life of David in Kings and Chronicles, the Psalms of exaltation and enthronement, and the enthronement notions in the Son of Man traditions of Second Temple Judaism (Ezekiel, Daniel 7-9, I Enoch 37-71, 11Q13Mel, The War Scroll, and the Hoyadot, IV Ezra, The Testimony of Abraham, and The Synoptic Gospels). David is a mythic character in that it is clear from the Hebrew Bible presentation of him that the tensions in his story indicate heroic mythicization. For example, he is graphically depicted as an adulterer and premeditating murderer, on the one hand, and yet a Man after God's own heart, on the other; a guerilla warrior constantly acting to undermine the very effective and divinely anointed king Saul and kingdom of Israel, on the one hand, and yet the heroic savior of Israel on the other; the philanderer with Abigail and others, and the abuser or neglecter of his wife Michael on the one hand, and the establisher of a divinely appointed dynasty, on the other; the disciplinarian, on the one hand, and the indulgent father, on the other, resulting in the rape of his daughter, and the rebellion and death of his prized son; he is the man God judges negatively as having bloody hands, on the one hand, and yet the man commended for his spiritual vision of bringing the ark of the covenant to the "Holy City - Zion" and anticipating the Solomonic Temple, on the other. In the life of David in Kings and Chronicles we can discern from the shape and contrasts of the two narratives that his story is manipulated to devalue Saul and even Samuel, and enhance David. He is, on the one hand, a reprehensible character, and on the other hand, Superhuman caricature. The interesting thing for this paper, however, is the relationship between this man of myth and manipulated history, on the one hand, and the exaltation and enthronement Psalms that may refer to him as the Idealized Man, on the other. There is significant reason to believe that Psalm 2, 8, 80, 110, and perhaps Proverbs 30 are related to this Idealized Man tradition. Such a tradition dominated Second Temple Judaisms after the Exile in the form of the Son of Man myth. We know when that started. The Son of Man in Ezekiel is merely human and the title means just that: "mere mortal". Ezekiel's Son of Man is not a Davidic Superman, nor an Idealized Man, nor an exalted enthroned heavenly figure. In Daniel the Son of Man, however, is an exalted idealized heavenly figure but not an enthroned man nor the heavenly judge. He is simply another "man after God's own heart," who must carry out, through his field forces on earth (The People of the Holy Ones of the Most High) the destruction of evil powers and institutions and the establishment of the reign of God on earth. In I Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels the Son of Man starts as an Ezekiel-like human but becomes through suffering and ordeal the exalted heavenly man appointed to be the Eschatological Judge, exterminating the wicked, collecting the righteous into God's kingdom, and ending, cataclysmically, history as we know it. In the DSS the virtual Son of Man is an exalted Heavenly Man and Savior (11Q13Mel). In the War Scroll and Hodayot he is king, priest, suffering servant and savior. In John's Gospel the Son of Man starts out as the divine Logos who is the Eschatological Judge; but he sets aside that function (5:27-47) to exercise instead his function as the suffering servant and savior of the whole world, who then returns to his exalted status as God. This paper draws the lines of force in David's life through the Psalms (and Prov.) of exaltation, to the Son of Man as Exalted Eschatological Judge, and on to the alternative image of Savior, to discern whether the David myths and the Psalms shaped the early Second Temple Judaisms' Son of Man, and whether John got his alternative vision from the Psalms as well.

Research on the Apocalypse of John in general, and over the past two decades in particular, has brought forth a plethora of ideas regarding the political orientation of the apocalyptist as revealed in his work, with major points of view dubbing the author 1) anti-Roman or 2) anti-empire, or calling the book a product of 3) anti-imperialism. However, collectively and individually these terms are both misleading and, to a considerable extent, erroneous. First, while Revelation undeniably possesses an anti-Roman tint, there are many images and ideas that can also, or better, be described as anti-Parthian, an expansion which invalidates the former classification. Second, John never takes issue with the political entity of empire, and in certain instances even portrays such a structure in a positive light: this is evidenced most clearly in the inclusion of the “kings of the earth” in the New Jerusalem vision (21:24), whose obeisance (21:26; cf. 22:2-4) casts the governance of the utopian city in a de facto imperial manner with God as emperor. Indeed, the focus of the authorial attacks is not the empire, but the person of the emperor and those who assist him in conducting despotic imperial actions. Third, while the use of "anti-imperialism" to describe the Apocalypse is not entirely fallacious as with the preceding duo of terms, the modern meaning of this word is inextricably intertwined with various unwanted associations, such as territorial jingoism and colonization, that are either historically inappropriate or inaccurate, thereby rendering it a problematic nomenclatorial choice. Consequently, as it is the matter of despotic tyranny which underlies John’s antipathy to political power, either "anti-Caesarism" or "anti-autocratism" would serve as more suitable terminological alternatives.

Driver, Treatise on the Use of Tenses in Hebrew, states that: circumstantial is any phrase or clause used to qualify the main action by assigning the concomitant conditions under which it takes place. Driver is hesitant to name a number of backgrounded constructions circumstantial: the circumstance at hand should be descriptive of an actant at the time of the action featured by the principal verb. In a diachronic perspective and with reference to inscriptional Hebrew and versiones, this paper discusses phrases and clauses that are circumstantial by indicating what the subject or object is or was at the time of the action performed, as well as the circumstantial character of inter alia, statements made on two subjects, of which the second highlights the contrast to the preceding, and clauses introduced by wehinne after verbs of perception.

The paper discusses some parallels detectable in the concepts of creation myths of the Old Testament and wider context of Ancient Near Eastern mythology. In the Sumerian "Enki and Ninmah" myth and in the Akkadian "Atrahasis" epic, the first man is created in the presence of the creator god Enki/Ea and possibly inseminated by that divine figure himself. A parallel leading to the conclusion that a divine figure somehow takes part in the process of impregnating the first female in the context of the Ancient Near East is found in Genesis 4, 1b where the first female Eve states that she had given birth to a man with the help of YHWH. The statement by Eve ???????? ????? ???-???? seems to refer to the fact that she expresses gratefulness to the Lord who has somehow helped or made possible the birth of the first child. If to consider the larger Ancient Near Eastern mythological context, the passage might point to the Sumero-Akkadian idea that the first woman was impregnated by the creator god himself. The idea was probably used indirectly: the motive is similar (borrowed) but the religious meaning is already totally different in Hebrew perception. The similarities between different anthropogonies in the Ancient Near Eastern and Old Testament mythologies were clearly pointed out by I. M. Kikawada in his paper “The Double Creation of Mankind in Enki and Ninmah, Atrahasis I 1-351, and Genesis 1-2” (Iraq 45, 1983) where it is shown that in those three myths, the mankind is created in similar terms and in two different phases. Literary dependence of the myths seems indisputable in comparative perspective which also points to the possibility that at least Genesis 1-11 was composed by a single author(s) trying to fit the Hebrew world view into the previous Ancient Near Eastern mythological corpus.

*

Arthur Vööbus: Refugee, Adventurer, and Researcher

The Genesis´ narratives about Israel´s matriarchs and patriarchs reflect the different views on adequate marriages within post-exilic community: from a plea for strictly endogamous marriage (Gen 27.46-28.9), a moderate position preferring marriage within extended families (Gen 24), the possibility to marry a converted foreigner (Gen 34), to the position of ethics alone as criteria for the right spouse (Gen 38; and in the same line Ruth). The whole range of arguments can be found here. In spite of the absolutely agnatic genealogies constituting the affiliation to the temple community, the texts shed light on the importance of women, their origins and conduct of life in the Persian Period.

Since the groundbreaking work of Wilhelm Gesenius the study of the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, and especially research involving textual criticism of that version, has progressed considerably. An important step forward was achieved with the publication (by Z. Ben-H?ayyim) of the recitation of the Samaritan Pentateuch in its entirety by the members of that community in their synagogues; however, until the present we have not possessed a fully detailed picture of the Samaritan version in all its uniqueness. A new comparative diplomatic edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch aims to remedy this situation by presenting, for the first time, all the instances in which the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic text. Essential differences visibly reflected in the written text are indicated by us in bold face type, while those that cannot be seen on the printed page but are expressed only through the traditional pronunciation are both marked and discussed. Over five hundred such cases (not including grammatical differences) are adduced in this new edition. To give one illustration: ??????????? ?????????? ??? ???????? ???? ??????? ????????? MV (Num. 22:5) And he sent messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor ????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ???? SV Analysis of the Samaritan pronunciation combined with examination of other Samaritan sources leads to the conclusion that the two versions do not differ from each other merely in terms of plene / defective writing. In point of fact, the meaning of this excerpt from the Samaritan Pentateuch is actually as follows: And he sent messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor the interpreter. Note that the Vulgate takes a similar tack in translating ariolum.

The general floor plan of Iron II gatehouses is well known to Levantine archaeologists. The building, with its characteristic “piers” and “guard chambers,” has turned up at dozens of excavations in the past century. A full understanding of the gatehouse, however, is complicated by the fact that usually not much of the building’s superstructure – only a few courses of masonry, in most cases – is preserved in the archaeological record. The actual purpose of the piers and chambers, for instance, is not often discussed, and there is some dissent among those who have raised the topic. Another point of interest is the broad and rapid proliferation of this architectural style in the Levant beginning ca. 1000 B.C.E. The sudden popularity raises many questions, one of which is the gatehouse’s origin. In this paper I will use archaeological data, pictorial data from Egyptian and Assyrian reliefs, and biblical descriptions of gates in order to give the most probable reconstruction of the gate’s superstructure, determine the architectural purpose of its distinctive floor plans, and discuss the first attestation of this gate type and possible sources of its origin.

The fragmentary text of 11Q11 was identified by E. Puech as that of the four songs of David „for the stricken”, i.e. for the demon-possessed (mentioned in 11QPsAp/a =11Q5 a Psalm scroll, col. 27.4-10). The paper aims to deal with Qumran demonology, the idea of the relationship of impurity and demonic activity; the effort to maintain purity in the community in order to avoid harmful demonic effects; the question of prohibition and practice of magic and magical healing in Qumran; the purpose of the text of 11Q11, and its possible use and calendrical setting.

Many listeners and critics have openly acclaimed Anglo-Irish rock band U2 as a "Christian band." In support of such acclamations, they have perceived, listed and analyzed biblical and theological themes, motifs and allusions within the band's lyrics, performances and media engagements. By contrast, other listeners and critics have doubted, dismissed or simply even failed to notice U2's Christianity and biblical references. One reason for this dichotomous audience response lies in the deliberately vague, ambiguous or allusive nature of U2's music and media statements. U2 frontman, Bono has occasionally admitted a strategy of secretly playing to two separate audiences - believers and non-believers - via musical and media manipulation he describes as "sort of draw[ing] our fish in the sand." The attention paid to the role of the reader in recent studies on allusion provides insight into this strategy, by highlighting the manner in which an author "makes possible the allusion" without controlling or determining its interpretation, thus opening up a space for a "full-knowing reader ... to recognize and to make coherent what is formerly hidden" (Joseph Pucci, 1998: xi). This paper argues that, while such a reader-oriented theory of allusion goes some way to explain the different and even opposing receptions of U2, it fails to adequately account for their diversity. The paper then supplements the analysis by drawing on a recent body of work within media and cultural studies which argues for an appreciation of the embeddedness of various groups of musical consumers within particular social, cultural and ideological frameworks, and which shifts the focus of analysis from deciphering musical meaning to analyzing concrete ways in which music is used. Such an approach both offers a more complex understanding of the diverse reception of U2's biblical allusions and problematizes any attempt to delimit the meaning of biblical allusion.

The purpose of the paper is to delimit and explain the concept of refuge in ANE literature, especially the Bible. In the first section, I will begin by examining the semantic field of “refuge” and distinguish it from concepts of “permanent exile,” “diaspora,” and “criminal asylum.” The second section will survey refuge as a topos in ANE literature outside the Bible and examine figures who seek refuge in the ANE. In the third section, I will narrow my focus to the Bible and examine refuge as a topos within its literature. I will pay careful attention to figures who flee hostile situations since in biblical literature, refuge and flight go together. Finally, I will consider the idea of liminality that we see in ANE and biblical figures such as Moses and Joseph (Genesis). While all these figures have an ambiguous relationship with their own cultures, they remain important figures within those cultures. I will explore many different examples of flight in this paper. Major figures from Sinuhe to David all share the characteristic of fleeing from a position of centrality and finding themselves in a liminal position. Unlike low-status refugees, these high-status refugees are not content to stay in a liminal position. Many of these stories (e.g. Idrimi, Jacob) tell of a successful return to centrality. We also have stories of doomed refugees like Absalom, Adonijah, Urhi-Teshub, and the Philistine princes. The flight stories studied here thus do not have a consistent ending. I will briefly explore how refuge becomes a more abstract, spiritual idea of relying on God alone in the Psalms, whereas refuge appears as a concrete reality, involving literal flight in all the above stories.

The study of the emotions has become a topic of much interdisciplinary focus in the past decade. Among recent trends in scholarship on the emotions constructivist approaches have examined the differing cultural views of the nature of the emotions and their conceptions of the appropriateness of exhibiting or occasioning of certain emotions. These diverse cultural specific views interconnect with broader positions of the particular social-cultural group on their identity in its various dimensions, bodily, religious and social. The concept of identity also has been the topic of much recent theorization which raises questions about what exactly the term covers. My own recent writings have explored early rabbinic views on the nature of emotions in general and on two "emotions" that have often been seen in modern times as inappropriate emotions, hatred and shame. In my work until now I have largely compared rabbinic views with biblical ones. The session on Embodiment and Identity is a perfect location for beginning to explore how certain apocryphal and other works from the Second Temple period understand embodied emotions. In my paper for this conference I seek to examine how two works, Ben Sira and the Thanksgiving Hymns from Qurman employ and represent the notion of shame. Among questions that I would examine are whether they see shame as an appropriate or inappropriate character trait and emotion to exhibit and occasion, what they see as the causes of shame, and how shame is occasioned in interpersonal and divine-human relationships. Sorting out these documents views on these questions in turn clarifies a component of their anthropological assumptions, their understanding of what it means to be a human, including the contribution of the divine-human interconnection to "human identity." My paper would grow out of my own analyses of texts in Ben Sira and the Thanksgiving Hymns and draw upon recent scholarship on these matters.

This paper explores the correspondence between military activity and theological themes in the book of Samuel, particularly II Sam 7. The battle accounts and lists of military victories in the book usually receive attention for their historical and political interest. However, some level of intersection between these accounts and the theological themes are also evident: as Saul wanes in God’s favour, so does his level of military success, culminating in his death in battle in I Sam 31. Similarly, David’s reign is characterized by a shift from external to internal military conflict, coinciding with his rise as God’s anointed, then ‘shadow’ reign under God’s punishment. In light of this interplay, attention to the nature of military activity in the chapters surrounding II Sam 7 offers insight into the interpretation of the theological concept of ‘rest’ in this chapter. We will observe that ‘rest,’ as an aspect of the establishment of David’s kingdom, is an important motivation for David’s scheme for a temple, and God’s rejection of the proposal. The contradictory messages about ‘rest from enemies’ in II Sam 7-8 can be illuminated by observation of the shift from defensive to offensive military activity in this section of the narrative, which demonstrates that there is partial but incomplete rest. David’s kingdom is therefore not fully established, and recognition of this theme provides an important link between the issue of the temple and God’s subsequent promises for a dynasty.

The interpretation of Jesus’ teaching on adultery in Matthew 5.27-28 has a very long history. Luz identifies two strands: “the tendency to expand and sharpen the text in a dualistic aversion to sexuality and a different tendency to weaken this antithesis…in order to be able to live with it.” There is, nonetheless, consensus that the focus of the teaching is on the psychology of erotic love, as is clear not only in the commentaries, but also in translations of the phrase pros to epithumesai auten as “to lust after her” (NKJV), “with lust” (NRSV, NASB, NLT), “with lustful intent” (ESV), or simply with the adverb “lustfully” (NIV). The focus is misplaced. The key is to see that pros to epithumesai auten points to the tenth commandment (ouk epithumeseis ten gunaika tou plesion sou…), the commandment on coveting. The sermon on the mount cannot be understood unless due attention is paid to the explicit and implicit referencing of the OT. The echo of the tenth commandment in Matthew 5.28 is ignored in popular commentaries; in scholarly works, although noted, its full importance is neglected. Three lines of inquiry are relevant: i) the language of coveting and desire in the OT, LXX, and NT; ii) the meaning and nature of adultery in the context of OT texts and in the setting of the first century; and iii) the relationship between the second exegesis and the other five in Matthew 5.21-48. Putting the tenth commandment at the centre of the interpretation of the second exegesis reveals that: it is not about a general erotic psychology, nor is it simply a matter of internal thoughts and feelings; rather, as with the other five exegeses, it entails real and external matters of conduct vis-à-vis others.

The famous, very emotional child-epitaph of Lucius Minicius Anthimianus from 3rd century CE (CIG 3272; Peek GVI 1166) has often been medically discussed over the last century (Zingerle 1928; Meinecke 1940; Klitsch 1976) and was throughout interpreted as classical clinical picture of tuberculosis in childhood. Today, this single medical interpretation appears simplistic. We present here together an alternative new careful and interdisciplinary approach to this epitaph in its own context. Retrospective diagnosis still is feasible, but has to be regarded only as relative, self-reflecting thought experiment with its own historicity.

This paper examines the views of the Shepherd of Hermas on the life of the Christian community beyond the eschaton. After reassessing some of the major positions in the literature on the apocalyptic character of Hermas, it is argued that the common idea that Hermas lacks or avoids apocalyptic speculation (see, e.g., Dibelius 1923:419; Vielhauer-Strecker 1989:538, 546; Brox 1991:36; Osiek 1999:11, 189; but cf. A. Collins 1979:74-75) needs to be modified. In fact, various passages throughout the text implicitly contain revelations about the life of the Christian community in the world to come (see esp. Vis. 2.2.7; 3.2.6; 5.5; 6.1; 7.2, 5-6; 8.8; Sim. 8.2.5; 6.6; 7.3, 5; 8.2-3; 9.7.5; 8.7; 9.7; 13.5; 17.4; 18.2, 3-5; 25.2 (all related to the metaphor of the tower); and also Sim. 1; 4; 5.6.5-6; 7.1-2; 9.15.2-3; 29.2). Especially the metaphor of the building of the tower incorporates ideas about reward and punishment in the afterlife. Several questions will be addressed. First, what does Hermas imply about the life of the eschatological community? Second, to what extent is the life of the eschatological community regarded as a continuation of that of the historical community? Third, what are Hermas’ views on the place(s) where the people will dwell? Finally, what is the aim and function of the use of the apocalyptic discourse in the text? An inquiry into these questions will attempt to show that Hermas is not so much averse of apocalyptic speculations, but that its views on the life of the community in the world beyond follow naturally from its ‘realistic’ views on the earthly community and serve as a powerful aid to its call to conversion.

During the Mount Gerizim excavations which were carried out between 1983 and 2006 under the direction of Yitzhak Magen a Yahwistic sanctuary and a Hellenistic city were uncovered at the site of Mount Gerizim. Some four hundred inscriptions were found in and around the temple precinct, presumably belonging to the second building phase, i.e. the early second century BCE. The majority of the inscriptions are written in Aramaic using either lapidary Aramaic or Proto-Jewish script. The remaining inscriptions are written in Neo-Hebrew (Paleo-Hebrew) and Samaritan. The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan inscriptions were published by the excavators in 2004. The largest group of the Mt. Gerizim inscriptions is votive inscriptions and they follow either a long or short version of a dedicatory formula. The short formula is ‘That which offered PN son of PN (from GN) for himself, his wife and his sons’. The long formula begins in the same way but adds the ending ‘for good remembrance before God in this place’. The phrase “for good remembrance” and the more common “may he be remembered for good” and variations of these appear frequently in both inscriptions and graffiti from Egypt, Nabataea, Palmyra, Dura Europos, Hatra and Palestine. This paper offers a presentation of the occurrences of ‘good remembrance’ formulae in Semitic inscriptions from the late Persian and Hellenistic period and traces the concept of remembrance in connection with cultic acts in the Hebrew Bible. It is suggested that the key to understanding the concept of ‘good remembrance’ is to be found within the larger framework of gift-giving theories.

*

According to an Islamic Prophetic report, that is often related to Qur'an 7:190, after the Fall from Paradise, Adam and Eve had a number of children. However, all of these children were born dead, or died short after their birth. The Devil therefore suggested that Adam and Eve should name their next child 'Abd al-Harith (servant of al-Harith), al-Harith being one of the names of the Devil. The protoplasts took the Devil's advice, and indeed the child lived. Although this narrative is widespread in Islamic sources, so far it has received little notice by modern scholarship. Nevertheless, this narrative evokes many diverse questions, relating to various aspects of the text itself. My discussion will focus on a textual analysis of the different versions of the Abd al-Harith narrative, combined with a comparative study of the relevant literary parallels from the Quran, the Bible, the Apocrypha and folk literature.

I was initially tempted to title my presentation "Why Are We Being Strung Along?" Because that's the impression I got from reading about David. According to the biblical text, he is one of the great men in Hebrew History, but he is also a man without scruples. He is only the second in the line of kings, an institution God is not happy about. Both hi predecessor (Saul) and hi successor (Solomon) were initially favored by God but later incurred his wrath. The there is the Temple. God never asked for one, only consented to have it built, with the caveat that obeying His laws was more important that any edifice. Solomon builds the Temple, then immediately sacrifices to other deities. I note a certain element of uncertainty and confusion here, some of it attributable to God. What did He expect when he transformed a band of roving sheepherders into a sedentary nation ruled by clerical hierarchy and hundreds of do's and don't laws? How could He possibly expect the Hebrews to not intermingle and intermarry with the nations around them when they were situated at the commercial and military crossroads of the Near East? I will try to come up with some answers to all these questions.

A new text from the Dead Sea shores has been published in 2007. Ada Yardeni and Binjamin Elitzur named it: Hazon Gabriel in Hebrew or Vision of Gabriel. The angel Gabriel speaks at the first person and he describes probably a vision of the eschatological war. The function of Gabriel like the revealer is well known in the Book of Daniel and the Gospel of Luke. Gabriel has also a militant role in the Jewish literature like in 1 Enoch, the Qumran War Scroll and probably Daniel 10. We propose to examine two Aramaic texts from the Qumran library: 4Q529 and 4Q557. The manuscripts are fragmentary but they may add to the assigned functions of Gabriel in the Jewish literature around CE.

The past decade of New Testament research has enjoyed a flurry of scholarly activity on the early Christians in their Roman imperial context. By means of a cross-disciplinary conversation between classics and New Testament studies, a growing number of scholars have made the case that the Apostle Paul's gospel carried with it a polemical challenge to the claims of the emperors. At present, however, these conclusions are being hotly debated in the guild, and there seems to be no agreed upon method to tracing such anti-Roman rhetoric in Paul's letters. As a contribution to this debate, the aim of this paper is to evaluate this recent trend in interpretation.

This paper explores the relationship between the interpretation of the Christ-event in the Fourth Gospel and Paul. Over the last century scholars have posed various degrees of continuity between John and Paul. Early in the twentieth century Bousset and Wrede, and later Bultmann, claimed the decisive influence of the Hellenistic religious thought world on John and Paul, especially on their convergent Christologies, and posed a decisive discontinuity between Paul and John on the one hand and the earliest Palestinian community of believers with their links to the historical Jesus on the other. More recently Martin Hengel has argued that both Paul and John are indebted to the Palestinian community, thus opening up the possibility of greater coherence between them and Jesus. Literary connections between John and Paul were claimed by A. E. Barnett in his Paul Becomes a Literary Influence (1941), a study applying the theory of Edgar Goodspeed that an early Pauline letter corpus exercised a substantial influence on the formation of the NT, John included. Other scholars, such as Larry R. Helyer (2008), have argued for theological unity between Jesus, Paul and John that is the result of the work of the one Holy Spirit in which contradictions and diversity of theological viewpoint only appear to be the case. With scholars such as William Sanday, Hans Conzelmann, and J. Christiaan Beker, I will argue that there is a preponderance of discontinuous elements between John and Paul, basing this contention on Paul’s futuristic apocalyptic worldview that was confirmed in the revelation (apocalypse) of Christ to which he refers in Galatians 1. However, Ephesians and Colossians may well reflect indebtedness to the thought of the Fourth Gospel, precisely at junctures that are most redolent of their post-Pauline authorship.

Images of the body figure prominently in the Qumran Hodayot, particularly in the texts known popularly as the Teacher Hymns. Language about the body includes references to specific body parts and their sensory experiences, as well as descriptions of physical locomotion. Such references appear in both the laments and also the accounts of exaltation in the TH. This paper will explore the possibility that the language about the body in these compositions functions to flesh out an authorial persona-a rhetorical construction of a fictional self. While these references to the body evoke strong and vivid imagery of an individual and his experiences, they may not point to an actual historical figure's experiences.

No proposal. This is an invited speaker

Although significant similarities between 1QHa VI 19-33 and XX 7-XXII, on the one hand, and the concluding hymn of 1QS, on the other, are generally recognized this has not made much impact on the understanding of the social milieu behind any of the texts. The Hodayot texts are generally regarded as “community hymns” whereas the 1QS hymn is rather linked to the leadership of the maskil. In this presentation, I will argue that all of these texts stem from the same intellectual milieu and reflect a common elitist self-understanding. Using the socio-cognitive concept of mental contexts, I will discuss how perspectives held in independent parts of heterogeneous corpuses like 1QS and 1QHa could help to explain their overriding editorial logic.

Starting from a model of text formation which primarily presumes literary revisions or transformations if changes have taken place in the history of religion I would like to suggest another hypothesis of the literary relationship of Gen 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-3:24. While the classical explanation was to suppose that two parallel documents from different sources (J and P) were connected by a redaction, recently some attempts have been made to explain the succession of the texts by supplementation „Fortschreibung“. They understand the paradise story (Gen 2f.) as an appendix to Gen 1. But in my opinion this option is inappropriate to explain the discernible differences in style and structure between both texts. A solution is however possible on the basis of a broader examination of the tradition history. From there this paper can show that the priestly story of the creation may be seen as a revised (transformed) text but part of a larger creation story from which Gen 2f. has also been taken. This way it is possible to explain the connections between both texts but also the significant differences. In my opinion this clarifies the use of the tetragrammaton in Gen 2f. as opposed to the use in Gen 4 and helps to solve the problems of understanding Gen 1:1f. as well.

The cultic remains at Arad and Tel Beer-Sheba offer an illuminating backdrop for garnering insight into the relationship between biblical and archaeological data. The exposure of a temple at Arad and parts of a large horned altar at Beer-Sheba have generated much debate regarding the authenticity of the Bible's account of Hezekiah and/or Josiah's drastic reforms. The issue has been complicated by disagreement between biblical scholars and historians on the correct interpretation of the biblical documentation, and by controversy among archaeologists regarding the stratigraphic relationship of the cultic remains at these sites. The current paper surveys the various opinions that correlate the biblical and archaeological data. The opinions covered include: 1. There was only one cult reform, conducted by Josiah (Na’aman, Edelman). 2. Neither of the reforms was a historical event but rather later theological reconstructions (Fried) 3. The reform was a lengthy process that started with Hezekiah and was then carried on by Manasseh and Josiah (Uehlinger). 4. An early reform was carried out by Manasseh and not Hezekiah (Knauf) 5. There were two reforms by both Hezekiah and Josiah (Aharoni, Rainey, Borowski, Finkelstein). The article maintains that the archaeological data has facts in its favor and points to the presence of a single act of cult reform, dated to the late 8th century BCE. The reform is thus plausibly attributed to the time of Hezekiah. No archaeological evidence supports a reform in the days of Josiah.

The short prophecy Micah 3:12-13 is one of the most enigmatic and disputed passages in this book. Scholars are disputed about its unity, authenticity, and even about the question whether it is a salvation or a doom prophecy. These questions are discussed in the paper very shortly in order to create the necessary point of departure for the main discussion, which is: Who is the king referred to by the words ????? ???? ?????? ("and their king will pass before them", v. 13). Is this king God himself or a human king? I approve the latter option, and hence the question is, who is this human king? The answer depends on the date of the prophecy. Scholars usually date it either to the 8th Century B.C.E time of Micah, or the post 586 B.C.E destruction of the Jerusalem temple. These views are examined and rejected. My claim is that dating the prophecy as well as the identification of "their king" in v. 13 should be derived from an understanding of the pattern upon which the salvation promise in the prophecy is based. This understanding and a close reading of the main metaphor in the prophecy could solve the enigma of the identity of "their king" and its historical background.

Béla Hamvas (1897 – 1968) was one of the greatest Hungarian metaphysical thinkers of the past century. Author of dozens of volumes – most of which never edited during his lifetime – he studied philosophy, cultural history, cultural anthropology, arts and literature, ancient and oriental languages on an endless quest to find and realize the lost normality of the human soul. Analyzing the social and material crisis before the Second World War, he set out for a spiritual archaeology and tried to reach the origins of man’s turbulent decay which he named apocalypse. He dug deeper and wider in the history of culture only to discover that the roots of foul are omnipresent from the earliest to the farthest civilizations of the world, but fortunately the cures for that are there everywhere in the great sacral books of humanity, and in the many myths, oral traditions, holy scriptures, mysticisms he recognized – just as other traditionalists, like René Guénon, Giulio Evola or Leopold Ziegler (but without their political ideology) – one single universal metaphysical tradition of humanity. His main preoccupation was to understand and actualize the message of the Eden, the status absolutus of Adam Kadmon, the unspoiled man of the original creation observed in all narratives of origin. In his major treatises like the Scientia Sacra, Magia Sutra, Tabula Smaragdina or his commentaries to Enoch, the Pert Em Heru, the Zohar, on Jakob Böhme, San Juan de la Cruz, or the Sufi mystics he worked always to (re)integrate the Judeo-Christian wisdom about the primordial perfection of Creation into the conscience of modern man. My paper will try to perform an analysis of the Hamvasian ideas on the Genesis story of Eden and Fall in the light of the metaphysical tradition.

A peculiar aspect of divine communication in ancient Israel is the normative understanding, labeled the “Yahweh Alone” perspective by Morton Smith, that the only genuine divine communication was communication with the one God. This kind of communication has its experiential analog in the conception of the Great King, the one and only suzerain to whom the king’s subjects could give allegiance, the one and only king whom the subjects could acknowledge as having power over themselves. As such the style of interaction by the vassals with the Great King provided a model for the exclusive recognition of God. The issue for the political person in the ancient Near East, as for the pious Israelite, was not whether or not other kings had power elsewhere or with others, but whether the Great King’s, i.e., God’s, people could recognize any other king/deity. To this end, the paper studies the limitations on communication with any other king in international treaties and similar texts from Israel’s world as providing an active and well-articulated experiential model for demanding that divine communication in ancient Israel must be exclusively with God—not with any other divine power. This is not a model for a development from polytheism to monolatry to monotheism but for the practical reality of the life of the (political or) religious person as assuming that divine communication is exclusively with the God of Israel.

The Russian revolution in 1917 made it possible for border districts of the empire to declare their independence. This happened also in Estonia and in its northern neighbor Finland. The unstable political situation led to violent crises in many areas. Short but exceedingly bloody civil war in Finland left moral problems which were hotly debated for decades, also with reference to the Bible. Lex talionis was the biblical principle which was widely used in public debates. In a way, it expressed a central moral conviction of the people. Church and state authorities had taught the principle since 17th century. This tradition, however, led to polyphonic interpretation after the civil war: lex talionis was used to justify punishments and vengeance, but also to blot out the moral responsibility; it gave reasons to violence and non-violence; it created impressions of the crimes committed by the executed persons. A story of its own is the influence of the rising democratic ideas on the interpretation of lex talionis. The reason for polyphonic interpretation is, first, the Bible itself, where lex talionis occurs in many contexts and has different functions. Second, moral and political needs also had an impact to the interpretation. It is a difficult matter to decide what is of biblical origin in the interpretations and what is not. However, one thing is clear: ”The Bible says...” means always more or less ”The Bible, as I (like to) understand it, says...”

In this paper the author presents a personal testimony of the brutality of evil, and the part it played in her own conversion. Seeking to find meaning she examines the process of graced transformation by psychological and theological reflection, with reference to historical and Biblical motifs. The conclusions from her findings are expressed with allusions to her current circumstance as an aspirant for ordination in the Anglican Church; with an aim to create a trajectory of hope.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12 has attracted an intriguing range of explanations in recent years, where the law prescribes the removal of a wife’s palm for seizing her husband’s opponent’s genitals in a brawl. The more sensational of these include Lyle Eslinger’s proposal, that this punishment was conceived as a form of female circumcision, and also that of Jerome Walsh, who argues, rather, that genital shaving of the offending wife was intended. An increasing number of scholars, however, view this prescription in relation to the talionic formulation in Exodus 21:23b-24: “the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot”. In this paper, I further suggest that Deuteronomy 25:11-12 was conceived not as finite, or strict sense talion, but instead as a form of instrumental talion, where it constitutes what Yael Shemesh defines as “a punishment of the offending organ”. A comparison of the available scholarly reconstructions of Middle Assyrian law (MAL A8-9), together with case law from Nuzi, will provide substantial support for this interpretation.

The paper suggests that the data was woven into the Book of Esther to add a layer of narrative concerning calendar manipulation. The presentation will include a discussion of an Achaemenid astronomical artefact that may be relevant to this theory. I will also look at the chronological information in the Book of Esther to show that the text contains didactic references to different calendars in Second Temple Judaism that were known about at the time of final editing.

The Pauline letters reveal different attitudes towards death. This paper is part of a project in which I investigate death in the authentic Pauline letters within the frame of psychological coping. Which strategies are suggested by Paul to the adressees, and which are adopted by Paul in the letters? Does the attitude towards death actually change, or do different situations of the adressees call for different approaches? Is it the same concept of death that is discussed in every letter or are different aspects of death in focus (e.g. psychological, biological, social or spiritual)? How is death appraised? Is it a threat or an opportunity? This particular paper will focus on 1 Corinthians. In this letter matters about death are brought up, on Paul's initiative, with a strong emphasis on the resurrection (1 Cor 15). The death of Jesus seems impossible to handle without the notion of the resurrection. In other parts of the letter death is spelled out as an enemy, but a well-balanced enemy who does not strike without reason (1 Cor 10). According to chapter 10, it was the members of Israel who had lust for evil things that died in the desert. Death becomes attached to the divine order. One of the overall purposes of 1 Corinthians is to confirm order and continuity and this concept of death is not in opposition to that order. Still, when it comes to Paul's personal experience, this picture of a well-advised death is not so easy to maintain. In experiences of weakness and fear, it is the crucified Christ, not the resurrected one, who sustains Paul's faith (1 Cor 2:2-3). How is this death of Jesus to be understood?

In an often cited article, “Rulers, Divine Men, and Walking on the Water (Mark 6:45-52)” (in Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World; ed. Bormann, Del Tredici, and Standhartinger; Leiden: Brill, 1994), Adela Yarbro Collins discusses Jewish and Greco-Roman evidence to determine how early Christians would have understood Mark 6:45-52. While noting that the image is associated with deities in both traditions, she nevertheless argues that the point for a fusion of these traditions would be the messianic character of Jesus. In support of this argument she refers on the one hand to Jewish traditions in which the messiah took on some divine prerogatives, on the other to that the power of walking on water sometimes was associated with rulers in Greco-Roman traditions. The significance of Jesus walking on the water should thus mainly be messianic. This paper argues that this conclusion needs some reassessment. While Collins correctly notes that walking on water is regarded as humanly impossible and that kings who claimed divinity or to whom it was attributed usually were associated with this ability, she does not pay due attention to the latter fact. Rather than being a power generally associated with rulers, it serves to highlight the divine status of rulers such as Xerxes, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and Gaius Caligula. Walking on water is accordingly regarded as a divine prerogative in both Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions and the story of Jesus walking on water would present Jesus as a divine figure to Mark’s audience, whether of Jewish or Gentile background.

This study, based on the well-defined linguistic concepts of Richter using the clausal demarcation of the BHt5, tries the new methodological framework of the Quantitative Structure of the Biblical Hebrew (BH) clause to offer one more formal constraint for its better understanding. The psycholinguistic interpretation that the human languages have the strong tendency to be structured according to the PIC(Principle of Increasing Parts) for the more efficient cognition of the hearer, inspires the re-examination of the BH texts if it is also structured for the advantage of the hearer or not; and if not, why and what is going on. The PIC-keeping clause, that is, the smaller starting constituent with the huge ending one, is called Crescendo, which is unmarked and statistically absolute majority in the Hebrew Bible. Crescendo takes more than 70% of the verbal clauses in the prose of Gen-2King, whereas more than half of the verbal clauses in certain law text in Lev are formulated to Decrescendo, the marked one. This stark contrast between two genres correlate their different cognitive advantages, which leads to the most careful speculation of their different ‘ancient reading practice': The predominant structure in prose, which is suitable for the easy understanding of the hearers, could have been achieved through the innumerable oral performances of the religious assembly in ancient Israel. But the quantitative-structural distinctiveness of some law text is not ideal for the rapid understanding in the public reading and could refer to the different ancient praxis.

“And I doute not but there be, & shal come aftir vs, that canne & shall correcke our workes and translacions in many places & make them miche more perfayt & better for the reader to vnderstande” (George Joye, An Apologye, Antwerp, 1535, sig. D5v) One year before the 500th anniversary of the King James Bible, 2010 marks the 450th anniversary of the publication of the Geneva Bible. For this occasion my paper will study how the Antwerp bible translations of William Tyndale, George Joye and Myles Coverdale made their way into the Geneva Bible and the King James Bible, two of the most important versions in the history of the English Bible. I argue that the King James Bible’s majestic language is the result of the contrasting translation strategies of prior Tudor Bible translations of ‘modernizing’ and ‘naturalizing’ on the one hand, and the ‘historicizing’ and ‘exoticizing’ on the other, as these terms are defined by James S. Holmes’s literary theory of translation. As such, the King James Version incorporated the very best of all prior English Biblical scholarship on its way from Antwerp to London through Geneva.

In a slave-holding culture, family values are only for free persons. Slaves are only footnotes in great men’s biographies. Our interest in “family as strategy” in antiquity has much to benefit from taking into account how roles and functions in the family were determined by class, age, and gender, and how slaves belonged to a different discursive reality in the households than free persons. In the parable in Luke 12:35-48 hierarchical reasoning contributes to the construction of early Christian identity and theology: One trusted slave misuses his privileged position and starts to beat his subordinate in the household. The language used opens up a variety of scenarios: Either he strikes his fellow slaves, both male and female, or he strikes boys and girls. Such physical punishment was probably common in ancient families, where slave bodies were part of their owner’s property, and where children had to obey adults. Interpreters are confronted with several challenges when New Testament texts are used as models for family life or religious practice, without considering seriously how various power structures intersect and reinforce each other in the ancient world and today.

This study is part of a larger project, employing insights from cognitive sciences for interpreting biblical texts dealing with moral and ritual issues. Special attention is paid to the role of emotions and emotional development. Fear is a primary emotion that has evolved to protect living organisms from damage and death. Four general categories are usually acknowledged: interpersonal fear, fear of death and injury/illness, animal fear, and agoraphobic fears). The present paper examines the role of fear in three areas that are displayed in various Pentateuchal law codes: the Covenant code, the Deuteronomic Code, the Holiness Code, and various purity and sacrificial laws. The areas are 1) attitudes to strangers, 2) apotropaic rites, 3) obedience and divine punishment. Xenophobia is found with a number of social species and is reasonable from an evolutionary perspective. Ethnocentric tendencies serve to protect the integrity of the group. Purity rules have sometimes been taken to display traits of disease-avoidance. Some purification rites suggest a fear of demonic powers. Fear of divine punishment can be utilized both for motivating obedience to certain humanitarian laws, and for enforcing strict laws of holiness and separation. The paper attempts to trace various types or categories of fear, and asks how fear interacts with, or counteracts other crucial emotions, such as disgust or empathy.

Whether the ‘the genealogy of David’ in the book of Ruth (4.13-22) is a later addition to the narrative or not, the story of Ruth has been living its life encompassing the Davidic genealogy within. Consequently the story of Ruth has inevitably interfered with the reading of the life of David. Since Tamar, mentioned at 4.12, clearly relates her life with that of Ruth, we may legitimately see into the strings of Ruth in the life of David. Specifically I am going to pay attention to the ‘loyalty between a couple’, evidently enjoyed between ‘Ruth and Naomi’, and examined it in the relations between ‘David and Jonathan’. As the controversial move of Ruth to Boaz seems to shadow Bathsheba’s move to David, it will be argued that the former could be understood as a propaganda that supports Bathsheba’s move toward David.

Genesis 37 to 50 is traditionally known as the story of Joseph, or sometimes referred to as the story of Israel (Jacob)-Joseph. It seems that these two fathers are considered as the main characters, and their influence is predominant in various ways within the storyline of the novella. In this paper, I challenge the titles traditionally given to the story because they do not fit into the wider context of the Primary History-Narrative (Genesis ~ 2 Kings). Chapters 37-50 do not merely focus on Joseph or Jacob, but also have an interest in other characters and a wider perspective. This is the reason, for instance, why a chapter such as Genesis 38, and the characters Judah and Tamar exist in the present form in their stories. These considerations lead me to propose a more suitable title for this section of narrative, that is, The Story of Jacob and His Sons. Reframing these chapters in this way assists the reader in understanding how the multiple threads of the subsequent narratives are to be combined.

I' d like to present a study of the relationship between The Apocalypse and the Gospel according to St. John. The first question is: “Can we read the concept of the Apocalypse in the Fourth Gospel.” If the answer is yes, the second question is “What is the relationship between the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel and how does the apocalyptic concept function. This research methodically concentrates on the synchronic dimension of the text. The Fourth Gospel includes, not only implicit ‘quasi-apocalyptic’ expression, but also explicit ‘apocalyptic’ motifs and structures. In addition to anonymity, visional and auditory experiences of the Redeemer’s self revelation, the Fourth Gospel includes a survey of history in future form, a metaphorical story and the dualistic motifs on the surface. Through these apocalyptic elements, the author attempts to allow the readers to understand the World of the faith. In the Fourth Gospel we read about the cosmic drama of the Redeemer’s earthly and heavenly journeys. , He comes to earth to seek his place and departs to heaven to prepare the place of the believers who follow him, and find the true way, because he is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

Repetition is typical of stylistic phenomenon in John and John's letters. Repetitive expressions in John show how John's ideas and phrasal expressions are connectively related to themselves or among themselves, demanding to study these features in terms of how they are related so as to produce certain Johannine meanings. Meanings are not laid only in thematic contents but also in stylistic form. On the process of interpretation of the text, careful research on the textual style appearing in the text is so much helpful and even necessary, if we wish to understand the text better and correctively. John 8:12-52 is consisted of two parts: vv. 12-36 and 37-52. Each parallels in both structures provide the reader calculable repetitive effect with emphasis on certain ideas and expressions. Johannine style such as parallel design here needs to be researched in terms of how this type of meaning-network could lead the readers to repetitively be impressed, in the Johannine way, by ideas that the text tells about. In John, repetitions are not the matter of producing literary repetition that simply emphasizes certain idea or expression twice or thrice, but rather they are the typical Johannine style of parallelisms or chiasms causing specific, relational meaning-network. This type of combined, repetitive phenomenon in John is so unique that may distinguish the author from others. What are the difference, in interpreting the text, between paying a proper attention to the authorial way of style and ignoring it without attention? If there are certain differences between them, what kinds of differences are in there? Can this distinction in interpretation cause somehow distinct understanding of the text?

Abstract: While the narratives of the distribution of the land of Canaan in the book of Joshua undoubtedly have a complex tradition history, the ideology of the final redactors is expressed both by what they retained from the tradition handed down to them as well as by how they modified it and what they added. This essay examines the ideology of the final redactors and their purposes in presenting the distribution narratives which we have. Focus in particular is drawn to the accounts of those tribes which in some sense or another are dissatisfied with the allotment which falls to them, whether that be expressed by refusal even initially to settle in the Cisjordan, or only partially settle there, or by expression of initial dissatisfaction, or by later abandonment of an allotment. The essay argues that these narratives are retained and shaped for a variety of ideological reasons among which is to suggest that the seeds for the eventual break-up and dissolution were sown in the earliest days of the nation, no matter how ”successful” the entrance into the land may have been in other ways.

As there is no such thing as “secular” warfare in the ANE, or at least in ANE literature, this paper compares the conception of divine intervention in war in Joshua 3-11 and Neo-Assyrian inscriptions concerning the campaigns of Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. In my opinion a core, of Josh 3-11 can be dated into the last third of the 7th century BC which implies a possible reference to Assyrian war ideology. The study of the texts reveals a range of similarities in the conceptions of divine intervention and of double causality of divine and human action, e.g. encouragement of and instructions to the human military leader, psychological warfare or direct intervention in the battle. Differences concern e.g. the more prominent role of the human military leader (i.e. the king) and the reference to the enemy’s deities in the Sargonid inscriptions, as well as the more frequent occurrence of divine instructions in direct speech or the ??? in Joshua. The differences can be explained by the different genres, intentions and Sitze im Leben of the texts as well as by the varying theological and ideological conceptions of warfare. While the Book of Joshua narrates how in the past Jhwh fulfilled his promise of land through Joshua’s campaigns, the Sargonid inscriptions tell how the Assyrian kings achieved the extension of the Assyrian power sphere by (more or less) contemporary campaigns. As it is not clear how far Joshua and the Sargonid inscriptions participate in a common ANE tradition of warfare theology and ideology and how far the book of Joshua relates to and re-interprets Assyrian war theology and propaganda, the exact relation of the similarities cannot be satisfyingly clarified.

Much has been wrtitten on the role of apocalyptic eschatology in Matthew's Gospel, but considerably less on the social function of apocalypticism as such. Working from the hypothesis that apocalypticism is broader than apocalyptic eschatology alone, this paper investigates the origin and significance of the strong emphasis on apocalyptic knowledge in Matthew. Following a review of such key passages as 11.25-27 and 18.18, I relate the question both to wider issue of apocalypticism and the historical Jesus and the role of apocalypticism in early Christianity more generally, including the matter of Gnostic origins.

Ezekiel 16 has been studied productively from a number of different perspectives in the past decade. Some scholars have detected echoes of Ancient Near Eastern legal practices in the text; others have focused on the sexuality described therein. This paper argues that no "adoption" is described, and that this is critical for understanding the depiction of God in the narrative: he is not a nurturing parent at all. His behavior in fact raises serious moral (i.e., theological) problems, especially in light of many modern psychological studies which show a link between childhood sexual abuse and later sexual desires and activities. All of this is background, however: the real question is how Ezekiel uses this complex narrative to further the theological goals of his book. It will be argued that the very problems the text raise support the radical theological platform propounded by Ezekiel throughout.

This paper intends to explore how the book of Qohelet introduces the Sage as a Teacher in his instructions on behavior. In my opinion it is clearly the author’s intention to instruct the readers and give them wise counsels on many topics related to real life situations. This apparently creates his role as a teacher – one who explains, instructs, and challenges. One of the arenas of the life situations dealt with by the author is that of social interactions. In his book Qohelet introduces several interpersonal settings in which one should conduct himself like a wise man. These include for instance, interaction with God (in Qoh 5), interaction with public officials (in Qoh 5), dealing with women (in Qoh 7), facing the king (in Qoh 8), and living among the wicked (in Qoh 8). In my paper I will attempt to explore the Sage’s instructions for these specific interpersonal settings with a special focus on the character of the Teacher these instructions reflect. For this purpose I will use tools of didactic theories, as well as rhetorical approaches in order to fully explore the methods Qohelet uses to instruct his readers. Secondly, I will look at the settings of the above mentioned interpersonal dynamics and how they relate to Qohelet’s teachings on wise conduct, as well as his character as a teacher.

In this paper, Jens A. Krasilnikoff discusses and explores the potentials of humanistic geography as a theoretical and methodological tools and approach for the study of the Classical Greek city of Athens and the earliest Alexandrine history. Thus, by comparison to Archaic city founding and Classical Athens, it is argued that the city of Alexander differed fundamentally form the majority of classical cities. The evidence suggests that the rulers of Alexandria were soon to create their own standards of urbanism, conspicuous consumption and cultural amalgamation in close resonance with a profound exclusiveness of its royal ideology. Undoubtedly, the heirs of Alexander exercised great impact upon the religions and cultural amalgams of the city. Concurrently, however, they also subscribed to the institutions and traditions of the classical Greek polis, a dominant feature in the ancient literary tradition on and about Alexandria. Paradoxically, the acute need of the first Ptolemaic rulers to create Alexandria into a distinct, unique and self-preserving urban entity in its own right demanded that the city of Alexander was made exactly that by the creation of Alexandria as a distinct Greek place. This was achieved partially by exploitation of the logics of earlier Greek colony foundations, a process which allows for the newly founded city to become its own, to win its independence. Secondly, the Ptolemies, by claim of ancestry to Alexander’s project and by exploitation of the relationship between the oikist, Alexander and his city, created a place for royal ideology, which was not dependent on either a Graeco-Macedonian or an Egyptian political of cultural-religious dependency but uniquely Ptolemaic.

In the stories of King David the reader encounters several women who are dominated by men, specifically through acts of male violence. Michal, Bathsheba, Tamar, the so-called concubines of David – all of these woman share the same fate: they are victims of violent male acts. In contrast to these female characters, there is Abigail who appears in 1 Sam 25 and also there is the nameless wise woman of Abel Beth Maachah in 2 Sam 20. They present a counter-image. These wise women are successful in minimising male violence; although a so-called “worthless man” must die, a great number of human lives are saved. Both women speak on behalf of JHWH, they place themselves in a dangerous situation and face a combat-ready man and they both use dialogue as a means of fighting back and avoiding war and violence. The theme of male violence being minimised by female acts will also be compared with how it is portrayed in classical Greek lyric poetry. Within the paper it will be demonstrated that a close literary relationship exists between the two stories 1 Sam 25 and 2 Sam 20. Both stories are not simple anti-war or anti-violence narratives. Instead they advocate speech as an efficient tool and better instrument than war and violence for the advancement of interests. The fact that the superiority of human speech is presented by wise women should be understood as an opinion against the victimisation of female characters in the David Stories. The last part of the paper will show that the story of Abigail in 1 Sam 25 should be seen as a counter to the narrative of David and Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11. In both stories the reader encounters a significant use of similar motifs such as the marriage of married women, the death of a former husband and the negative portrayal of an rich owner of sheep.

The concept of “childhood” is a modern phenomenon and the perceptions of children vary with time, language and culture. This circumstance raises a serious methodological question for the study of children in the bible. How does one delineate the object of study in these texts? Assuming that reality is constructed through language, this paper begins with a brief presentation of the semantic field of the “child” in classical Hebrew. From that point of departure, the paper proceeds with an exploration of the child as a literary subject in the biblical books of Genesis and Exodus. To what extent do children see, speak and act in these texts? How do the subjectivity of for example sons and daughter, boys and girls differ? What are the tensions and continuities between the concrete children of Genesis and Israel as YHWHs metaphorical son in Exodus? It will be shown that children feature as complex subjects and that the position of the child in these books is a precarious one. It will also be argued that “the child” is a problematical category to use in relation the Hebrew bible, a category that needs to be qualified and nuanced.

The current debate about the meaning of Biblical "diakonia"-words (J. N. Collins 1990, 2002; A. Hentschel 2007) has strongly challenged the traditional interpretation process. The essential element of the traditional interpretation was the German 19th century context: diakonia words were connected to health care or care of the poor and were seen as acts by deacons/deaconesses. The whole modern diaconia movement and the practice of many churches are still based on this assumption. In this paper, the analysis of the reception of the text aims to clarify the historical steps of this process: how has Acts 6:1-6 been understood and interpreted during the different historical periods? As a summary of the analysis, the following steps or stages can be noticed. The first stage was the identification of the seven men as deacons (diakonoi) by Irenaeus and others. The second stage of the development was the identification of deacons as caritative functionaries in the texts of Martin Luther. The third stage of development was the establishment of the permanent caritative ministry of deacons by John Calvin. Finally during the 19th century T. Fliedner interpreted Acts 6 in the context of poverty and health care. Among other locations the deaconess institute was established also in Tallinn (in 1867). The whole reception process is cumulative and, thus, it is not possible to understand these stages without a conception of the previous steps. During the process, the understanding of Acts 6 changed in a remarkable way and showed how deeply the interpretation was affected by each historical context.

As is generally agreed, the New Testament writings use several expressions, terms and titles that were part of Roman imperial discourses, many of which one can find in the Gospel of Mark, i.e. Gospel (euangelion), Son of God (huios tou theou), kingdom of God (basileia tou theou), Lord (kurios), Legion (legion) and others. There is considerably less agreement, however, regarding how to interpret such usage of imperial language. Usually, there are two or three suggestions of how to read them: pro-Roman, anti-Roman, and a-Roman (indifference). In this paper it is argued that additional categories are needed in order to conceptualize a more complex meaning in Mark's language of Empire. With a special focus on the title Son of God, I will try to show how postcolonial studies — with concepts such as mimicry, colonial ambivalence, hybridity and catachresis — can help understand how Mark relates to imperial discourses.

Commissioned by André Malraux, the French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum for the dead of two World Wars in 1964. He revisited Christ’s resurrection and ascension as the theme again after his earlier work L’Ascension. To focus on the belief of the eternal life and the commemoratory context, Messiaen sought inspiration from St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica on resurrection. Inscriptions from the Bible are quoted before every movement. These create a narrative for the music: the dead will live again through Christ’s resurrection and ascension, and share God’s glory in heaven. In the first part of this paper—biblical narrative—I review the discussions in “Of the Resurrection” in the Summa Theologica. I explain the relationship between Christ’s resurrection and the dead: His resurrection is the cause of the resurrection of all others. This illustrates Messiaen’s careful choice of the inscriptions by adapting and reordering the related scriptures, which enhance his faith in God and the eternal life: the promise for those who overcome and be faithful to enter the heavenly Jerusalem, share the eschatological banquet and praise God loudly. The fourth movement is the climax where Messiaen presented two chromatically altered plainchants—Easter Introit and Alleluia, “the theme of the depths”, and the Simhavikrama rhythm by superimposition. These layers are interpolated by the birdsong of Alouette Calandre. The second part—semiotic reading—demonstrates how Messiaen transformed the Easter Mass into his musical setting to reflect his Catholic faith and the commemoratory context. Thus, Messiaen displayed the joyful moment: Christ is risen—Easter proclamation. Christ’s sacrifice has merited for us (and the dead) the eternal life in God. This is Messiaen’s faith through the celebration of the “Mass”: the glory of the raised Christ foreshadows the eternal banquet and the praise of the joyful concert in heaven.

On the basis of some mostly Phoenician inscriptions the paper will demonstrate how a refined method of palaeographic analysis may reveal structures of unconscious text design by a scribe using spaces or dividers not regularly and consequently. In many cases, this so-called ‘space syntax’ is nothing less than the impact and ‘background radiation’ of the oral process in which the text was modelled, and its aural environment. This is important not only for oral poetry in general, but also for Northwest Semitic phonology and for the quest for an appropriate model of Northwest Semitic ‘prose’ metrics in particular. A wider perspective also for Hebrew inscriptions and for Biblical Hebrew will be included.

The memory of Jerusalem has been a dominant part of the cultural memory of three religions. In Judaism they sing about the golden Jerusalem, the wonderful Lebanese singer Farouz sang about the streets of Jerusalem (al-Quds, of course). Since Antiquity Jerusalem has thus had a special position in the mind of western civilization, not really based on the actual remains of Jerusalem, but on all kind of religious ideas and sentiments. Thus Hezekiel is moved by the angel to Jerusalem, Jesus is cruxified in Jerusalem, even Muhammed is in tradition related to this place. An old collegue once answered when asked why he had never been to Jerusalem: Jerusalem is in my heart. Physical Jerusalem and memorized Jerusalem are two very different things, and the memory hardly needs the physical Jerusalem to create a memory of Jersualem, on the earth or in heaven.

For the international academic auditory the best known alumnus of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Tartu (Dorpat) is probably the syrologist Arthur Võõbus (1909–1988; later the professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago) – if to consider the period after 1919, when the University of Tartu became the Estonian national university. As it is not unusual in the history of scholarship, the academic career of Võõbus was not anything what we define nowadays as ‘normal academic career’. It is hard to take as natural in the 1st half of the 20th c. that the most splendid fruit of a Lutheran theological faculty was a syrologist. In the traditional Lutheran context the Syriac studies should remain within the limits of Biblical exegesis. Võõbus certainly crossed the limits of the prevailing scholarly ‘paradigm’. Although the biographical writings on Võõbus stress the uniqueness of his research interests at that time in Tartu, yet in this paper the question will be posed: how much the earlier academic traditions and ‘the common theological attitude’ of the Theological Faculty of that time supported or not the forming of the specific profile of Võõbus’ interests. What was ‘normal’ in this institution? To find an answer (1) an overview of permanent and intensive language studies (incl. Syriac) at the Faculty of Theology during the 19th c. will be given; (2) the whole set of postgraduate unprinted research works on Christian asceticism and monasticism from the time of Võõbus’ studies will be characterized; (3) it can be concluded that Võõbus’ interests were not exceptional, but his remarkable achievement was a creation of fruitful new connection of two separated academic disciplines.

A Second Case for the Book of Deuteronomy

This paper considers three approaches to prominence in Koiné Greek. It begins by reviewing and evaluating Stanley Porter’s analysis of the prominence conveyed by the aorist (‘background’), imperfect (‘foreground, remote in staging’) and present (‘foreground’) in Mark 11.1-11. The OED defines ‘background’ as ‘explanatory or contributory information or circumstances’, which makes it an unfortunate term for a tense-form that ‘characterizes the mainline or storyline of narrative discourse’, ‘unmarked’ (for prominence) being a more appropriate designation for the aorist. The paper then outlines Robert Longacre’s claims about the same tense-forms, and argues that both men are wrong in EQUATING respectively ‘foreground’ (Porter) and ‘background’ (Longacre) with the imperfect. A better approach to prominence is found in Relevance Theory, which claims that a variety of cognitive effects may be achieved by the use of a non-default form or construction. This explains both the CORRELATION between imperfect and background that many linguists have observed, as well as the foregrounding effect of the imperfect that is sometimes found. It also explains why some relative clauses convey supportive material, while others can present foreground events. Such an approach also allows for the accomodation of additional non-default tense forms such as the inchoative aorist (‘began’) in Luke 19:37, which corresponds to the imperfect of Mark 11:9, and of structures such as the combination of aorist egeneto and a temporal expression in Luke 19:29, which corresponds to the historical presents of Mark 11:1-2. The paper concludes by reaffirming that, when a non-default form or structure is used, prominence is often given not to the event concerned, but to the following event(s).

Influenced by the work of Richard Hays in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, New Testament scholars have found the notion of “echo” or metalepsis useful for uncovering subtle invocations of Old Testament context and typology in New Testament passages, whereby an author uses key words and phrases from the original passage to trigger his reader’s memories and make them aware of connections between the two narratives. I use this paper to explore the echoes from Exodus that Mark evokes in his account of the healing of the man with the withered hand in Mark 3:1-6. Mark’s strategic use of the phrases “he went in,” “into the midst,” “stretch out your hand,” “hardness of heart,” and “was restored,” along with broader narrative context, compellingly link this healing narrative with various episodes in the Exodus narrative. This link, however, leaves some nagging questions about the purpose of certain unique elements in this passage, such as Jesus’ summoning the man to be healed without prompting. Closer attention to the use of metalepsis in this passage resolves these ambiguities by showing that Mark’s evocation of the Exodus context does not place Jesus as the typological fulfillment of Moses, as other typological uses of Moses in Mark and the other Synoptics might suggest. Rather, the man with the withered hand is being cast in the role of Moses, with Jesus perhaps filling the role of Yahweh who summons Moses. After demonstrating these apparent typological connections, my paper seeks to provide some tentative answers as to what broader narrative and theological purposes Mark might have for giving the narrative this startling twist.

This paper attempts to share my experience in teaching biblical Greek to Chinese students. Different from European languages, a Chinese word is not compiled of letters, but strokes. Phonetics, which is rather simple for even a little European child, is a difficult task for a Chinese. From the very beginning, even the pronunciation of Greek alphabets is difficult for memorizing. Although students can use some modern technologies like CD-rom, recording or visual aids to revise their lessons, their difficulties in learning persist, especially their difficulties in memorizing. Therefore, an effective teaching cannot only concern how a teacher can clearly explain some grammars to the students, but also how a teacher can help the students to overcome their learning obstacles. We can imagine: the more they can memorize in class, the more effective should be their revision at home. Here mnemonics in Chinese plays an important role. It turns the boring Greek grammar into an interesting learning. Through adding some Chinese mnemonics, students can memorize more than half of the grammar tables and vocabularies in class. Not only can they memorize those materials with Chinese mnemonics, they can also actively participate in adding their own mnemonics as well as free association to memorize Greek. The interactive stimulation makes Greek fun to teach and learn.

Narsai, known as the “Harp of the Spirit,” was one of the greatest poet-theologians of the fifth-century East Syriac Church. He is thought to have written over 360 memre, or homilies in poetical verse. In addition to memre, Narsai also wrote extensive commentaries on the Old Testament. Unfortunately, only 80 of these memre and none of his prose commentaries now survive. But from what has been preserved it is possible to evaluate his methodology and his creative use of Christian typology in the interpretation of Old Testament themes. This communication will specifically examine one of Narsai’s surviving memre entitled “The Miracles of Moses,” a work which has never before been translated into English. In this insightful memra Narsai weaves together types of Christ with his treatment of the miracles of Moses. This study will discuss some questions related to Narsai’s reception of Antiochene theological method in this memra. This communication will also compare Narsai’s treatment of select themes in this memra with comparable treatments of Moses’ miracles in the works of his near-contemporaries in the West Syriac tradition.

David Noel Freedman, who took Genesis to 2 Kings as Israel’s Primary History completed ca. 560 B.C., went on to argue a brilliant thesis in his book, The Nine Commandments (2000), i.e., that the scribe compiling this history used nine (not ten) commandments of the Decalogue to create a “command—violation” structure within it. Beginning with Exodus, the book in which the covenant was ratified and the commandments given, and continuing on through to Kings, showcase examples of each commandment being violated are identified. In developing this scheme, Freedman followed the order of commandments six, seven, and eight in Jer 7:9, which is stealing, murder, and adultery. This paper accepts Freedman’s basic thesis, but argues that the tenth commandment on coveting must be included in the scheme. It cannot come at the end, but can and does come at the beginning. The showcase example of the coveting command being violated in the Primary History is found in the Garden of Eden story, where Eve “covets” and “desires” the forbidden fruit, to use the wording of Deut 5:21, and then eats (Gen 3:6). This ingenious scribe then has not eliminated the tenth commandment, but simply puts its violation at the beginning of his scheme. The advantage of this revision is that both the tenth commandment and Genesis are included in the scheme, which Freedman left out.

In a recent article (“An Elephant in the Room: Historical-Critical and Postmodern Interpretations of the Bible”, JBL 128 [2009] 383-404), G. Aichele, P. Miscall, and R. Walsh have argued that those working within the discipline of Biblical Studies have become accustomed to stepping carefully around what Aichele et al call “the elephant in the room”, the largely unacknowledged gap that exists between historical readings and postmodern readings of the Bible. It is time, they write, for us to discuss said ‘elephant’, and they conclude by calling for open dialogue on the matter. Immediate (online) responses so far, however, seem to further inscribe the mutual misunderstandings which support the division that they identify, rather than doing anything useful to overcome it. In this paper, the abiding historical-critical desire to identify and account for the intention(s) of a particular historically-located individual—John Marco Allegro—and the meaning(s) of his actions and words in context is confronted with the post-modern acknowledgement of the fragmentary nature of both historical-critical techniques and the documentary evidence that are available to the investigator. What follows is intended (irony unintended) to be a partial, but illuminating narrative of one researcher’s doomed, yet successful attempt to provide a convincing account of a single historical individual.

Judaism and Islam share many characteristics, the result of the influence of the former on the latter, but also (though to a lesser degree) of the latter on the former. This paper will focus on one of the heretofore unexamined commonalities between the two religious systems: the fascinating tension in their classical texts between extensive legislation, on the one hand, and the persistence, in the very face of that legislation, of a spirit of unfettered spontaneity and humanity that pervades the narrative sections of the same literature. Judaism and Islam are arguably the two most legalistic traditions in human history, and their tendency to regulate nearly every aspect of human existence is already on display in well developed form in their founding documents: Bible and Talmud, Qur'an and Hadith. One naturally assumes that societies hemmed in on all sides by hundreds and thousands of ordinances will produce individual members, and especially exemplary paragons, who are scrupulous and dutiful, subdued and submissive, in a word: saintly. The diametric opposite is true in the case of Jewish and Muslim sacred law and lore. The halakha and shari'ah are set up in such a way as to police people's actions externally, not attempt to reform or rewire them internally. The Judaic and Islamic method is to build legal walls between the individual and the illicit objects of his or her desire, not to attempt to rebuild the psyches or tamper with (i.e. temper) the inclinations of men. This "non-interference policy" of halakha and shari'ah is, I will claim, geared to establishing a simultaneously moral and virile society by curbing desires without dampening them. Such a method represents the most genuine and profound level upon which "the law can set us free."

This article offers a postcolonial reading on the Elijah narrative in the Deuteronomistic History (henceforth DH). The prophet is portrayed as a zealot towards Yahwism and a delegate of anti-Baal tradition in the DH. The present study argues that the essence behind Elijah’s opposition on Baalism under the DH is indeed the anti-foreign motif in particular the ideology against foreign wives presented in the history. Such motif echoes with the postexilic context of forbidden of foreign wives in Yehud under Ezra-Nehemiah during which redaction of the narrative has taken place. The tale of Naboth is adopted as an event leading to the judgment of Jezebel, the Sidonite queen, in the narrative. Thus the traditional prophetic opposition against injustice and exploitation to the poor is associated with opposition of a pagan queen under the hands of the redactor. The article re-examines three portions of the Elijah narrative: Elijah in the drought and Mount Carmel, the fled of Elijah and the tale of Naboth under the lens of postcolonial reading. The anti-foreign elements in the redaction are filtrated leaving behind ideologies more primitive from the pre-exilic prophetic tradition. I conclude that Elijah in the Northern prophetic tradition is an enthusiastic defender of Yahwism and a typical prophet against unrighteousness and exploitation without promoting racism. Such a reading strategy liberates Elijah from being depicted as a prototype advocating xenophobia in the Bible.

Using patron-client relationship dynamics in the Greco-Roman world, this paper argues that Paul exploits this pervasive culture to appeal to the Galatians to keep loyalty with him as a broker through whom God’s benefaction had come to them. The article therefore looks at the different renderings of ????? in Galatians as referring to the benefactions that Paul and not any other apostle had brokered to the Galatians. Yet, contrary to the pervasive culture of client loyalty, the Galatians were turning away from Paul to others, at the risk of forfeiting the ????? they had received. Paul therefore, uses himself as a model loyal patron to the Galatians and client of God. He also uses the example of Abraham who was a loyal client, and uses his opponents and Peter as examples of unfaithful patrons and clients.

The most significant contribution to scholarship that this paper will make is to argue that there are two oral/textual traditions mentioned in Acts 18:25-26 which are dated to the early 50’s C.E. and that differ in their understanding of the baptism of John. Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth and an eloquent man arrived as a Jewish-Christian missionary to Ephesus in the early 50’s C.E. and began to preach in an Ephesian synagogue from an oral tradition he understood called ‘the way of the Lord’. Luke records that this oral tradition held an accurate view of Jesus but was only acquainted with the baptism of John. It was on this very point that Priscilla and Aquila drew Apollos aside and explained to him ‘the way of God’ more accurately. This paper will argue that ‘the way of the Lord’ and ‘the way of God’ are titles for two oral/textual traditions that were understood by Apollos and Priscilla and Aquila respectively, that differed solely in their understanding of the baptism of John. If ‘the way of God’ did not represent a variant tradition Priscilla and Aquila would simply have explained ‘the way of the Lord’ to Apollos more accurately. This raises interesting questions about the origins of ‘the way of the Lord’ as an oral tradition particularly as the phrase is only mentioned in New Testament texts in relation to John the Baptist (Matt 3:3; Mark 1:2; Luke 3:3; John 1:23) and there forms part of a citation from the Septuagint of Isa 40:3, a prophecy that is solely associated with the Baptist. The account of Apollos confirms there were various streams of tradition about the baptism of John that existed in the twenty years following Jesus’ death which confirms quite some diversity in early Christianity on the issue of baptism.

It is frequently claimed that the early Christian church identified the Sophia of the Wisdom literature with Jesus Christ, but that this identification later migrated to the Virgin Mary, who took up the personification of the female aspect of Lady Wisdom. Theologians as influential and as ideologically diverse as Elizabeth Johnson and Joseph Ratzinger have subscribed to this position, echoing writers such as Louis Bouyer and John Henry Newman. In Die Tochter Zion, for instance, Ratzinger argued that the feminine aspect of Sophia points toward creation rather than the creator, and that it therefore ultimately finds a home in Mariology rather than Christology. Against this backdrop, I shall examine Bonaventure of Bagnoregio’s Commentarius in Evangelium Lucae and the “Expositio in Lucam” in Thomas Aquinas’s Catena aurea in quatuor Evangelia. A close examination of these texts shows that the idea of Jesus as Lady Wisdom was alive and well at the height of the Middle Ages. Both Thomas and Bonaventure saw a reference to Jesus as divine Sophia (sapientia divina) in Luke’s woman with the lost coin (Lk 15:8-10). Thomas’s “Expositio in Lucam” reiterated Gregory on this point, and Bonaventure’s Commentarius explicitly connected the female aspect of Lady Wisdom with the woman in Luke 15. Viewing the woman searching for her lost coin as a reference to Sophia, Bonaventure argued that female figures can indeed represent God. These medieval readings from Thomas and Bonaventure thus point to the persistent identification of Jesus with the feminine divine Sophia, even within “orthodox” Christianity. The interpretations proposed by Thomas and Bonaventure also resonate with the scriptural retrievals of feminist theologians today, who re-imagine God as a woman searching for her lost coin, and who reverence Jesus as incarnate Sophia.

Respect, that is to say, mutual respect is a key factor in the successful education of adults (Vella 2002). And adults, or people on the threshold of being adult, are who our students are. Without respect and the trust that goes with it, that internal relaxation needed for effective learning (transformation) of the learner in the fields of ideas, feelings and skills and capacities, cannot take place. The learning environment, as we all know, must be ‘safe’. But this is not merely the safety of adequate provision of fire extinguishers and First Aid boxes; it is the safety of an environment that allows one to open up into a ‘receptive frame of mind’. What exactly would count as showing respect in a lecture hall filled with 200 students? What would the lecturer have committed in advance and be committing now? And what would/should the students have committed in advance and be committing now? And how would any disrespect from either side show itself? And what different forms would that respect/disrespect take in a seminar/group tutorial. And, finally, how, where and when might it become 'mutual respect' and why?

Reading the biblical story of Patriarch Jacob and his sons in the Book of Genesis, we are aware that “Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors.” (Genesis, 37:3) How did Rabbi Ya’akov Khulí, author of the Me'am Lo'ez (A.1730) explain this attitude,kindling Joseph’s arrogance and haughtiness on the one hand and his brothers’ hate and jealousy on the other hand? (Genesis, 37:4-11). Rabbi Khulí would never contradict the Holy Scripture; therefore he turned to Jewish traditional commentaries such as Rashí’s (Rabbi Shelomoh Yitshaki of Troyes (1040-1105) to provide a pious explanation to the Patriarch’s behaviour.

Muslim Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) has made a fairly regular use of the Bible as an exegetical aid, though without explicitly or formally granting the Bible that status. This paper will focus on the views of a modern Indian Muslim scholar, Hamid ad-Din al-Farahi (d. 1930), on the relationship between the Qur'an and the Bible. Farahi’s student, Amin Ahsan Islahi (d. 1997), a major Qur’an scholar of modern times, wrote a complete commentary (in Urdu) on the Qur'an in light of the exegetical principles enunciated by Farahi. The Bible-Qur'an nexus, present in Farahi’s works, becomes conspicuous in Islahi’s commentary. I will present examples of how Islahi, applying Farahi's approach more extensively, interprets the Qur'an in light of the Bible--and vice versa.

*

Halfway through the XVIth century in Spain, the reading and interpretation of the Bible based on its original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) involved a very real danger for humanists who searched for a better understanding of its Scriptures. The exclusive authority of the Latin version Vulgate declared by the Trento Council in 1546, hindered the intellectual work of many biblists, hebraists and theologians, who were subjected to a tight ideological control. In this context one should consider the case of the hebraist and scholar from the University of Salamanca, Martín Martínez de Cantalapiedra, who was prosecuted by the Inquisition of Valladolid in 1572 along with his colleagues fray Luis de León and Gaspar de Grajal. All of them were accused of deviating from the genuine sense of the Vulgate in their more literal interpretations of the sacred texts. It is the purpose of this paper to analyze the stance that Master Martínez de Cantalapiedra took regarding this subject during his inquisitorial trial in order to understand the sound defence he made in favour of Hebrew knowledge as an essential means of interpreting the Old Testament.

Engaging with Carol Newsom’s seminal interdisciplinary work and other anthropological and ritual theory, this paper will partially map the construction of the body, both individual and corporate, that is shaped through the figured discourse and performance of the Hodayot. Consideration in particular of the dual scope of the organic botanical language and inorganic architectural figuration will shed light on the way in which the hymns shape the ethos and social transformations expected of sectarians.

In 1975 fragments of the lost Pentateuch to Codex Sinaiticus were found during renovations at St. Catherine’s monastery in Egypt. Since the rediscovery of this great uncial by Tischendorf in the nineteenth century the fact that the books of Moses were lost has been lamented, given the textual importance of one of the oldest complete manuscripts of the entire Bible. In the trove of other Greek manuscripts from the monastery, two stand out in relation to Codex Sinaiticus. Known as Sinai Greek 1 and Sinai Greek 2 (SG 1&2), they are two medieval copies of the Greek Old Testament made at the same monastery that match up remarkably well with the received fragments of Sinaiticus known before the 1975 find. This focus of this paper will be to compare SG 1&2 to the long-extant fragments and the 1975 finds and show that their almost perfect preservation of these texts should be logically extended and seen as preserving the whole of Sinaiticus’ OT. In other words, if SG 1&2 faithfully preserved parts of the text based on old fragments and new finds, they in turn preserve the whole of the OT, including the lost Pentateuch. This will be accomplished by analysis of a new, complete collation of the SG 1&2 with the 1975 finds, hitherto a lacuna in OT textual criticism. The question will be asked whether or not monastery manuscripts can be faithful transmitters of their parent text. The answer is quite significant for Sinaiticus, and can have important implications for the field in general.

In the past decade, the so-called Holiness legislation (Lev 17-26) has been the subject of several studies. While there is growing recognition that H draws upon several legal traditions, including the Covenant Code and the Deuteronomic Code (D), the main disputed issue is now the relationship between H and these legal traditions. For some authors, the scribes who composed H intended to revise and replace other, earlier legal collections. For others, H was conceived as an expansion and a supplement to these legal collections, not as a replacement. Each of these two competing models has considerable implications in terms of redaction criticism of the Pentateuch and the legal hermeneutics of the emerging Torah. The following paper will reassess this issue by discussing some central passages within the H legislation, such as the concluding exhortation in Lev 26. A final section will also comment upon the import of these findings for present Pentateuchal models, and discuss how far the conclusion achieved in the case of H may legitimately be extended to the relationship between other Pentateuchal codes.

Uku Masing (1909-1985) was a biblical scholar, theologian, folklorist, essayist, and poet who started his career at the University of Tartu in the 1930s but was meant to work most of his life in inner exile during the Soviet time having seldom possibilities to publish his research. At the same time he was highly gifted knowing more than 60 languages and having remarkable ideas, which are mostly unknown in the world. After giving a brief overview of his research on Hebrew Bible (counting some 6,300 pages in total and mostly unknown outside Estonia), the paper will deal mainly with his ideas concerning the Hebrew Bible and specifically the Writings. Masing was a pioneer of redaction critical method, maintaining larger redaction layers already in the early 1950s. He also contrasted his understanding of the evolution or development of religion or moral sharply to other scholars. His reconstruction of the downfall of prophets in the 5th century BCE is unique in the world and has impact on his understanding of many aspects of the Psalm literature or the Book of Job. The best examples of his characteristic approach to the Writings can be brought already from one of his early works on the secondary character of the Elihu Speeches in the Book of Job, but also from the studies of the use of some specific Hebrew terms in the Hebrew Bible.

The paper deals with exemplary passages especially from the Psalm literature (complemented by several ones from the Wisdom literature) of the Old Testament, which attest the developing identity of some religious groups in the Persian period. Mainly, the so-called "righteous" in the Psalms and some Wisdom texts (Job, Proverbs) give important hints. But considering also the longer redaction history and the canonization process of the Book of Psalms and of the Wisdom literature up to the Hellenistic period, the groups of the "pious", "poor" and "humble" ones are of considerable importance. Hand in hand with redaction critical consequences drawn by several studies in the recent years, the attention will be paid to some tensions which characterize the "collective reinterpretation" of the Psalms in the post-exilic time and various redaction layers attesting strong group identity. Admitting many open questions in the contemporary Psalm research and looking for help in the research on the Wisdom literature, the paper suggests one possibility of systematizing some important redaction layers (especially those of the "righteous", the "poor" and the "pious") in the Psalms. A relative chronology of late literary growth of the Book of Psalms built on this suggestion and many details concerning the identity of the aforementioned groups is of importance for further study of the history and literature of the Persian period.

In this discussion I want to question biblical discourse that constructs institutionalized patriarchy and heteronormativity as social totalities, producing a hierarchy of heterogender family divisions which privileges men as a group and exploits women as a group. Biblical heteronormative discourse structures social practices among Christians which it represents as natural and universal and which are reinforced by its organizing institutions and rituals e.g., family and marriage. As a totality, patriarchy organizes difference by positioning men in hierarchical opposition to women and differentially in relation to other structures, such as race or class, but also in the structures of Christian community and family. The continued success of heteronormative family depends on the maintenance of authentic biblical discourse regimes of difference. This keeps women in their place (home and submissive) and dependent. The institutionalized biblical patriarchal and heteronormativity of family and family relationships as social totality guarantee the historical viability of these ideologies. As long as so-called authoritative scriptures enforce contextual ideologies, egalitarian partnerships will remain a luxury of a very small minority.

*

In the 4th century the Pope Gregory I stated that images, such as painting and sculpture, should be use for aedificatio, intendere and instructio of the written Word, the narratives of the Bible and the Sacred History for those who cant read. On the other hand, for those who know well the Bible and Sacred Texts, like priest and monks, the images should be used to make them fell the compunctio. They should look to these moral examples as a speculum of their evangelical condition and mission. Throughout centuries paintings and sculptures ornamented church’s walls, not only to teach Sacred History or to public devotion but also to transmit the moral and didactic behavior to be a good Christian. The discoveries of the New World turned the missionary attentions to the gentiles in America, Africa and Asia. Different religious orders came to India, China and Japan to spread the Word and teach Christianity to the gentiles of Asia. The missionaries started to built churches, convents, monasteries and seminars and imported paintings, engravings and other kind of imagery to ornament the interiors and to be used for instructio of the gentiles. With this presentation I intend to explain how images were used as an image of the Bible in a narrative sequence of the Sacred History or the exemplification of specific religious concepts of Christianity. On the other hand, we also propose to demonstrate how the missionaries found religious resemblance between Christianity and Asian Religions, and used image to explain the symbolic meanings of the Bible and Sacred Texts.

This paper focuses on the portrayal of female heroines in the literature of the ancient Near East who use physical violence against adversaries. Examples of such heroines are Yael (Judges 4, 5); Judith (The Book of Judith); the Ugaritic goddess Anat; the Mesopotamian goddesses Inanna and Ishtar. Stories portraying violent female characters are unique, intriguing and most fascinating. The descriptions of females, human as well as divine, participating in violent acts and combat are in total contrast to the prevailing social order of their cultures. The contrasting descriptions of these female heroines oscillate between adoration and respect to insult and mockery. In this paper I argue that the depictions of violent female characters are symbolic representations serving the patriarchal ideologies of their ancient cultures.

The Pentateuch is by and large a combination of law and narrative, but for a long time in research history these two components used to be treated separately. However, law and narrative belong together: The narrative legitimizes the law, whereas lawgiving is the goal of the narrative. What is obvious in the final text of the Pentateuch, becomes even more apparent if the priestly and deuteronomistic textual layers are removed. The basic Mountain-of-God-Narrative in Ex 18–24 relates the enactment of the so-called „Covenant Code“ which is actually much more than a law book, it is a constitution. Although God is the author of the code, neither he nor Moses imposes the laws on the people. It is the people’s resolution in Exod. 24:3 that enacts the constitution. Since there is no king involved and Moses doesn’t inherit this role in total, it is the people who act as sovereign. The resulting community is best described as a citizen-state, which in many ways resembles the early Greek poleis. This paper understands the making of the Pentateuch as a sequel of lawgiving narratives or draft constitutions respectively, which served to reestablish the Judaean society after the downfall of the monarchy in 587. This overall approach to the Pentateuch will be exemplified by an inquiry into Ex 18–24 with a brief outlook on Deuteronomy.

The heavenly temple motif plays a prominent role in the Testament of Levi. It is directly referred to in 2:10, 3:4-10, 5:1-2 and 18:6 and possibly forms the background to the heavenly vision of 8:1-19. It in turn forms part of Levi's broader heavenly geography. Detailed descriptions of the heavens are a common theme in apocalyptic, while the presence of a temple there is sometimes mentioned, sometimes assumed and sometimes absent. This paper first compares the heavenly temple geography of the Testament of Levi with other apocalyptic works and biblical descriptions and attempts to find points of contact and possible influences. Then it describes the importance of the heavenly temple motif in the theology and eschatology of the book. Given that the Testament of Levi is presented as one of the most important in the collection of the twelve testaments, the heavenly temple aims to validate Levi's prophecies and raise their importance to a level above all others.

A number of factors associated with Biblical Hebrew manuscripts during the last centuries before the Common Era presented distinctive challenges for translators. These challenges included rare words (esp. hapax legomena), difficult-to-read bookhands, graphically similar characters and words, irregular or inconsistent orthography, incomprehensible scribal notations, inconsistent use of matres lectionis, lack of vocalization, and more. Because of these and other factors, the translators of the Septuagint–Isaiah, in a number of instances, misread Hebrew roots or words. Textual critics have published examples of such first-level misreadings of the Hebrew by the Septuagint translators of Isaiah. This present paper, however, will focus on the manner in which the first level misreadings frequently caused secondary modifications to the Greek translation in order to make sense of the context. That is to say, when the translator misread the Hebrew root or word, he would sometimes make secondary modifications to provide meaning or clarification to the passage. The secondary modifications often resulted in one or more of the following: (a) disruptions of the parallelism; (b) creation of strange readings; (c) alterations of the syntax; (d) additions; (e) omissions; (f) or other alterations to the passage. In this paper I will present a catalog of some 130 examples of probable primary misreadings from the Septuagint–Isaiah; then I will set forth several examples of secondary modifications and discuss their significance to textual critics.

The story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12) not only enables, but even encourages two readings. In my discussion of the biblical text I focus on tendencies revealed by these readings. The text in its current form is at the center of my interest as a reader. My readings of this story focus on David. I shall describe two readings of the events of the story itself and concurrently —or perhaps as a result of the latter—two readings of our understanding of the interpretation of David’s character and actions, as reflected in the story. I propose to begin by delineating the boundaries of the story, therein demonstrating how fixing these boundaries influences our understanding and interpretation of David’s behavior to Bathsheba and Uriah. For instance, the inclusion of the parable of the ewe lamb (chapter 12), strengthens the criticism of David’s sins according to the measure-for-measure principle—by means of word-for-word ("the sword" in 2 Samuel 12:19). The Talmud (masechet shabbat) makes the following argument: “Whoever claims that David sinned is wrong. When David lay with a married woman he did not sin; before going to war Uriah, her husband, would have given her a provisional Bill of Divorce, to be activated if he should be killed in action". Although the latter does not appear in the biblical text, I shall show that the story itself hints at a tendency to play down the seriousness of David’s sinful conduct to Bathsheba and Uriah. This tendency is strengthened in the view of Bathsheba’s roof-top ablutions as provocative, leading David to sin… and in the parallel story in 1 Chronicles 20, in which David’s actions vis-à-vis Bathsheba and Uriah are censored. Conversely we witness an opposing tendency, which criticizes David’s behavior (For instance, at the end of Chapter 11: ".But the Lord was displeased with David had done" – in verse 26). Criticism of David is strengthened by comparing our story to another series of stories, with which the story of David and Bathsheba engages in a dialogue [or we might call it 'inner-biblical interpretation']: the stories of the “wife-sister” in Genesis (Pharaoh and Sarah, in Gen 12:10-20; Abimelech and Sarah, in chapter 20: 1-18; Abimelech and Rebecca, in chapter 26:1-14). The hidden dialogue between these stories illuminates the attempt to interpret David and his character. The two sets may be seen as "reflection stories": the similarities between the stories encourage the reader to sense a link between them and thus to evaluate King David on the basis of the differences in the stories. Unlike David, the foreign kings in Genesis acted innocently: they did not know that Sarah was a married woman. A comparison of David and the foreign kings (Pharaoh and Abimelech) is therefore far from complimentary to David.

The aim of the paper is to explore some of the cultural theoretical aspects involved in the overall project of Imperial Power, Politics and Early Christianity. Assuming that some of the early 'Christian' texts were also involved in issues pertaining to - what we from a modern perspective would designate - politics, it is crucial to raise the question about the level of this engagement: At what level did interchange between imperial politics and the early Christ-movement take place, and how do we acquire analytical access to examining this field of problems. Underlying the discussion is a more basic debate about how we should conceptualise the relationship between apparently different cultural entities of Mediterranean antiquity. I will highlight the discussion by taking Paul as my empirical example and by focusing on the theoretical horns involved in the conceptualisation of an appararent resistance in Paul against the Roman Empire.

It is clear that the weight of scholarly evidence is firmly against a doctrine of resurrection in Ben Sira with such assertions as: “…the Ben-Sirach point of view: forget about a life after death, concentrate on getting this one straight” (Wright) and “Ben Sira continued his predecessors’ resistance to the notion that the dead return from the grave.” (Charlesworth). Indeed, it would appear that the issues of immortality and the afterlife in Ben Sira are obvious and readily understood, when we read, “when a person dies, he inherits creeping things and beasts and worms” (Sirach 10:11) and “Do not rejoice over a corpse; remember that we all pass away” (8:7). However, the vast majority of scholars appear to have missed the Hebrew text of 4:10 – ““Be as a father to orphans; and instead of a husband to widows and God shall call you Son and shall be gracious to you, and deliver you from the pit.” This paper shall explore resurrection in Sirach with a particular focus on the place of the Hebrew text of 4:10.

The Mesha inscription, which reveals many narrative features (Smelik, Routledge), is extremely close to biblical Hebrew in morphology, syntactic structure and lexical register (S.R. Driver, Segert, Niccacci, Eskhult), and thus is an important peg for the understanding of Hebrew narrative style and its place in language history. This paper is to investigate various aspects of the style (syntactic means to build the overall discourse) of the Mesha inscription, in comparison with inscriptions from the Eastern Mediterranean coast area, Assyrian royal inscriptions and biblical Hebrew narrative. Attention will be paid to discourse structure ("I style," parallelism, direct speech, bi-verbal patterns, ellipsis, circumstantiality), and syntactic typological categories, such as, for example clause structure, clause chaining (para- and hypotaxis), noun groups.

The edict of Antiochus aimed to complete the work of Judea’s re-conquest and through it the re-creation of empire. As a political act, it revoked Judean autonomia, or civic freedom, announcing and effecting Judea’s total subjection to the empire. But the edict aimed at more than subjugation. The edict launched a program of domination over Judean bodies, minds, souls, and wills. Antiochus intervened in the ordering of space, time, social structures, memory, and the human body, forbidding traditional religious practices and instituting a new order for religious and civic life. His edict aimed to replace Judean identity, history, and social memory with a new ground of being and belonging. It was a program of unmaking and making, de-creation and re-creation, with Antiochus the authorizer and maker of a new world, order, and identity for the inhabitants of Judea.

Widely diverging proposals have been made regarding the way in which the poet of Psalm 33 intended readers to understand its structure. Each proposal has direct consequences for the way in which interpreters understand the meaning of the psalm. In this contribution, a strophic and stichometric analysis will be made, taking Fokkelman’s important and novel 2004 discussion of its strophic structure into account. The widespread notion that the psalm displays a perfect concentric structure will be contested.

This paper builds on three premises. First, while individual sayings and smaller units may have originated independently, the Sermon in Matthew is written to be read as a coherent whole. Therefore, second, each passage says what it does in light of its place within that whole. It would speak differently in another context. Third, the language of the Sermon creates a new world in light of God’s coming rule. The disciples and others are invited to live in that world. The sermon opens with the Beatitudes and culminates with an absolute either/or alternative. The Beatitudes are word events that create the reality they declare. They are not about the disciples; instead, they teach the disciples how to see the crowd in light of God’s future rule. They speak of people who long for righteousness (5:3-6) and who work for righteousness (5:7-10). The disciples who learn to see the crowd and the world in light of the Beatitudes are salt and light (Matt 5:1-16). Matthew 5:17-48 calls people to a righteousness that exceeds that defined by God’s covenant with Israel, yet fulfills it. It means living in the light and power of God’s boundless love for the evil and the good, as seen in the sunshine and rain, making no distinction between neighbor and enemy. Second, it entails seeking God’s rule and God’s righteousness, not using the needs of others to pursue a visible righteousness of one’s own (6:1-34). Third, living in the power of God’s love and forgiveness excludes passing judgment on others (7:1-6). There is no middle ground. A person either lives in God’s rule and righteousness, in the power of God’s love and forgiveness, or they do not (6:9-13; 7:13-27).

Biblical language pervades the Hodayot. In this presentation, I explore the question: what does ‘temple’ mean for the Qumran sect in light of the mysterious biblical imagery of water and body employed by 1QHa 16? I read these biblical allusions in light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism in which words inhabit all the contexts in which they have previously been used. In 1QHa 16, through the use of Eden imagery of Gen 2, the speaker embodies the temple, reflecting the belief that the Qumran community is in a sacred place of natural abundance with unmediated access to the deity. Further anchoring his credentials, the speaker employs water imagery of springs, founts, and wells, identified elsewhere in the Scrolls with correct biblical interpretation, e.g. CDa 6.4-9. All of this imagery can be found in temple texts of the Hebrew Bible (I Kings 6, Ezekiel 28, Zec 14:8), suggesting the speaker envisions himself as the embodiment of the temple. While these associations are not atypical for the Scrolls, e.g. “a house of holiness for Israel and an assembly of holy of holies for Aaron” (1QS 8.5) and “temple of men” (4QFlor 1.6), if we understand the Qumran sect as a priestly community without a temple, the language in the second half of the hymn presents a unique liturgical response. The speaker takes on the imagery of a failed body with broken arm and melted flesh. Recalling the earlier imagery, its “heart pours out like water” and “knees become as water” (1QHa 16.33-35). A body so mangled must be excluded from the most elite tasks of the temple’s sacrificial cult. Whereas the water imagery in the first half of the hymn empowered the speaker with temple imagery, in the second half of the hymn the water imagery separates the priestly community from the temple.

This presentation explores embodiment as means of articulating a Second Temple, Diaspora Judaic identity. Within a critical framework of disability studies, sensory criticism, and related theory, I argue that Tobit presents ability and disability, and health and healing, as significantly a function of person plus environment, and that the text’s position on Diaspora identity depends on this combination. To that end, several features of Tobit shall be studied. First, the parallel cases of Tobit and Sara represent both figures as disabled: Tobit’s blindness comes as a result of his adherence to Jewish burial customs in Nineveh, while Sara’s affliction with a suitor-killing demon disables her, in the social sense, i.e. renders her unable to perform a socially prescribed function. The text clearly uses language of affliction and healing for both cases. Second, the representations of the angel Raphael and the demon Asmodeus articulate counter-embodiments. The text uses visual description, sensory representation, and bodily comportment to describe both figures, and in doing so, sets forth its right and wrong modes of embodiment. Finally, the various forms of embodiment in this text converge on the physical, social, and medical difficulties of adhering to Judaic identity while living in Diaspora.

The book of Tobit tells the story for two Jewish families living in the Diaspora struggling and finally succeeding in leading a life of holiness in the foreign environment. The message of the story seems to be: Jewish identity can be developed without a local relation to Jerusalem. But regarding Tob 13, 8-18 the city of Jerusalem appears to perform a considerable role in the self-conception of the protagonist: the hymn of Tobit predicts the pilgrimage of foreign peoples to a future, splendid rebuilt Jerusalem. How are we supposed to deal with that discrepancy? Rather a “social” than a “geographic” view on the text may lead to better understanding. In order to express the experience of strangeness the author uses the verbs a?µa??t??? and s???p??? (1,2.10; 3,4) which stand for failing social relations. Consequently finding a home does not mean the return to Jerusalem but the constitution of a new community. Since the good ending of the story is due to the change of group dynamics and not to geographic movements, it makes sense to perceive the city not in its topographic but social dimension. The praying Tobit addresses Jerusalem directly as a person, partly as a mother (13,9). That personification allows an emotional way of identification with the city and means a significant contribution to the identity formation of the community. The text also shows a spatial dimension of Jerusalem. The city as a social space is constituted by the loving care of God to the people (13,10) and the love of the people to Jerusalem (13,12f.). We conclude that in Tob Jerusalem´s relevance is not based on her topographic dimension but that the city serves as metaphor for the future community of the Jewish people.

The topic of our report is the equivalence between the Samaritan Hebrew text of the book of Genesis and the Greek translation of the LXX (Septuaginta). The scholarly research generally investigates the differences between the Samaritan and the Masoretic texts. Fewer works are dedicated to the differences between the LXX and the MT. Trying to reconstruct the possible Vorlage of the LXX, we found out that there were a lot of correspondences between the Samaritan text and the Septuaginta. Firstly, there is a lot of examples where the “waw” in the Samaritan text corresponds to ?a? in the Greek translation. Secondly, there is a lot of “additions” in the Samaritan text, which correspond exactly to the Greek translation, but are fully absent in the MT. The analysis of the personal names and of the important differences between the Samaritan/Greek and the Masoretic texts shows that they can go back to the same original text. For example, in Gen. 2,2 both text have the “sixth” and not the “seventh” day (like in the MT), in Gen. 10,4 both mention the inhabitants of Rhodos and not the mysterious ‘Dodanim’, in Gen. 12,20 both name Lot etc. On the other side, both Samaritan text and the Septuaginta are often different from each other as well as from the MT. Sometimes the Samaritan text even corresponds to the Masoretic against the Septuaginta (like in Gen.11,13, where Kainan is not mentioned both in the Samaritan and in the Masoretic text). How can one explain it? Can we postulate that the Vorlage of the LXX was more or less identical with the Samaritan text or both of them are later mistranslations and additions to the original unvocalized Proto-Masoretic text? I will try to find the cautious answer to this question.

The stem ZNH is generally translated "be or act like a harlot" and "[have] intercourse with other deities." Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are said to use ZNH as a metaphor for Israel's alleged apostasy. However, I question the efficacy of ZNH as a sexual metaphor for Israel's apostasy. If Israelite apostasy is worthy of serious punishment, "prostitution" should be a heinous crime. However, according to the law codes, prostitution is neither criminal nor illegal. The outstanding sexual crime is adultery. Moreover, the evidence for sexual rituals in Canaanite religion is non-existent; thus, arguments built on these bases need reevaluation. Using cognitive linguistics, my research reveals two meanings for ZNH: "participate in non-Yahwist religious praxis" and "prostitute." ZNH signifying "participate in non-Yahwist praxis" should be understood as a description of Israelite religious praxis, not as a metaphoric sexual reference to non-Yahwist praxis. The second meaning, "prostitute," is found in contexts independent of and separate from religious contexts. Utilizing two concepts from cognitive linguistics, network of associations and blending, I explore the textual environment that supports ZNH signifying "participate in non-Yahwist religious praxis." Sacrifices and offerings to a deity other than Yahweh are the most prominent rituals associated with ZNH. Texts with this understanding are found in Judges, Leviticus, Numbers, and Psalms. Other texts with ZNH notably Num 25.1-3 and Ex 34.15-6 describe the steps of the sacrificial process and its implications for the Israelite community. The prophets re-vision ZNH and imbue it with highly pejorative associations. By examining the textual environment, I find that the prophets blend ZNH with derogatory terms such as adultery, ritual uncleanness, and religious misdeeds. These terms color the reader's perception ZNH practices with destructive and criminal associations. Because of time limits, this section will be brief.

Eduard Bornhöhe’s historical novel "Furst Gabriel or The last days of Pirita monastery" was first published during the Czarist times in 1893. In the same year the genre of historical novels was censored by Czarist censorship. During the Soviet times Bornhöhe was a favored author and the novel was made into a film called "The Last Relic" in 1969. This was the first western-style movie in the Soviet Union ever produced and it became extremely popular for generations to come. Anton Hansen Tammsaare's novel "The Misadventures of The New Satan" appeared first as a novel in 1939. As this classic author of Estonian literature was was favored during the Soviet times too, the novel was made into a film already in 1964. In 1978 the new film based on the same novel was made. Tammsaare is an author whose texts have shaped Estonian identity. The last author to be analyzed in the paper is a contemporary one: Veiko Õunpuu's film "The Temptation of St. Tony" was released in 2009 and has already won several awards besides being successful at home. The paper will analyze how the biblical imagery works in these classical and contemporary texts of the Estonian literature and film, in particular in the process of their reception. The question how these images have shaped the Estonian identity is discussed also.

While the language and phraseology of 2 Kings 10:26-36 makes a Deuteronomistic redaction of this pericope conspicuous, it must be determined what material there can legitimately be identified as belonging to this level of redactional and what material must be regarded as original to the narrative of Jehu’s supposed extermination of the Baal cult. Such a problematic becomes especially apparent when one considers verses 26-27 and 30. This process can be seriously aided by consulting the oldest existing editions of the text, in both Hebrew and Greek. When one reconsiders this pericope in the light of a new text-critical analysis, important implications for both the history of the text and history of the religion behind the text become apparent.

This paper deals with some important rhetorical features of Mark’s Gospel. Beginning from the proposition that a major component of Mark’s purpose is the transformation of his readers, I examine the text as a multi-faceted work that employs a variety of narrative and rhetorical techniques in its crafting. These literary and rhetorical tools carry Mark’s message and direct its readers/hearers towards particular kinds of transformation. That is, Mark’s story of Jesus is presented in such a way that members of the audience are challenged to accept it and to change their perceptions and their allegiances. While duly acknowledging the categories of classical rhetoric, I have chosen not to employ them in my analysis. Instead I have formulated an alternative set of descriptors that articulate evident characteristics of the narrative and that prove to be more conducive to the study of the Gospel as transformative discourse. These are the strategies of proclamation, demonstration and instruction, and the techniques of metaphor, indirection and performance. By presenting a selection of examples ranging over the whole Gospel, the paper demonstrates how each of these elements contributes in a unique way to the persuasive power of the Gospel, and interplays with the themes of perception, purity, proclamation and discipleship, resulting in a composite discourse that is potentially transformative.

The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael is normally classified as being an exegetical Midrash, which gives a verse-by-verse commentary on a biblical text; and as halakhic, that is, as concerned with legal or normative themes or biblical verses dealing with these themes. My research into synchronic and thematic aspects of the Mekhilta shows that it is necessary to question or render more precise both of these categorizations. I shall present results of my quantitative and qualitative investigation of the relationship between the Midrash and its base text, Exodus, which show that large parts of the former are not normative, but rather “aggadic” or aggadic-related. Thus, extensive normative biblical portions dealing with the Tabernacle and sacrifices are left without commentary, while there are entire tractates (Beshallah and Shirta) which contain full exegeses of non-normative biblical sections (namely, the account of the exodus and the Song at the Sea). Also, the nine so-called “Tractates” of the Mekhilta, if taken together, cover only c. 345 verses out of the total c. 1210 Exodus verses, that is, 29 %, by way of a sequential commentary. It would therefore be misleading to think of this text as an exegetical Midrash with comprehensive coverage for Exodus. I will provide further statistical details about where the “gaps” of coverage are (apart from the often-discussed one, Ex. 1–11), and how these are distributed over the Tractates or fall between Tractates. I furthermore explain the assumptions, procedures and concepts which underpin such a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Mekhilta’s hermeneutic relationship to Exodus. I will also argue that the literary constitution of “Tractates” must be taken into account in their own right (synchronically speaking), as they appear to indicate thematic emphases within the Mekhilta.

The book of Hebrews contains a noteworthy series of so-called hymnic passages (Heb. 1:1-4; 2:9-10; 4:14-16; 5:7-10; and 12:1-2). The nature of these hymnic passages raises many issues. If these passages are hymns, then why do they not stand out from the rest of the text? Why are they not easily detected? Are they the compositions of the author himself? Or, did the author of Hebrews borrow them from some tradition? In the midst of many issues and questions, the most pressing issue that remains is the legitimacy of classifying these passages as hymns. Can classical rhetoric shed some light on these passages? In this study I propose to demonstrate that these hymnic passages in Hebrews can be categorized as encomia to Christ if one applies the criteria set forth by classical rhetoricians. What is lacking in scholarly discussions regarding the relationship between ancient writers and New Testament hymns is an identification of common patterns, or topoi, that writers employed in their discussions. A noteworthy development of those who have explored the relationship between classical hymnody and New Testament hymns is that they started to locate hymnody within the genre of the epideictic rhetoric. Yet the analysis of how encomium as a category of epideictic rhetoric can shed light on New Testament hymnody remains lacking. In what follows, I will accomplish two tasks. The first task will be to collect and interpret the data from rhetorical handbooks concerning the criteria for encomium. The goal of the second task will be to apply the criteria to the hymnic passages in Hebrews. The researcher will probe the hymns in Hebrews identified by form critics for Greco-Roman criteria of encomium. If the criteria of ancient rhetoricians match the hymns in Hebrews, then the hymns in Hebrews can be considered as encomia following the strategy of epideictic rhetoric. Implications of this finding will culminate the study.

The phrase “the Alpha and the Omega” in Revelation (1:8; 21:6; 22:13) has been discussed by many scholars. However, this paper looks at its meaning from another perspective, namely, the historical and literary arrangement of the phrase by John. This perspective includes some factors: the mention of the phrase at the beginning and at the end of the book of Revelation; John’s use and familiarity with the terms “the beginning” (John 1:1, 2; 1 John 1:1); John’s unique mention of the phrases “it is finished” (John 19:30) and “it is done” (Rev 21:6). Also, it is “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” who announces “It is done” (Rev 21:6). Putting together all the facts above, it seems that the phrase (name) “the Alpha and the Omega” suggests a reading and understanding of Revelation in a historical overview from the beginning to the end.

Classical rabbinic literature provides many statements about the mythic, symbolic or even theological roles of the patriarchs which are astonishing in their breadth and vision. Nevertheless, scholars have paid little attention to the importance and articulation of these ideas within the rabbinic corpus, which seems meager relative to the more explicitly esoteric literatures, such as the Hekhalot or medieval Kabbalah. This paper will frame its examination of the "esoteric" patriarchs within the context of the famous, albeit cryptic, statements from Genesis Rabba that identify the patriarchs with the Merkavah, or divine chariot. The mythic and symbolic significance of these statements will provide an opportunity to re-examine the role of such mythic claims within rabbinic mythopoesis. The overarching discussion of these ideas will provide a methodological foreground to approach an important example, Genesis Rabba 92:2, by means of which this paper will illustrate the tenor of esoteric configurations of patriarchal “divinity” in classical rabbinic literature.

The Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) is better known for his brilliant portraits than for his paintings of religious subjects. But his "Ecce Homo" in the Barber Institute, Birmingham, together with some deeply moving paintings of other moments in the Passion of Christ, suggests that, had he not been overshadowed in Antwerp by his great contemporary Rubens (1577-1640), and had he been able to spend more of his short life in Italy, where he travelled for six years admiring and sketching the works of the great renaissance masters, especially Titian, his career might have taken a different course. The main part of the paper is devoted to a consideration of the narrative context of Pilate’s words (John 19:5) and a variety of interpretations of the scene, in paintings by Bosch, Mantegna, Tintoretto, Titian, Rubens and others, as well as in music and literature from Bach to the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and from Bernard of Clairvaux to the late German Jewish poet Hilde Domin. This shows how, by depicting the leering soldier in the shadows behind him, preparing Christ for his humiliating appearance in front of the crowd, van Dyck’s "Ecce Homo" retains something of the original force of Pilate’s peremptory words, demanding a response, first, from the soldier, then from the crowd, and finally from all of us who look at the painting.

The influence of Assyrian religion on West Semitic religion is witnessed by a variety of motivs, in particular astral deities and astral symbolism. This particular influence is also witnessed by the Hebrew Bible referring to the Host of Heaven (2 Kings 23:5; cf. Dtn 4:19), the Queen of Heaven (Jer 7:18; 44:17-19.25), and the Horses of the sun-god (2 Kings 23:11), and has been described by Scholars as the “Assyrian Crisis” of Judahite Religion. Besides the well known influence of astral representations (discussed by the author at the Budapest EABS meeting), the West Semitic Glyptic repertoire adopted also a variety of mixed creatures from contemporary Mesopotamia, such as the ugallu-demon, the scorpion-man, or girtablullû, the Lamassu/aladlammû , the winged bull, bull men supporting a sun disc, winged horse and the winged lion. The paper will discuss the local adoptions of these motifs and asks if these representations are reflecting a direct impact of Mesopotamian religious beliefs on the local symbol systems or rather a more general cultural influence.

Mnemotopes are landscapes of imagination that create and maintain Identity (cf. Assmann 1992:59-60). This is especially the case for the city of Jerusalem, which is an important mnemotope both for Jewish as well as Christian and Muslim identity. In the Hebrew Bible, however, the city as a mnemotope is not always envisioned as being a positive element of cultural memory. Dan and Beth-El form a negative mnemotope that is charged with negative associations, like idolatry. Beth El is even remembered in the Hebrew Bible as Beth Awen (‘House of Evil’, cf. Hos 10:5). The paper investigates the functions of these two biblical cities as a mnemotope of evil in the Hebrew Bible as well as the specific function of negative mnemotopes for creating and maintaining identity as well in the Biblical writings as well as in their history of reception.

*

*

Severus of Antioch, a Saint for the Oriental Orthodox Churches and a heretic for the Byzantines, is known of his crucial role in the debate on the creed of Chalcedon. Other aspects of his thoughts, however, have been largely neglected in academic studies, partly due to the fact that his literary output has not been preserved in Greek but in Syriac. In my paper I aim to take a systematic look on Severus' teaching on Virgin Mary in his Cathedral homilies (Patrologia Orientalis vols. 6, 8, 26, 38), concentrating on two main questions. Firstly, I shall analyze his methods of biblical interpretation, especially his use of the Old Testament imagery. All the most important mariological images are derived from the book of Exodus: Aron's rod, burning bush, manna, Ark of covenant, Holy of Holies, Tabernacle, Mount of Sinai. In what way exactly does he use such images? What are the unsaid presuppositions in his hermeneutic paradigm in approaching such textual motifs? Secondly, I will pay attention to Severus' position in the history of Mariology: what aspects in his teaching on Mary were extraordinary, ahead of his time, or even unique? The most interesting images include Mary as "prophetess", heavenly mediator, and "our sister". And finally, how one should estimate these interpretations in the history of biblical interpretation.

For the sake of this discussion, the figure of David is considered as that of a king whose behavior is presented and at times judged in the texts honestly and starkly --along with its praise of his military political and spiritual successes. He is as close as holy text comes to modelling a conflicted human being of mixed virtue and vice as an ideal king, warrior, and savior --not to mention spiritual poet-- of the perhaps reluctantly unified people of Israel in his time and in future. 2. The conflicts and contradictions (loyalty vs treachery, abuses of power and emotional blindness, nation vs family, etc.) are later smoothed off to allow him to star in the genetic political and theological role of ancestor to the eternal messiah-king-savior to-come of the diasporated people of Israel... thereby fulfilling in future Gd's promise of both an eternal Davidic kingdom, and a Jewish people restored to its Promised Land. 3. This Biblical and subsequent Jewish amalgam of temporal and spiritual, ethical and political, collective and individual, human and divine revelation here and now (whenever wherever they be) has become institutionalized as the spine of what is now called Jewish religion, and, naturally, as a major psychospiritual goal of its liturgical calendric reality. 4. By way of analogy --and in passing only, parts of the Christian vision seem to suffer or be blessed with similarly conflicted sites of text, history, theology, and rearrangements of vision. a. On the one hand it is difficult to envision the Jesus of the Gospels as anything but perhaps factitious genetic heir of David. And David must have had many such heirs, then and since. But the role of national spiritual political and military uniter of Israel, redeemer from diaspora as it were, was smoothed down --and out-- leaving only a psycho-spiritual messiah in the texts. b. On the other hand, Constantine in military and political conjunction with Augustinian 'original sin' empowered the Church with a blend of temporal and spiritual power over the salvation of individual Christians and Kingdoms. Turning Jewish Gallilean Jesus into Christ the Warrior, Triumphant over the infidels of the world (including Jews).... along with a pedagogical schedule of successful de-Judaizing of Jesus, his followers, and a dismissal of any difficult passages of the Tanach as peculiar parochial and passe... and for infidel Jews only. This is the closest Christian approach to the Jewish totalizing image of David as messiah-king on all levels: psychospiritual, political, national, religious and military. 5. I find it ironic that both the talmudic and augustinian allegorizations seem nonetheless to work, or at least dwell together, in almost seamless marriages, for so long. Mutatis mutandis, I take it also as at the very least an indication of the continued power of the word of Gd and His figuration of David still effective --in as much eternality as we experience --in that limited duration we call our lives. Effective enough so that David still stands as model of what to do and what to avoid, for our leaders and for ourselves, in our judgments of the world we live in today.

The poetry of Jeremiah is notable for its considerable rhetorical sophistication. This essay examines one particular speech pattern—a type of augmented double rhetorical question—that Jeremiah deploys regularly for persuasive effect. As H.L. Ginsberg and Moshe Held recognized, the roots of this figure reach back to the poetry of Bronze Age Ugarit. In its Hebrew form, the basic pattern consists of two members: the first employs the ha- prefix in clause-initial position, and the second begins with the particle 'im. During the monarchic period, however, we find a variety of transformations in this stable base pattern. Speakers routinely augment the doubled question with a third, contrasting member. Modeling this figure of speech in pragmatic terms, we may appreciate how the augmented double rhetorical question invokes points of consensus between a speaker and his audience, and then strategically violates this consensus through the contrastive citation of an inconsistent datum. The present essay contends that the form of this speech pattern attested in the Book of Jeremiah—in which the augmenting third member is introduced by the interrogative particle maddua'—is an innovative device whose function was to foster aporia. Here, the prophet also violates the discursive expectations of his audience by shifting from polar rhetorical questions to a genuine, information-seeking act of interrogation. The total effect of Jeremiah’s speech pattern is to confront his audience with their own logical inconsistencies and to demand of them an adequate informative response. Recognizing the pragmatic function of this device allows us to observe with greater sophistication the operation of Jeremiah’s rhetoric against its political and cultural background. Given its implicit dependence upon points of consensus within his audience, it also allows us to appreciate with more precision the ideological contours of the Judean late monarchy.

The scapegoat in Hebrew culture is often compared to the vicarious atonement through Jesus Christ in Christian theology. This paper will attempt to show that the idea of a vicarious atonement was a pagan superstition, widespread in Hindu and Egyptian mythology before being carried over into Jewish and then fully adopted in Christian theology. Today, the idea of a vicarious atonement still has force and influence, even though many regard it as incompatible with the idea of a loving Creator. Who but a brutal tyrant would demand the bloody sacrifice of an innocent person in order to appease his otherwise unquenchable wrath? (see Spong, Borg, Smoley, et. al).This paper will look at the sacred symbolism of the scapegoat story, touching on matters such as how sins are actually removed, what the “wilderness” or “land of separation” represents, and how an understanding of the sacred symbolism of the Hebrew Bible provides us with a new way to regard the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The shocking assertions which the prophet places in Yahweh’s mouth (Ezk 20.25-26) create an infamous and severe interpretive difficulty which has generated a variety of proposed resolutions. Torrey (1930) suggested reading vv. 23, 25 and 26 as (rhetorical) questions. The paper picks up the proposal, which never won much support, reconsidering v. 25 as either an echo question or echoic denial, both of which are widely discussed in linguistic literature and use language interpretively rather than descriptively (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995: 224-231). Language is interpretively used when it ostensively represents the propositional content of someone else’s thought or utterance (e.g., Carston 2002: 158). The paper then offers a new further proposal, namely verbal irony (see Sperber & Wilson 1981; Wilson & Sperber 1992, 1998, inter alia), adducing evidence from the text.

Nowadays people are geared primarily to the pursuit of a career and the gain of the best social status, and therefore often begin to lack the time for reflection and faith. At some point, however, there is a need to rethink the meaning of life, both our own and that of others. These desires are constantly repeated throughout history. This concept is the baseline of this paper. It shows how cultural guidelines and behaviors can influence a person’s sense of the meaning of life as well as their spirituality. The paper is based on a cross-cultural study of 172 Polish youths and 150 Norwegian youths between the ages of 19 and 23. The question of the meaning of life re-enters the world of the youth, but this time it is not related only to religion and faith in God. This follows from the fact that young people live in a world full of excitement, among them numerous incentives, attractions and information. The religion and faith of our ancestors has seemingly lost its importance and is replaced by their peers and fun. However, questions about the meaning of life sooner or later will play an important role in the life of every person. According to cultural researchers, we live in an age of postmodernism. In their opinion it is a time of cultural exhaustion, lost authorities and relative value systems. Looking at a variety of concepts it can be seen, that what in one concept is a "key", in another is "marginalized", what in one concept is "macro", is "micro" in another. These cultural standpoints are clues for understanding young people’s religious values as well as their sense of a meaning of life.

The paper deals with scholars involved in Semitic Studies at the University of Tartu in the first half of 1920s, a few years before Arthur Vööbus started his career of Biblical and Syriac scholar. In 1898 Alexander von Bulmerincq (1868-1938) who studied in both Tartu (Dorpat) and Leipzig Universities, started his teaching in Tartu. His research interests covered Semitic Studies as well as Biblical Studies and his involvement marked the flourishing of both these disciplines at the University of Tartu. He was well known by his books on Prophets Jeremiah and Malachi and also on the then newly found papyri from Aswan and Elephantine. In 1919 he became Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Studies. Being an expert in both Hebrew and Aramaic he attracted many talented students and influenced their choice of research subjects. In 1923 a Russian student, Andrey Yakovlevitch Borisov (1903-1942), entered the University of Tartu where he started his studies in Slavonic languages. At Tartu he developed another profound interest in the field of Hebrew and Aramaic literature. Being extremely good in languages, Borisov in his early years had become proficient in Hebrew, having read the Hebrew Bible, the Targumim, midrashim, etc. In Tartu it was Professor Bulmerincq who helped the gifted young man to develop his skills and deepen his interest in Semitic languages by teaching him Syriac and Arabic. In 1924 Borisov moved to Leningrad (St Petersburg) University to become a student of Professor Pavel Kokovtsov. Here he chose Hebrew-Arabic literature of Medieval Spain as the main subject of his research. During his short life he made invaluable contribution to the study of Hebrew and Arabic philosophy, Karaite manuscripts, Aramaic inscriptions and palaeography. Andrei Borisov died in 1942 of starvation and disease aged only 39 when he was evacuated along with many others from the besieged Leningrad. Thus we can see that traditions of Bulmerincq’s school of Semitic Studies at the University of Tartu were received by two outstanding scholars, Arthur Vööbus and Andrey Borisov, who creatively developed them and took to their different destinations.

Scholars such as Mathews (BTB [2003] 12) and Prinsloo (Biblica [2005] 459f.) have usefully employed the terminology “firstspace” to connote physical location, while designating spiritually abstract landscape as “secondspace.” Taking up that distinction, I argue that in both the Johannine and synoptic traditions the discovery of the empty tomb, presented as firstspace in the narrative, suggests the redemption of the secondspace of humankind’s fall. I connect with Eve the women who first come to Christ's tomb, while contrasting Christ’s cast-off burial linen with the primordial couple’s awareness of and attempt to cover their nakedness (Gen 3:7). Women arrive at the tomb first and then report their startling discovery to the male disciples. Mary Magdalene is consistently among these women, while Peter (and John), arriving later, find the grave clothes. These details contrast tellingly with the account of Adam and Eve’s fall, after which the pair immediately seeks clothing in suddenly “gendered” (second-)space (Gen 3:7; cf. Peter before Christ, John 21:7). Jesus’ having shed his burial clothing, however, represents a restored, pristine “nakedness” that sets aright Adam and Eve’s original desire for coverings (also in Thomas’ Gospel; cf. Smith, HR [1966] 227, Connick/Fossum, Vigiliae Christianae [1991] 131f.). That women first discover Christ’s empty tomb reverses Eve’s secondspace sin, for Eve first discovered the tree of knowledge and then shared it with Adam (Gen 3:6). In Eden’s paradise, a woman’s discovery and man’s sin produce death (cf. also 1Cor 15:22). In the physical firstspace of Christ’s tomb, also located in a garden, women first partake of the knowledge of the resurrection’s firstfruits (Brown, John, Anchor Bible 29A, ad 19:31-42, p.943; cf. 1Cor 15:20). As Christ’s nakedness responds to Adam’s coverings, so Mary Magdalene, who first finds the tomb empty, restores Eve’s lost sacred paradisiacal space through first-hand/firstspace knowledge of Christ’s resurrection.

Although for Luke as for the rest of the New Testament, the idea of the resurrection of the body is traditionally considered to be dominant, his gospel contains traces of some other ideas such as immortality or angelomorphic existence. This paper deals with one signi ficant episode chosen from the bulk of others to demonstrate Luke's various ideas of the afterlife: 20:27-40. Even though 20:27-40 discusses the question of the resurrection, its "afterlife language" is more appropriate to the idea of immortality with some angelomorphic features, than to bodily resurrection: the resurrected righteous become immortal like angels, they are among the children of God (a title often associated with angels), and they live "spiritually" in heaven or somewhere else, being alive to God along with the Old Testament patriarchs. Furthermore, how does this "spiritual living" correlate with the kingdom of God as an eschatological banquet where the Old Testament patriarchs and the prophets have already been participating (13:28-29), with Abraham's bosom (16:22-23), or with the blessed reality of paradise (23:43). Along with some other relevant passages, Luke 20:27-40 demonstrates the conceptual variety or even discrepancy between the ideas of the afterlife in Luke. After all, has the author had a variety of views on the afterlife in his mind or an integral picture of this subject? This paper supposes that Luke's afterlife language, images and traditions behind these images have been collected to serve as a support for Luke's exhortations and basic theological ideas, but do not present a strictly developed systematic picture of the afterlife.

This paper will place the issue of ethnic and religious intermarriage within the wider framework of migration in an attempt to reach a more sophisticated understanding of social context. A number of narratives of migration will be explored in light of the theoretical discussions concerning migration and its effects on ethnic self-identification. The intermarriage crisis in Ezra 9-10 will then be explored using the discussion concerning migration as a heuristic analytical tool.

The word dorean (a noun in the accusative case used adverbially) occurs nine times in New Testament texts (Matt 10:8[2x]; John 15:25; Rom 3:24; 2Cor 11:7; Gal 2:21; 2Thess 3:8; Rev 21:6; 22:17). In modern NT editions, it is commonly translated with one of its classical and Hellenistic Greek meanings, namely, “freely”, “gratuitously”, or “as a gift” – with the exception of Gal 2:21. In this verse, dorean is variously rendered “for nothing” (NRSV; NAB), “in vain” (KJV; NKJV), “to no purpose” (RSV). These translations camouflage the fact that a significant shift in meaning has occurred, which originated with interpretation traditions dating back to the first centuries C.E. The long practice of reading dorean in non-traditional (i.e., classical and Hellenistic Greek) ways eventually led F. Büchsel to observe, in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, that this meaning is “never found outside the LXX and NT (including the post-apostolic fathers)” and conclude that “we have here a true example of biblical Greek.” What caused dorean’s meaning to shift from denoting unearned, free, “gratis” events to events “without purpose” and, thus, produce a new linguistic category, “biblical” Greek meaning of dorean, of which there is only one instance attested? To suggest alternatives to this long-standing interpretation, this paper attempts to (1) shed light on the interpretation processes that caused the word’s meaning to shift in the post-Pauline era; (2) offer a close look at the grammar and syntax of Gal 2:21; and (3) reevaluate the meaning and function of dorean within its literary context.

In textcritical research Byzantine manuscripts are usually regarded as being of less importance, because they are relatively late and often contain only parts of the Biblical texts. To do justice to the this material it is important to take into account the own context and purpose of these manuscripts as part of a very old and still ongoing liturgical tradition. One should also realize that this liturgical embedding of the Biblical texts is more authentic than the view of modern scholars on the Bible as something on itself. At the Protestant University of Kampen an ambitious project has started to describe the field from a codico-liturgical perspective. An important source for researchers is the Byzantine liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, in which one can still find these same codex forms in use today; the forms of the printed editions closely resemble the manuscript forms. From here one can trace the tradition of those factors that contributed to forming the codices. The corpus of Byzantine manuscripts is characterized by diversity, but within this, standard codicological forms can be distinguished; those containing text items from the Greek NT or OT corpora, or both, and those containing biblical texts combined with other specific liturgical and patristic books and texts, that comment on the biblical monuments in an extremely rich and varied way. The codico-liturgical approach can redirect the study of the Byzantine manuscripts to a system of cataloguing that allows for a far more complete and inclusive picture of the state of affairs of the codex forms in which the biblical and other ecclesiastical texts were handed down to us.

In exegesis as well as in Christian theology in general, the topic of "justification" is strongly dominated by a Pauline view. But questions like "Who is justified to appear before God?" or "What does saving justice look like?" are much older and deeply rooted in ANE imagery. At least four main categories of images can be isolated: 1. Justification during an audience before Gods throne; 2. Justification through an offering for God; 3. Justification by God’s adoption of man as his proper son; 4. Justification through justice or some other virtue. – All categories are well represented in texts of the Hebrew and the Greek bible. An overview will be presented.

The mysterious 'bi-cornutus' [dhu 'l-Qarnain] - 'the two-horned' - is probably the best-known non-Scriptural [OT or NT] figure to be found in the Qur'an. Some modern Islamic scholars are uncomfortable with the alleged divine approval given in the Qur'an [xviii, 84] to 'Zulqarnain' as he is popularly called, and to his conquests. They find it hard to reconcile this with what is known of the life of Alexander the Great - the person usually identified with the shadowy ‘two-horned’ figure - and reject the identification of the Qur’anic dhu 'l-Qarnain with the Macedonian conqueror. Suggestions that the title originated with Muhammad's use in Sura xviii will be examined in the light of Samaritan references to the same figure, and of other sources much older than the 7th century AD Arabian founder of Islam.

By applying traditional procedures of diachronic textual analysis, a basic form of Psalm 89 can be shown to have been a Royal Funeral Song for Davidic kings in Jerusalem. Verses 51f – difficult to interpret – convey in their basic form the idea of someone lamenting the dead king and holding the deceased king’s heels in front of the breast. This reminds us of the way, an infant pharaoh is presented to god Anum in Egyptian depictions of the king’s creation. The idea might hence be, the lamenting act metaphorically lifted the deceased king in order to present him to the divinity. A statue of a goddess found in the tomb of Tut-Anch-Amun holds the Pharaoh exactly in a way corresponding to the restored basic form of Psalm 89:51f. The psalms poetic language may be influenced by Egyptian concepts. The Davidic king was declared God’s son in Ps 2:7 and 89:27f. After his death the deceased king may have been thought to expect a sort of beatific afterlife if the divinity took him into his realm after he was lifted up and presented to him by the lamenting voice.

In this paper I will examine a number of texts from Mari which mention divine commands/demands and diplomatic efforts between Mari and other ancient Near Eastern states. The relationship between Mari and Aleppo (Halab) and the demands by Adad of Aleppo from Zimri-Lim and the way that Yarim-Lim uses ethical demands of Adad of Aleppo in his communications with Zimri-Lim. In FM VII 8 Yarim-Lim refuses to extradite fugitives to his brother-in-law and (weaker) ally, Zimri-Lim, deferring to Adad express command. In FM VII 38 and 39 Adad commands the return of Alahtum to the crown of Aleppo. All three letters attest to the same issue: a god (Aleppo) making demands which impact a kingdom other than that in which he is the state-god. I will argue that these divine demands are an expression of the authority which Yarim-Lim claimed to have over Zimri-Lim and the kingdom of Mari. Thus, divination (and prophecy in particular) become part not only of the interior politics of the Old Babylonian period but also for peaceful foreign politics.

In their two recent commentaries on Ezekiel, Steve Tuell and Paul Joyce both argue that Ezekiel’s vision in 40–48 was not intended to be carried out in a program of restoration, nor in any re-establishment of the temple cult. Rather, the temple vision sought to protect God’s throne from defilement by keeping it in heaven, separated from the inevitable cultic abominations on earth. Among the reasons for their argument, two stand out prominently: 1) the unrealistic nature of the dimensions of the temple; and 2) the lack of a command to build the temple described in Ezekiel’s vision. The paper proposed here promises to be a positive contribution to Ezekiel scholarship, not critiquing Tuell and Joyce as much as using them as conversation partners. In this conversation, this paper will discuss the dimensions of the temple in relation to what has been seen in archaeological excavations of Iron Age sites in Israel, and to explore the command to build the temple in relation to other ancient Near Eastern epics, such as the Baal Cycle and the Enuma Elish. The thesis of this paper will be that quite to the contrary of establishing a new theology about the presence of Yahweh for the exile, Ezekiel was indeed promising a restoration of Yahweh as the Divine King over the renewed, purified nation.

"Revelation" is one of the central concepts with the help of which Islam interprets and judges the entire story of mankind and itself as a religion. While the theological terms "creator" and "creature" characterize the ontological connection between God and man, the term "revelation" represents the communicative relation of both, whereas the initiative for creation and revelation rests with God alone, while man, as the recipient, is prompted to give a positive response. From a systematic viewpoint the communicative relation between God and men can be distinguished into a prehistoric and historic dimension as to its time structure, on the one hand, and a non-verbal (emblematic) and verbal dimension with regard to its form, on the other. The Quran does not originate in an empty space with no time and reflection, quite the contrary, Muhammad finds himself in a story that provides certain narrations and characters, but how does he perceive the story and how does he interpret it? Saint Paul finds himself in a quite similar situation. The vision and audition on the Way to Damascus change his perception of history. He persecuted Christians for blasphemy, as they believed that a crucified man, i.e. a man accursed by God, was actually the Son of God. And then this man who is accursed by God becomes his Kyrios. Both the Quran and Paul interpret and receive the same tradition pertaining to the Old Testament. The Quran needs no ancient story of Israel. It is using it without ever substantially integrating it in the course of history. The story of Israel is an example of divine revelation, the story is to be understood kerygmatically. The Quran perceives the story of Israel and Jesus as the legitimation for the prophetic manner of appearance of Muhammad. After Damascus St. Paul asks himself how to be about Israel now. Israel is substantially existent and therefore has to be integrated within the salvific history. St. Paul interprets the story typologically, he interprets it in the form of the Christ event.

Since the groundbreaking work of Wilhelm Gesenius the study of the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, and especially research involving textual criticism of that version, has progressed considerably. An important step forward was achieved with the publication (by Z. Ben-H?ayyim) of the recitation of the Samaritan Pentateuch in its entirety by the members of that community in their synagogues; however, until the present we have not possessed a fully detailed picture of the Samaritan version in all its uniqueness. A new comparative diplomatic edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch aims to remedy this situation by presenting, for the first time, all the instances in which the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic text. Essential differences visibly reflected in the written text are indicated by us in bold face type, while those that cannot be seen on the printed page but are expressed only through the traditional pronunciation are both marked and discussed. Over five hundred such cases (not including grammatical differences) are adduced in this new edition. To give one illustration: ??????????? ?????????? ??? ???????? ???? ??????? ????????? MV (Num. 22:5) And he sent messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor ????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ???? SV Analysis of the Samaritan pronunciation combined with examination of other Samaritan sources leads to the conclusion that the two versions do not differ from each other merely in terms of plene / defective writing. In point of fact, the meaning of this excerpt from the Samaritan Pentateuch is actually as follows: And he sent messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor the interpreter. Note that the Vulgate takes a similar tack in translating ariolum.

Teaching in a pan-denominational seminary means that students hold different presuppositions with regards to theology and ethos of Christian ministry. The emotional aspect of “security” and “respect” therefore becomes more challenging for those subjects which churches find them challenging. In the theological context of Hong Kong, any subject carrying the word “feminist” is such, hence students who attend such courses, although motivated largely by curiosity, tend to be more anxious, cautious and resistant as well. This short presentation will like to share some of the insights on the challenges to be an “effective facilitator” when teaching a subject which carries a ‘cultural’ stigma. It includes areas of challenges not only about promoting the space of mutual respect and minimizing oppressive tendencies in lectures and class discussions, but also constructing other learning avenues to encourage and accommodate expressions of outlet.

In the Gospel of John, the prominence of female characters is striking, who are presented as active dialogue partners of Jesus, theologians, proclaiming the Messiah. If discipleship turns out to be the essential conception in the Fourth Gospel, do we find here evidence for an inclusive understanding of the term or are there nonetheless gender-related differences? Searching for elementary criteria for discipleship in the Johannine sense, the significance of the love theme comes to light, especially in the farewell discourses. Several times discipleship is connected with love in the Johannine text world (see also the triple question to Peter in John 21). Moreover, loving and being loved is related to insight and reception of revelation (cf. John 14:21.23). To put forth the question of an eventual gender differentiation: Does the explicit and implicit (on the background of intertextual comparative material) application of the love motif show a gender-typological characterization - especially as there can be detected erotic overtones in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (cf. Gen 24), Mary’s annointing, the Magdalene’s search for Jesus (cf. Cant 3:1-4)? Jesus’ role as “bridegroom” (cf. John 3) stresses his maleness. On the other side, the intimate relationship with “the disciple Jesus loved”, who reclines on his bosom, seems interesting. Which function has the erotic imagery? Which role does the body dimension play in a Gospel speaking right from the start of the incarnation of the divine logos? Is it just a matter of mystical metaphors? In several apocrypha the character of a (most) beloved disciple appears as the bearer of insight and revelation, competing with Peter, the favorite disciple of the synoptic tradition. Could this parallel concept shed light on the Gospel of John? How do constructions of “fe/maleness“ work nevertheless?

Paul’s analogy of baptism with dying and rising with Christ in Romans 6:3-4 has been a formative influence on Christian theology and liturgy. Western interpretation of these verses has overlooked the richness of the imagery. The process represented in baptism is more complex than exegesis has appreciated, and can be understood only if the funerary imagery and prevailing notions of life after death are taken into account. There has been a tendency to acquiesce in modern conceptions of death as the end of life, and consequently as lifelessness or non-existence, rather than as a distinct state of being, in a different sphere of reality. Burial has been understood as covering a corpse in a pit grave. This ignores tomb architecture in the ancient world, and the larger funeral process denoted by thaptein, of which corpse disposal is one aspect. The funeral represents and effects a transition from life in the present world to the afterlife, however the latter may have been conceived. “Burial” with Christ in baptism, therefore, represents and effects a transition in identity and mode of being, corresponding with that accomplished on behalf of the deceased through funerary rituals. Thanatos is to be understood as “afterlife”, or even “underworld”, and not merely as the end of earthly life. Just as God had raised Jesus from the abode of the dead and from among the nekroi, shades, so those united with Christ in baptism will be raised to new life. It will be argued that, if the cultural presuppositions of the ancient world are more adequately appreciated, these verses shed light not only on Paul’s conception of resurrection, but also on his conceptualisation of Christian identity as essentially corporate.

In continuation of three previous papers related to the creation narrative of Genesis 1-5 and Samaritan themes of the Pentateuch, in which I dealt with the thematic elements of "revenge and blood-guilt," "sheep without a shepherd," and "Yahweh's folly and the image of God," I will take up in this paper the inter-relationship of the themes of "brothers fighting brothers" and "the slaying the dragon." The paper will discuss how these mythic allegories as expressed in Genesis 3 and 4 are used each in their own way to epitomize the central holy war ethic of care of the stranger, expressed in Leviticus 19.

The character of the Foreign Woman is a fascinating character that has been slandered in an awful way. It is intriguing to see that women who are clever, beautiful and sexually outspoken – and, with that, powerful – are so threatening to men in the Hebrew Bible. To realize what lengths men can go to in order to control and punish women is sometimes a difficult task and a saddening read, but important if one is to try to change something about our own society. Sometimes the Bible is used in order to discriminate, and if one is to stop that, one has to appreciate the depth of the biblical texts and how diverse the interpretations can be. In this paper I focus on postcolonial and feminist theory to find a new way of interpreting the texts in Proverbs regarding the Foreign Woman. I believe that there are similar traits in how the Foreign Woman of Proverbs has come to be understood, and how women in foreign countries were perceived by colonizers during the colonial era. By using tools such as Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism, I will try to shed a new light on the link between foreignness and adultery as described in Proverbs. Said discusses how women became over- eroticized or over- sexualized in the eyes of the colonizers so as to make them easier targets, which can be translated into the texts in Proverbs. By combining all the traits that defines the Foreign Woman as Other, I will do a feminist reading of these texts that encompasses a broader understanding of Otherness, and ultimately understand how someone who is as categorically other as the Foreign Woman of Proverbs was treated in the Ancient Near East.

A world-renowned sculptor of his time, Ivan Mestrovic (1883-1962) set the Montenegrin philosopher-poet, bishop, and statesman, Peter II Petrovic Njegos in the colossal mausoleum high up at Mt. Lovcen in vicinity of Cetinje, Montenegro This paper argues that the sculptural complex, Mausoleum to Peter II Petrovic Njegos, is Ivan Mestrovic's visual reinterpretation of Philo's Moses as presented in his Life of Moses. In particular, I argue that Ivan Mestrovic uplifts the Montenegrin hero, Njegos, to South Slavic importance just as Philo successfully popularizes the Judean hero Moses to his contemporary Hellenistic audience. In visualizing Njegos as a Biblical giant, Ivan Mestrovic turns to western and eastern artistic traditions. His European education and his personal convictions in creating the ethnic and transnational identity in sculpture add the elements of Philo's interpretation of Moses sieved through the Renaissance influences of Michelangelo. Evoking recognizable, trendy imagery of both Michelangelo's Moses and St. Peter's Church in Rome, Mestrovic honors his great teacher in sculptural art. Philo's Life of Moses inspires the narrative and the style of the Mausoleum. Thus, the Montenegrin hero is carved according to archaic Greek and Egyptian conventions for divine imagery. The meditative image of Njegos with a huge falcon behind his back receiving the philosophical tract Gorski Vijenac (Garland from the Mountains) in a small Orthodox church at the top of Lovcen evokes Philo's imagery of Moses receiving the Nomos at the Holy Mountain. The exterior space, which symbolizes the 19th century Montenegro under Njegos' rule, suggests Philo's depiction of the Temple with the lawgiver Moses as the founder of the nation. Inspired by Montenegrin tradition, Ivan Mestrovic's Mausoleum to Njegos becomes an organic part of South Slavic culture just as Philo of Alexandria, inspired by his Hebrew heritage, fashions a Hellenistic image of Moses.

Despite his importance as a historical figure, despite the hundreds of studies of his life and his writings, Cotton Mather’s greatest exegetical work, the Biblia Americana, remains unpublished. Preserved in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Biblia Americana is a massive six volume commentary on the entire Protestant bible, spanning more than forty-five hundred eye-straining pages. To date, there have been few studies of this untapped treasure trove of puritan exegesis. This brief study examines Cotton Mather’s interpretation of Ezekiel in the Biblia Americana. It explores his presuppositions and practices as an interpreter, focusing in particular the visions in Ezekiel 1?3 and 40?48. The image of Mather that appears is that of a man who is driven by competing influences. Within the pages of the Biblia Americana we see an orthodox, pious puritan who is entranced by the new learning of the enlightenment but fated to follow the old hermeneutical habits of the Renaissance.

The Reed Sea or the Sea of Reeds, a concept usually associated with the theme of Israel's Exodus from Egypt, has found various interpretations all through its textual history. Interpreted as an actual physical body of water, the Reed Sea has often been identified with the Red Sea. Etymologically the name ?????? does not reference the colour red – nor has the name been historically connected with the Red Sea, the name of which in Hebrew is something else altogether (??? ?????). Recent efforts have located the Reed Sea within other water basins or lakes between Egypt and Palestine. Parallel textual materials from the ancient Near East have also suggested a mythical interpretation of the term, connecting the Reed Sea with the sea of the conflict myth. Origins of the motif of the crossing of the sea have been searched for not only in the Mesopotamian creation myths, in which the chaotic sea monster is cleaved in half, but also in the texts of ancient Ugarit, in which the storm god Baal battles the anthropomorphicized sea of the West Semitic combat myth. Whether either or both of the traditions have lent influence to the Biblical narrative, it would seem that over time they have interwoven in such a way as to make tracing specific influences impossible. Some linguistic considerations may also shed light on the conundrum of the Reed Sea. Interpreted as the ”Sea of End”, attempts have been made to find the location of the sea in the realm of mythology beyond the combat myth, such as in the supercaelian waters mentioned in some ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. The author proposes that the Hebrew term ?????? might also be translated as the ”Stormy sea”, a name which need not point to a specific geographic location at all.

Friendship is a well-known topos of the Greco-Roman world and a theme that also appears in the New Testament. The present paper examines the occurences of this topos in the Gospel of Luke and their deeper theological meaning. The Lukan passages where motifs of this topos occur are analyzed diachronically (on the level of source and redaction criticism) in order to show the prominence of this theme in the gospel. In the second part of the paper ample evidence from ancient literary and non-literary sources (inscriptions, papyri) is presented in order to reconstruct the ideological and cultural background of the Lukan passages and to offer new interpretations to some of them (e.g. the Parable of the Unjust Steward or that of the Friend at Midnight). Finally the theological purpose of these occurences will be discussed placed within the broader context of the theological programme of the third gospel.

*

Aspects of war such as the supernatural rituals and divination are the integral part of the war. How important was the role of deity in the struggles of war in the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Greece? In the Mesopotamian civilization one must ensure that the war could be considered fair. Bellum iustum was invented much earlier than its Latin name would indicate. It would seem that in the case of the aggressive attitude of the Assyrian kings to their close and distant neighbors to find such a justification. In the case of Assyria, the war was just when it was made on the instructions of the gods. Divination interprets the signs of divinity and guaranteed unfailing accuracy. The Mesopotamians believed that the gods wrote into the universe, and that is why the world could be read by those who were wise enough. The priests who dealt with the divination of entrails (barû) were a part of royal court. On the reliefs from Nimrud, ninth century BC one could see priests performing extispicy in a military camp. They used the catalogued battle omens and strategic queries, decided about strategy of war. In the case of Greek civilization it was the awareness of gods’ presence that motivated the army. The Greeks were totally helpless when taking decisions without consulting the gods. This results not from lack of ideas or creativity, but from the fact that such behavior would be ungodly and had signs of misuse of divine prerogatives (hubris). The way of communication between human and divine was sacrifice. Victims had such an important status that were sacrified by the mantis even in presence of shooting enemies with direct exposure of life. The victims were always offered when human reason posed a question and did not know the answer. Hence one read in Xenophon the advice to Chares: „And if this, what we say you have some difficulty, consult you gods by the sacrifice”.

The phenomena discussed under the blanket term “ritual” are diverse and manifold: calendrical rites, rites of passage, affliction, exchange, and communion, to mention but a few of the most common classifications. Ritual theorists have become increasingly aware that the creation of an all- encompassing theory of ritual cannot be a reasonable empirical project. Yet, the field of ritual studies provides helpful tools and perspectives for explaining the ritual world of Early Christianity and the role of ritual in the rise of the Jesus movement, although such explanations, as all explanations, are inevitably piecemeal and partial. Drawing on a study by a Danish scholar of religion, Jesper Soerensen, this paper focuses on activities documented in early Christian documents which bring about clearly defined effects in ritual patients (such as purification, healing, ecstatic speech etc. ). “Effective rituals” are then compared to various ways in which rituals can be used as a means of consolidating and transmitting shared religious beliefs, doctrines and moral values, which play a crucial role in the long-term survival of religious communities. Two possible scenarios for the development of ritual communities are hypothesized. 1) Heightened emphasis on ritual efficacy and personal motivation in the ritual life of the community leads to greater fragmentarization or to the dissolution of the group; 2) A balance between ritual efficacy and ritual routinization is sustained, for example, by means of costly demands. The hypothesis is tested against the evidence from early Christian communities.

This paper explores the role of place and space in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). References to place and space in this text are read especially against their Ancient Near Eastern background. Corporeal space (e.g. the "right eye") is investigated, as well as the spatial setting of the Sermon on the Mount and the importance of this setting for understanding elements in the discourse (e.g. the "Our Father"). Reference is also made to the greater narrative of Matthew. This paper concludes by highlighting the importance of spatial studies for understanding Biblical texts - particularly those of the New Testament.

This paper discusses Paul’s letter to the Romans as a source that reflects the impact of imperial power politics. About six years before Paul wrote his letter, Claudius had announced an expulsion of Jews from Rome. The possible consequences this expulsion had for Jews and Christians in Rome are debated, since it is unclear if expulsions were actively enforced by the state or if they were merely proclaimed. It has been argued that expulsions had no real effect, but only served to make a symbolic statement of the state’s superiority, control and protection of Roman values. However, even a symbolic statement needs some kind of effect to make it work. This paper discusses the evidence for expulsions from Rome, understanding them as acts of power politics. In this way, we get a clearer idea of their possible consequences. Whether or not actual actions are taken, conveying a particular image and making a statement of power is an important part of what makes power politics effective. In this paper, it is argued that a common discourse of foreignness and corruption underlies the descriptions of expulsions. In this way, we get a view of their symbolic value and impact. Moreover, with Paul’s letter to the Romans, we have a source written to a group in Rome which had been included in the effects of an expulsion shortly before. This paper views ethnic tensions addressed by Paul against the background of Claudius’ expulsion order of 49 AD and its impact on Jewish and non-Jewish self-definitions.

Until recently, biblical studies and studies of the written and material culture in the ancient Near East have been fragmented, governed by experts who are confined within their own distinct discipline’s methodology and framework of thinking. The consequence is that at present concepts and language are lacking for examining the interaction of textual and historical complexes. My proposal for biblical scholarship is to extend its examination of single elements by a study of the integrative structures that emerge out of the interconnectivity of the parts. Such an examination is based on detailed studies of specific relationships between data of diverse origins, while it takes language as the essential linking and expressive device. It could be called a cognitive relational approach. This approach will be clarified by some examples.

This paper explores the role of David's libido and his dark side in the Prophetic (Deuteronomic) History. Why is it that so many of David's wives were married to other men? Why is the story of David's assault on Bathsheba included when it could so easily have been excluded? Given the narrative's insistence on YHWH's selection of David as the chosen successor to Saul, why is the story of Michal's return included? Given the theme enunciated in the earlier part of Judges of the necessity of a king and given the Davidic promise in 2 Samuel 7, why are the dark stories of David included? In fact, why is the Davidic promise of 2 Samuel 7 given at all, since it had already been proven false by the time of the writing of the History? This paper explores all these questions and argues that the Prophetic History demythologizes David in favor of an eschatological understanding of the promise of the coming "Son of David."

According to the opening of Genesis 3 the snake is the craftiest being among all living creatures made by God. Nevertheless the whole eating-of-the-forbidden-fruit act cannot be hidden and results in a fitting punishment for all three players involved: the snake, the woman and the man. In this paper I will concentrate on the curse addressed to the snake as it occurs in Gen 3:15b. After a discussion of the traditional renderings and recognized difficulties in the verse, I will elaborate on the ambiguity of the words and suggest other readings based on thematic and verbal parallels elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. In conclusion I will offer a possible narratological function of the ambiguity: a literary-linguistic answer of the divine character to the serpent’s cunningness. Hence, the crafty ‘being’ par excellence is God, not the s(S)nake.

The aim of my paper is to scrutinize the autobiographical narratives of the fourth and fifth centuries, focusing on two questions: firstly, in which ways did the writers want to represent their relationship with the religious practices of their own minority and at what they seem to have aimed by these references. Secondly, I analyze these narratives in order to address the question of socialization: how much can be deduced from these texts about actual children's enculturation processes to the practices and values of the community in question. The texts I will use include John Chrysostom's De Sacerdotio, Gregory of Nazianzen's Carmen de vita sua (2.1.11) with scattered references in his orations; Theodoret of Cyrrhus's Historia religiosa esp. 9.4-8 and 13.16-18; Augustine's Confessiones; Paulinus of Pella's Eucharisticon and Libanios's oration 1 (de vita sua) - the two last mentioned as points of comparison for the ascetic bishops, the other being Christian lay man, the other non-Christian teacher of rhetoric. All the texts can be dated between mid 370's (beginning of Libanios's narrative) and c.460 (Paulinus of Pella). My paper will, thus, take part in the new discussions in the study of the history of children in late antiquity (see now Children in Late Ancient Christianity, eds. C. Horn and R. Phenix (STAC 58), Mohr Siebeck 2009) with the stress on the everyday life and with the aim, at least, to track if there are any possibilities to have a glimpse of childhood experience in antiquity.

The text-critical problem in the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark is much debated. The main question is whether the phrase “Son of God” was accidently omitted from an original or added by some scribes in order to expand the divine name or the title of the book? The disputed words are enclosed in square brackets in UBS4 and NA27. Most modern translations and commentators include the words. Several scholars, however, have argued for the shorter version of Mark 1:1. In consideration of external evidence, including items that are not acknowledged as New Testament manuscripts, as well as internal evidence, this paper will defend the longer version including the words "Son of God."

In the gospel traditions, ethical responsibility may be connected to social participation in the Kingdom of God, understood as a utopian spatial entity. As Michael Shapiro asserts, ‘all geographies are, in the last analysis, moral geographies’ (Public Culture, p. 499). What may be said about the relationship between morality and utopian space, and how does ethical responsibility before God define the space of the Kingdom? This paper will explore these questions, drawing on spatial theory alongside texts relating to the Kingdom and its moral contours.

It is no secret today that the composition and redaction history of the Book of Jeremiah is a complicated matter. The book consists of many blocks of material of which Jeremiah 21:1-24:10 is one. A suitable heading for this block of material would be: failed leadership. The concern of this paper is with this block of prophetic oracles, in particular the section in 23:9-40 concerning the false prophets. The key figure is the prophet Jeremiah, in conflict with both the kings and the prophets in the last years before the Babylonian exile. Jeremiah 23:9-40 consists of a number of oracles brought together addressing the topic of true and false prophets. A recurring theme in this section is the idea of the ‘word/s of Yahweh’. Some of the issues raised with regards to ‘the word of Yahweh’ are: who receives it, where and how it is received, what are true words, what hampers the ‘truth’ of the word and what are the consequences of false words. Another theme running almost as counterpart to the concept ‘word’ is the theme of vision/dreams. For the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on one aspect of the raging conflict between the prophetic parties addressed in Jeremiah 23:9-15. In this section the aspect of disloyalty to Yahweh is raised as hampering factor for being a true prophet. The research will investigate the relationship between doing evil (cf. words such as adultery and ungodly/profane conduct) and the effect on the land (cf. curse on the land, the land mourns, pastures drying up – 23:10-11). The research will also entertain the relationship, if any, with the next set of verses (23:13-15) which explicitly mentions the worship of Baal, the fertility god, as reason for the disloyalty.

In view of what can otherwise be said about the author of Luke-Acts, one would not necessarily suspect him of having apocalyptic inclinations. This paper will mainly be an analysis of the apocalyptic discourse in Luke 21:5-36, compared to its synoptic counterparts, but also to other apocalyptic texts where peculiar elements of Luke's apocalypse, like the "trampling" of Jerusalem (Luke 21:24) appear as well.

The book of Daniel is renowned for its diverse “final form” as preserved in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible, in which the book is bifurcated in terms of both genre and language. The concern of this paper is with the character who purports to hold this diverse collection together: the book’s namesake, Daniel himself. With the assistance of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of characterization, this paper will pose the following questions: Does the book of Daniel present a coherent character who develops as chapter succeeds chapter and visions succeed court tales? Or is the reader ultimately presented with a book of Daniels, a collage of identically-named characters with “multiple personalities” who are, in the end, incompatible? As we consider Daniel the protagonist(s), additional conversation partners will be Carol Newsom, who offers pertinent reflections regarding why the conversation between Bakhtin and biblical studies is rife with possibilities; David Valeta, who argues that the “court tales” in Daniel can be understood as participating in the Bakhtinian genre of Menippean satire; and James Scott, who offers a theoretical model of two secondary speech genres – the public transcript and the hidden transcript – which are but one small step removed from Bakhtin’s primary speech genres. In this paper, I argue that, when read in Bakhtinian perspective, this collection of monologic Daniels may point toward a polyphonic horizon for the contemporary reader. In other words, when considered within the Bakhtinian conception of “great time,” the book of Daniel can be polyphonic; when read as such, the book becomes “more than the sum of its parts,” even though each tale originally offered only one monologic answer to the urgent – and repeatedly posed – question regarding Jewish identity under foreign rule.

The given project is devoted to the linguistic reconstruction of man's image in biblical texts. The research is mainly based on the texts of King James Bible and Martin Luther Bible, but some other versions dating from the XIXth and the XXth centuries are equally added. This image is multilateral and is framed within the given description by such semantic domains as ‘life vs. death’, ‘body’, ‘emotions’, ‘character’, ‘intellect’, ‘will’, ‘faith’. The linguistic reconstruction of the Biblical man's image is possible when all the usages of the words corresponding to the above-mentioned notions are taken into consideration, mainly nouns, but also adjectives and verbs. They all serve to verbalize the biblical concept (It would be better to say the macroconcept) of man. A concept as an ideal phenomenon can never be thoroughly described, but in the course of its investigation one can achieve at least a certain degree of completion. The linguistic image of biblical man does not coincide with either generally recognized Christian ideas of man, or theologic and psychologic doctrines of man. Some components of this image are only implied or expressed indirectly. As there is no identity between the thought and the material form of its expression, it often happens in the course of repeated translations that a certain idea in the original text is completely lost or deliberately avoided. Moreover, the extent of concepts in different languages does not coincide and the wrong choice of the corresponding word in another language can cause undesirable associations or reflect the idea in question in a inadequate way. One can’t affirm that man's image in the English and German Bible is completely different, but still there can be a certain difference in the perception and even misunderstanding, especially in the domains ‘emotions’, ‘character’ and ‘intellect’. The great variety of Bible versions creates an endless number of man's images, typical of various Christian doctrines, epochs and societies. These images, revealing sometimes considerable discrepancies, may be regarded as variations of the macroconcept ‘man’ in the Bible.

In tradition, the object of the good news proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke is considered as the poor and mainly the poor, for example, "he has fulfilled the hungry with good things" (Luke 1:53), "the poor have good news preached for them" (Luke 7:22), "blessed are you who are poor" (Luke 6:20). However, compared with the other three Gospels, Luke introduced several units related to the rich and the use of possessions, some of which seem to open the door to the rich. To illustrate, Luke not only reserved the synoptic verses concerning the rich, such as the blessings and woes of the rich (6:20-26), the instruction on whom to invite to banquets (14:12-14), the parable of the great dinner (14:15-24), the rich ruler (18:18-30), but also quoted peculiar verses from his own source related to the rich, such as the Magnificat (1:47-55), Jesus' teaching at Nazareth (4:18-20), widow of Zarephath and Naamann the Syrian (4:25-27), the parable of the rich fool (12:13-21), the story of the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31), and the conversion of Zacchaeus (19:1-10). This article will attempt to explore three representative episodes in the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the great dinner (Luke 14:15-24) from source Q, the rich ruler (Luke 18:18-27) from Macan tradition, and the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) from Luke's peculiar source. Through analyzing the text in immediate context respectively and the relationship among them in broader context, the paper will point out the key theme in the Gospel of Luke presented by them: the exhortation to the rich. Combined with Luke's social world by socio-scientific approach, the paper will demonstrate how Luke redacts traditions to guide his community in Greco-Roman Empire, based on the interaction between the text and Luke's audience.

From the perspective of narrative criticism, the identity and functionality of Job’s redeemer goel is fluidly understood in the shadow of the prologue. It continually changes in the narrative flow, from friends (Habel), to heavenly beings (an angel or a personal god, Pope and Curtis), and to Job himself: the personification of Job’s cry (Clines), Job’s intercession for his friends, and Job’s unnoticeable intercession for YHWH (Balentine) which prevents YHWH from doing anything foolish (nübälâ, 42:8). YHWH is the least imaginable goel wanted by Job (pace Michel and Holman); Satan is the most probable goel unexpected by Job; and Job is the only effective goel executed by Job himself, but not for himself but for YHWH. Satan, through Job’s friends, persuades Job to confess his purported guilt (plea bargain). Job gives a counter offer to Satan to become his witness goel (a deep throat and a whistle blower of the divine council). YHWH deviates from innocence to ignorance and conceals the divine culpability for Job’s innocent-ignorant suffering. Whereas the innocent Job fails in having his goel in heaven, an informative angel (5:1; 9:33; 16:19; 33:23), YHWH succeeds in having YHWH’s goel on earth, the ignorant Job.

Harnack's seminal but controversial scholarship of Early Christianity is driven by very specific theological ideas grounded in the thought of A Ritschl. My communication will attempt to show how and why this is relevant to Harnack's interpretation of Primtive Christianity and the origins of 'Early Catholicism' . Recognising this link is crucial for an understanding of Harnack's historical ideas, but it also raises a more important question about the relationship between historical and systematic theology to which Harnack's work offers an answer that is still worth debating.

Texts tend to grow. This presupposition of biblical research can be proven on extra-biblical sources. The "great" prayer of the lifting of the hand addressed to Ishtar (Ishtar 2) is a good example. It is known from two copies from different times and places. The paper discusses both versions and the principles governing the development of this text.

The 120 cult stands from Yavneh in Philistia represent votives offered to a nearby temple. Presumably they were created in nearby workshops and brought by devotees to the deities worshiped there. The figures on the stands reflect Near Eastern (Anatolian and Levantine) antecedents mixed with Cypriot ones, creating together a courageous original. As unassuming as the execution is, the impetus came from somewhere without, not from the humble potters. The Yavneh 9th century BCE stands provide a cultural link between the late Iron Age evidence of Philistines (e.g., the Ekron Ikausu inscription and Tell Jemmeh ostraca) and their ancestors, the Sea Peoples. The stands employ Levantine images that refer to a goddess (naked female, lion, bull, tree-and-goats), while Aegean traditions surface as fine “trace-elements”. Stylistic as well as technical details provide clues about the “hands” that made the stands and about cultural identity. Based on these clues, the OT and other written sources, the worshipers who deposited these votives were Philistines, who, although by now acculturated to Levantine traditions, leaned on Aegean-derived details to refer to their goddess. Through the potter’s idiom – the Yavneh clay stands of unique shapes and mixed iconography – I argue that the Philistines of the Iron Age II held on to a specific Aegean past and retained connections with the West, and with Cyprus in particular, throughout the Iron Age.