The first and final visions of Zechariah include the Hebrew Bible’s only descriptions of horses in terms of their color. Six color and pattern words occur in Zechariah 1:8; 6:2-3; and 6:6. These color terms have long sparked debate about whether or not these horses have realistic or imaginative colors, whether ‘technical’ or ‘ordinary’ color terms are most appropriate for translating them today, and the significance of these colors for the interpretation of Zechariah’s visions. Recent genetic studies of the coat color of ancient horses prompt a new consideration of these horse coat color terms in Zechariah. This paper combines Athalya Brenner’s textual analysis of the color terms in the Hebrew Bible, Colour Terms in the Old Testament, with a list of genetically probable horse coat colors in Iron Age Israel in order to produce working translations of these terms for American audiences familiar and unfamiliar with horses. This list of genetically probable horse coat colors results from the integration of David Anthony’s 2007 magisterial study of the initial domestication of horses and the subsequent spread of domesticated horses throughout Eurasia, The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, with Arne Ludwig et al’s 2011 genetic study of horse coat color in the ancient world, “Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication.” Evaluating current genetic analyses of ancient horse coat colors in light of the broader use of color terms in the Hebrew Bible produces translations of these color terms that are as precise as possible given current genetic evidence, sensitive to the contours of the source and target languages, and best suited for modern target audiences. Because modern experience with and vocabulary for horses varies, this paper suggests translations aimed at two contemporary target audiences, Americans familiar with horses and Americans unfamiliar with horses. This study also reveals that the horses in Zechariah most likely possessed realistic colors and that these colors contribute to meaning of the imagery in Zechariah’s visions.

The Bible, almost everyone admits, is an essential yet a problematic source when it comes to understanding the history of ancient Israel. Its problems multiply, moreover, the further one moves from the context the biblical writers represent: the culture of male scribal, priestly, and prophetic elites who are primarily denizens of urban locales, most predominantly the Southern Kingdom’s capital city of Jerusalem. For those interested in the religious history of ancient Israel, in all its diversity, the Bible’s almost exclusive focus on Jerusalem, and its temple-centered environment, complicates matters even more. How, then, to write a description of women’s religious lives and experiences in ancient Israel? This paper examines various strategies scholars have used, both in reading the biblical text and in going beyond it, in order to overcome the Bible’s deficiencies.

The question of the social standing for scribes in the late Second Temple period continues to generate much interest. Who were these individuals, and how much leverage did they have in the society? To what institutional structures (e.g., the priestly establishment) were scribes bound, and what do extant sources reveal about their financial possibilities? This paper will address such questions, with special attention to Ben Sira. Such passages as Sir 8:8-9; 33:19; 39:1-5; and 51:23 merit attention in this regard. Our discussion will explore the implications of Ben Sira’s claims about the scribe’s possibilities for social advancement in light of the socioeconomic context of Judea under the Ptolemies and Seleucids. This paper will seek to demonstrate that Ben Sira operated as an independent scribal figure whose work involved honoring the priestly class and any wealthy benefactors, while also demonstrating faithfulness to the social justice aspects of the Torah. Since many scribes plied their trade on a freelance basis, their reputation involved a delicate balancing act of interacting with elite persons while acknowledging the ethical demands of their tradition. This paper will argue that Ben Sira’s trenchant critique of financial improprieties is an earnest, daring move for a scribe of his station that deserves more attention in terms of understanding his social position. In considering this question of social status for the scribe, the paper will also address the background for other notable texts from this larger period, particularly Daniel and portions of the Enochic corpus. The assumption that these are the products of “dissident” scribes whose vision led them to withdraw in certain respects from establishment circles demands reevaluation in light of recent scholarship.

This is a fragmentary 4th century manuscript, parts of which are divided between various libraries in Europe. It is one of the earliest manuscripts containing parts of 1 Samuel. Nevertheless, it shows some corrections and additions according to the Hebrew text, which has puzzled the scholars who have dealt with this manuscript before. Although just a fragment, 845 is an important witness throwing light on the early textual history of the Septuagint.

Scholars of Rabbinic literature have long noted the unusual character of one particular tractate in the foundational Jewish legal code of the Mishnah, called tractate Tamid, which differs linguistically, topically, and structurally from the rest of the Mishnah. I would like to posit that its differences ought to be traced to its origins in priestly circles. What is missing from present scholarship and the lacuna I hope to fill, is a study of Tamid as a priestly document. Drawing on Jonathan Klawans’s and Mary Douglas’s scholarship on priests and purity, I intend to reconstruct the thinking that framed the sacrificial practices of the priests in the Temple from their own perspective rather than through polemical views presented elsewhere in Rabbinic literature. I argue that tractate Tamid sheds light on the priestly theory of sacrifice, on the temple, on the priests’ own self-conception, on Jewish ideals in the late Second Temple period, and finally on the project of the creation of the Mishnah. In short, I will demonstrate that the vision of sacrifice in Tamid invokes imitatio dei and imitation of Abraham. My analysis contributes to larger questions about Jewish society and leadership after the temple’s destruction. Contemporary scholars privilege models of conflict, competition or replacement in explaining the rise of the Rabbinic movement: although the Mishnah faithfully documents the cult in the ancient Temple, its very redaction under Judah haNasi demonstrates that the Rabbis have superseded the priests after the destruction of the temple and will now lead Jewish life in Palestine. My reading of the evidence suggests that a different paradigm is possible, one which reconciles and upholds both the significance of the social hierarchies the Torah imparts and the merits of Rabbinic Torah learning.

Inscriptions have played second fiddle to papyri in the study of Septuagint vocabulary. Undoubtedly the papyri have provided a rich field, and one that still requires further exploration, and remain the closest in terms of register to the Septuagint. Nevertheless, the inscriptions remain important, as Deissmann had himself recognized but was prevented by time from devoting effort to their exploration. This paper will examine the contribution inscriptions can make, especially as they offer a far larger database of words, a broader geographical scope and different registers from papyri. It will trace the use of inscriptions in Septuagint lexicography and illustrate with examples the sorts of insights that can be made through the incorporation of epigraphic data.

ABSTRACT Philo of Alexandria didn’t use lofty words and impressive thoughts to comment De Decalogo. But, as Nikiprowetzky asserts, philosophy and rhetoric can be remotely felt in its background. Philosophy shapes the thoughts that give his commentaries substance, and rhetoric shapes the harmony and power of their expression. For him, Philo’s style was often admirable. And it wasn’t just a question of eloquence or style. As I will show in this paper, Philo creatively used forms of argumentation as practiced in the progymnasmata and fixed in the Greek textbooks of prose composition and rhetoric, namely those related with thematic elaboration. Exploring the argumentative texture of De Decalogo in its multiple kinds of logical and qualitative reasoning, I found rhetorical coherence and effectiveness in the discourse as a whole and in the particular units that compose it. My critical analysis brought to the surface types of argumentative topics and structures which sustain my conviction that the essence of true rhetoric is pervasive in Philo; a learned process of argumentation that is more than a taxonomy of linguistic devices and persuasive strategies.

It is widely acknowledged by modern commentators that Zechariah's horse visions (Zech 1.8; 6.1-5) are incohesive in terms of number and colours of horses. Scholars (esp. Meyers and Meyers) often turn to textual emendation to make sense of the rutted texture of Zechariah’s visionary discourse. This perceived inconsistency was also acutely noted by ancient readers and afforded ample exegetical attention. This perception is preserved in the various ways that the scribes who produced Zechariah's ancient versions (OG/LXX and Targum Jonathan) created greater lexical and numerical consistency between these passages. This co-referential reading of logically similar visions is also preserved in an early Christian visionary text—Revelation 6.1-8—wherein the author greatly expands the purview of Zechariah’s visions but retains evidence of a careful reading of Zech 1.8; 6.1-5. The purpose of this essay is to examine the exegetical procedures by which these ancient scribes/authors created greater coherence between Zechariah's horse visions and the underlying strategy of reading that motivated the impulse to rework these passages. This goal is accomplished by analysing the extant textual evidence witnessed in the OG/LXX, Targumim, and the book of Revelation and, secondarily, by describing the exegetical processes by which these scribes/authors reworked the text of Zech 1.8; 6.1-5.

In a number of studies J. Neusner has demonstrated how the key distinguishing feature of the Pharisees was their exclusive table-fellowship. In order to uphold the laws of what was originally Levitical purity in relation to food in everyday-life, the sectarians organized societies so that their members could share their meals at an uncontaminated table and thus maintain their ritual purity. In Neusner’s words, a Pharisee, “…ate only with other Pharisees…” While this depiction has been generally acknowledged, its perhaps most interesting implication does not appear to have been realized: If the Pharisees ate only with other Pharisees, then how come the Gospel of Luke tell of them inviting Jesus to share their table-fellowship on three occasions (Luke 7:36–50; 11:37–54; 14:1–24)? Was Jesus perhaps also a Pharisee, or are these traditions more the result of Luke’s fascination with meals combined with his positive predisposal towards the Pharisees? This paper explores these issues and argues with reference to non-Lukan traditions in which Jesus is expected to follow Pharisaic legislation (Mark 2:13-17; 7:1-23, par.) that the most natural conclusion to draw is that Jesus was indeed considered a Pharisee. This adds a much needed praxis-oriented dimension to the long noted theological similarities between Jesus and the “first philosophy”, and thus goes some way in establishing a factional affiliation on behalf of Jesus.

This paper investigates the nature of famine and food shortage in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern texts. For, while Peter Garnsey addressed the problematic of food shortage for classical antiquity some 25 years ago, little comparable work on the ancient Near East or the Hebrew Bible exists. This study seeks to address the desideratum, discussing the depictions of the causes and experiences of food shortage in biblical texts and the surrounding cultures. Significantly, numerous Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and West Semitic sources link agricultural abundance with political success. Accordingly, this paper considers the extent to which biblical and extra-biblical sources depict shortage and famine in terms of political failure.

The opposition of stereotypical figures like the fool and the wise, the wicked and the righteous is a well-known scheme to approach human behaviour in wisdom literature. The opposition between the wicked and the righteous also permeates the first chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon. In this paper, I will show that the characteristics that mark off the wicked against the righteous in Wisdom 1-5 appear again in the description of the worshippers of idols in chapters 12-15. Thus, the idol worshippers are modelled on the wicked. The contrast of the wicked and the righteous in the Wisdom of Solomon is based on the antithetical description of human types as found in the book of Proverbs. In later wisdom, the wicked coincides with the fool, as can be seen in the Septuagint of Proverbs. The description of the idol worshippers in the Wisdom of Solomon presupposes that foolishness and impiety have become related, and applies the scheme of the wicked/fool as opposed to the righteous/wise to idol worshippers. Drawing on results of my discourse analytical study on idol polemics, I will show that this development stands in a line which can be traced back to the Letter of Aristeas, Jeremiah 10 and Second Isaiah. This exploration will reveal that the antithetical sapiential scheme proves highly adaptable to issues which were not traditionally dealt with in wisdom literature. Wisdom 12-15 transforms it into a powerful tool to turn all of humankind – except for the worshippers of the biblical god – into wicked fools.

When exploring the reception of Obadiah, the question of the historical setting and context of the prophet is one of the more striking issues that one encounters. While contemporary scholarship, with almost complete unanimity, places the book in the exilic or post-exilic periods, this has not been the assumed setting for readers and hearers throughout history. Indeed, pre-modern readers often understood the book to be pre-exilic in setting, either because of canonical resonances with the Obadiah found in 1 Kings, or because of the book’s placement in the early part of the Book of the Twelve. Not surprisingly, it was with the Reformation and the rise of more historically-interested readings of the Bible that the shift toward an exilic reading became commonplace, a reading strategy that has held sway down to the present day. Meanwhile, the visual representations of the prophet and the book also demonstrate the complexity of situating Obadiah, at times following a strikingly similar trajectory to that found in written exegesis. This paper will thus look to Obadiah’s reception history, outlining some of the significant developments in the attempt to situate Obadiah in particular settings and contexts, and, using a variety of images, tracing how the visual depiction of the prophet can be seen to both cohere and diverge from written exegesis on this shortest of prophetic texts.

The history of one of the earliest Judeo-Christian communities, the one behind the Synoptic Source Q, has long been a subject of scholarly inquiry. That there was some form of a communal experience, a Q group, appears in little doubt: the reconstructed document’s compositional stages feature both an optimistic vision of a missionary outreach and a bitter reaction to the hostility and ridicule with which these missionaries were met. But while the Q studies have largely focused on the group’s travails, little attention has been paid to the possible origin of these early followers of Jesus. This paper will highlight and examine a number of theological parallels between the Q group’s beliefs and worldview and those of the followers of Enoch, especially as these views are reflected in the Book of Parables and in Jubilees. It will show that the branch of early Judeo-Christianity represented by the Synoptic Source appears to have been strongly influenced by some of the Enochic ideas. It will argue that this influence proved to be particularly instrumental in the formation of the Q group’s christology, demonology, and self-identity as an apocalyptic community of elect. Based on this evidence, it will finally propose that at least at one of its formative stages the Q group is likely to have actively interacted with the Enochic movement.

This paper seeks to address the way in which Systematic Theologians engage the Book of Job when constructing their doctrines, particularly concerning innocent suffering, God’s justice, retributive theology, and disinterested righteousness. In order to assess the relationship, twelve more recent systematic theology volumes were cataloged in three ways. The scripture indexes of the various volumes were consulted in order to see which chapters of Job were being referenced heavily and which were not. The scripture indexes were next consulted to see which characters were most often quoted in support of the theologian’s theology. Finally, each scripture index reference was looked up within the volume, in order to ascertain what topic the reference was being used to address, which doctrine it was used to support, and if it had any relevance to the reference’s contextual meaning in the book of Job. Several surprising observations emerged from this study. A disproportionately large number of references came from the introduction and conclusion of the book rather than the middle, and addressed a number of topics that have little to do with the focus of the book. The references to the middle of the book also often did not address the same topics as the texts within which they were found. Many of these citations were made without any recognition of their surrounding context, as many of them actually belonged to arguments that contradicted the way in which they were used by the Systematic Theologian, or were found within an argument that the book of Job later declared false. The paper concludes by discussing four major theological topics that do emerge from a careful study of the book of Job and asks why they have not been allowed to inform the doctrines of Systematic Theology.

The conception of human life as a series of status incumbencies acquired through various limina of passage has served as a theoretical framework within which to view the socio–symbolic dimensions of the biblical materials in general and Israel’s wisdom literature in particular. While various studies focus on the liminal phase within rites de passage in order to illuminate the Sitz im Leben or Weltanschauung of the sapiential materials, few have explored the powers attributed to individuals within this transitional state. In view of this lacuna, this paper explores the degree to which Victor Turner’s discussion of power vested in liminal individuals may serve as a heuristic guide for understanding the social and ritual dynamics of the Joban dialogue. The study will consist of three parts. The first will summarize Turner’s conception of the powers of the weak; the second will give particular attention to Job’s liminal status, while the third will consider the way in which the powers of the weak are employed in Job’s discourses. In so doing, this study attempts to enhance the ritual dimensions of the Joban dialogue as well as the conceptual world of the individual parties in the debate.

Ta’yīd al-milla [The Fortification of the Faith] is an Arabic polemic against the Jews written in 1361 by an Aragonese Mudejar. This work was later adapted into aljamiado and was read until the 17th century by the Iberian Muslims converted to Christianity. One central element of Ta’yīd is the author’s approach to the Bible: its authenticity is not debated but he rather pleads for an alternative reading that prefigures and affirms Islam. Here I will suggest that the uses of the Bible in this work are a novelty in the context of anti-Jewish Muslim polemics in the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb but that, nevertheless, these are consistent with attitudes found in other Muslim authors alongside the Mediterranean. My analysis points toward an oriental origin of the sources of Ta’yīd and calls attention towards the importance of the Bible when constructing and defending the Muslim identity in the middle Ages.

When biblical cities civic centers are compared with the Greco Roman cities, an important difference singles out. While the civic center, whether it is the Greek Agora or the Roman forum, was always in the physical center of the city, the biblical civic center is located at the gate, the edge of the city, far removed from its physical center. What would be the reason for this? Why would people do their businesses at the liminal portion of the city and not in the midst of it? Moreover, when researching the origin of the Iron Age city gates in the Levant, it becomes apparent that they did not evolve from the Middle Bronze predecessors. The Iron Age city gates looked totally different and had different functions. Furthermore, when analyzing the attitude of ancient sources to the city we discover an interesting compliance. The Hebrew Bible is by and large negative to the city. Cities were founded in sin. The founder of the first city was none other but Cain the forefather of all criminals. Most prophets condemn the city dwellers and accuse them with corruption. Isaiah calls to leave the city go back to the desert and start all over again. Jeremiah wished to be lodging in the desert “For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors”. (Jeremiah 9: 1-2 [NRSV]). Amos condemns the city dwellers of Samaria: “you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, “Bring something to drink!” (Amos 4:1 [NRSV]). The NT is no different. Jesus refrained from entering any city except for Jerusalem. But on the other hand, the LXX written in a city and aimed to city dwellers conveys a different attitude to the city and so were the Greek philosophers who maintained that they could not function outside the city. So what was there in the Biblical city that was so negative? This paper attempts to answer this question by looking at the physical remains of the city and by applying cognitive archaeology to the finds. Archaeological surveys indicate a situation similar to the textual evidence. Most Israelites did not dwell in cities. It seems therefore that the cities with their formidable fortifications were viewed as a threat. Most people wished to avoid the city centers and to carry out their businesses at the gates of the cities rather than the core of the city. This was not the first time in the history of the Southern Levant that animosity and fear of city dwellers is encountered. The population of the majestic cities of the Middle Bronze Age, dwindled during the Late Bronze Age as a growing number of dissidents left the cities to live in the country. This disposition was ubiquitous all over the Ancient Near East and is known as the phenomenon of Habiru and Apiru.

Ephesians 2:1-10 is replete with dramatic language. Given the oral nature of letter sending and receiving in the ancient world, the audience or congregation would have deftly employed visualizing techniques borrowed from the theatre. Greek theatre was the single most effective conduit of culture, philosophy, and religion in the Hellenized world. Therefore, an audience familiar with receiving education through drama would have heard the terms and descriptions in the Letter to the Ephesians and visualized contemporary “special effects” seen, heard, and discussed in regard to the theatre. The most influential and innovative playwright of the Greek world being Euripides, it is a reasonable assumption that the author of Ephesians would have been educated in the literary and dramatic plot devices used in Euripidean plays. Upon establishing the importance in the Greco-Roman world of theatre in general and Euripides in particular, this paper will evaluate the general dramatic technique of peripeteia and the more specific device of deus ex machina used in Euripides plays Medea and Alcestis, then demonstrating how the same devices function in the drama of Ephesians 2:1-10. In general, the writer of Ephesians employs the Greek literary device peripeteia, which implies a sudden reversal of fortune for the hero of the narrative. Specifically, the writer utilizes the theatrical device deus ex machina, which would conjure the image of a god descending by use of a crane/pulley into the drama, performing a divine intervention in the progression of the narrative. This demonstrates the writer of Ephesians’ intentional use of culture and literature in order to convey weighty theological concepts to the recipients.

Traditionally, the EOTC holds that its canon of Scripture comprises eighty-one books of the Old and New Testament. However, which books comprise this list remains obscure and the very little research executed so far on the topic is both insufficient and misleading. This paper critically investigates if there has ever been a closed canon in the EOTC. It further critically engages with the notion and concept of the term “canon” and Scripture. The study focuses on the history of reception, collection, translation, and transmission of Scriptures in the Ethiopian church. Methodologically, this study applies both library readings and fieldwork and the main tool employed in collecting data is qualitative interviews. In addition, insights from Ethiopian literature are used. Finally, the study tries to prove that not only the canon of the EOTC, but also its concept in this church is very loose; and it is possible to conclude that the canon of the EOTC is neither open nor closed.

Although the translation of Eph 6:16 is fairly straightforward, its interpretation is not. It has been a common practice among New Testament scholars to read this verse in light of parallels with the Old Testament and Qumran on the one hand or of parallels with Hellenistic moral philosophy on the other. In contrast, this paper presents an alternative way of reading Eph 6:16 by examining the verse in the context of ancient rhetorical invective and of the ancient social values that informed that invective. It aims to show that what is important is not what the missiles represent, but the fact that a worthless scoundrel (a p??????) uses missile weapons (ß???). As evidence of my thesis, I will make five points: (1) the author draws on the conventions of slander in the Greco-Roman world in his description of the Devil as a p?????? who uses missile weapons; (2) the title of the adversary as a p?????? is derived from a demagogic topos and carries negative social, personal, and moral connotations; (3) missile weapons were believed to be shameful because of their ineffectiveness, their conflict with close-order battle, and their association with women and barbarians; (4) the “burning” condition of the missiles metaphorically connects the p?????? label and the missiles to the Devil; and (5) the author uses this invective language to diminish the stature of the Devil and to position him appropriately in his cosmic hierarchy.

This paper examines an important text not discussed in Andrew Gregory's influential monograph, The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period before Irenaeus. In Haer. 1.30, Irenaeus summarizes the mythological system of an early gnostic sect—unnamed by Irenaeus but later known as Sethians or Ophites. Their account begins with a rewritten version of the primeval history of Gen 1-11 that has been adapted to gnostic mythology. Then, after briefly summarizing the rest of the OT, it presents a gnosticized version of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For each of these phases of the gospel narrative, the gnostic account uses material that is either drawn from Lukan redaction or otherwise unique to Luke’s Gospel. This account, which Irenaeus attributes to a pre-Valentinian source, therefore constitutes one of the earliest instances of the reception of Luke. This conclusion has implications for both the state of Luke’s text and the status of Luke’s Gospel and in the early second century. The use of material from Luke 1-2 debunks modern proposals that these chapters were added to the Third Gospel in response to either Gnosticism or Marcion. Moreover, the genre of the account is best characterized as “rewritten Bible.” Rather than rejecting the OT or Luke, the gnostic account retells and reinterprets the stories according to gnostic mythology. The rewritten narrative moves seamlessly from the OT to Luke as if the gospel events were simply part of the OT story. This is a strong indication that these early second-century gnostics presupposed Luke's Gospel to have same authoritative status as that of the OT books. Indeed, they find support for some key gnostic doctrines in the details of Luke’s text.

This essay surveys some of the major issues involved in using texts from the corpus of Plutarch’s works to shed light on the New Testament and other early Christian literature. Despite the fact that a central preoccupation of scholars concerned with the historical, social, cultural, and linguistic contexts of the New Testament is to search for relevant parallels in ancient literature, the theory and method involved in making such comparisons requires careful discussion and clarification. One major advantage for investigating Plutarch’s corpus is the fact that the author lived from ca. 50-120 CE, the period when nearly all the books of the New Testament were written. Some of the more obvious problems involved in making such comparisons include: (1) the relative unity of Plutarch’s writings compared with diversity, multiple authorship, and geographical spread of early Christian literature; (2) Plutarch as a member of the literary culture of the upper class writes in a high linguistic register (Hochliteratur), compared with the generally lower class origins of most early Christian authors who wrote in a correspondingly lower linguistic register (Kleinliteratur); (3) the tendency among some New Testament scholars to cherry pick parallels between Plutarch and early Christian literature, disregarding the contextual integrity and structure of Plutarch’s thought; and (4) the even more widespread tendency for readers who use such collections of parallels with little knowledge of Plutarch’s works to study such collections of parallels only in excerpt form. Another important issue is the format chosen for presenting literary parallels, i.e., they can be listed in the order in which they occur in the New Testament with little or no comment or explanation (as in the enormous collections of parallels assembled by J. J. Wettstein, Paul Billerbeck), and the Neuer Wettstein), making it easier to misuse them or they can be presented and interpreted in a more explanatory and discursive form providing more guidance in how they should be understood.

The relationship between economics, health care, and ecology has received little attention in explanations for the vitality or demise of ancient Near Eastern civilizations. By applying theories derived from medical anthropology, which views health care as a system of options and resources for maintaining or restoring health in any community, this paper will provide some examples of how health care impacts both ecology and economics in ancient Near Eastern societies. In particular, it will focus on data from lists of animals, plants, and minerals needed to conduct certain magical healing rituals in Hittite Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and ancient Hebrew texts. Some of those rituals may have impacted the availability of food resources because they re-directed those food resources to health care needs and to temples. Other rituals may have stressed the environment by requiring the killing of animals for components in healing rituals. An analogy today is the hunting of bears for their gall bladders which are believed to have healing properties. Such killings, when done on larger scales, may have upset ecological balances. We explore the methodological problems such questions raise, and also the possible future directions for detecting links among health care, economics, and ecology.

The Egyptian sojourn and the Lord’s deliverance out of slavery plays a significant part in the framing and shaping of the Law as it is laid out in the Pentateuch. Historical critical issues abound and will be addressed but, as the text stands, this point is essential to our understanding of the nature of the Law. As is well-known, the most inclusive frame extends from Exodus 19 through Deuteronomy 26, from the beginning at Sinai to the end of the Law as expounded in Moab (cf. Exod 19:4 with Deut 26:5-10, the “credo”; and also segullah “treasured possession” and “holy nation [gôy]/people [?am]” in Exod 19:5-6 with Deut 26:18, 19; as well as “just as he spoke [to you]” in Deut 26:18, 19, referring back to Exodus 19:5-6). Similarly, the “ten words” begin with “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Exod 20:2) and, unlike any other ANE law collection, after the cultic introduction (Exod 20:22-26), the regulations in the Book of the Covenant begin with Hebrew debt slave law (Exod 21:2-11). What is not so well-recognized is that, first, the same theme frames the second major unit of the Book of the Covenant with resident alien protections (since they were resident aliens in Egypt; cf. Exod 22:20 with 23:9, and note the MT break between 22:19 and 20), after which comes the sabbatical year and cultic conclusion in Exodus 23:10-19. Second, the Egyptian sojourn and slavery comes to the forefront in the conclusion to the Law as it is given at Sinai overall. There are other units of law spread through Numbers, of course, but Leviticus 26 closes off the main presentation of the Law at Sinai with the blessings and curses, followed by the colophon at the very end: “These are the decrees and the judgments and the instructions which the Lord established between himself and the Israelites at Sinai by the hand of Moses” (Lev 26:46; cf. 27:34). In this regard, Leviticus 25 concludes the Sinai laws, and it does so at the very end with an emphasis on Hebrew debt slave law (Lev 25:39-43, 47-54) comparable to that at the beginning of the Book of the Covenant (see above). The final verse reads, “the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God” (Lev 25:55).

I shall suggest that the central theme that intertwines the narratives is the tension between otherness and belonging, and this is the observation tower from whose window the narrative horizon can be defined. The motif of otherness features in different facets, but is most salient through the figure of the main protagonist in each work. Ruth and Esther are described as utterly foreign figures within the environments in which the narrative situates them. This is so from both an ethnic perspective – the woman arrives from a different culture, and she must do her best to integrate into local society—and from the perspective of gender – the woman must navigate through a masculine world and deal with the difficulties that hinder her and her abilities to influence and take action. Both works, then, describe one woman’s journey to overcome the many definitions of otherness that enclose and surround her. Ruth must deal with ethnic, gender and social otherness, and, in a different way, Esther too must deal with ethnic, gender and social otherness. There is one important difference, which is the Jewish people’s position in relation to the motif of “otherness.” From the perspective of the Jewish people, the challenge presented in each work is diametrically opposed to the other. In the book of Ruth, the Jewish people is the majority, dwelling in its homeland, as Ruth the Moabite stands on the outside and seeks entry; while in the book of Esther, the Jewish people is a minority, dwelling within a vast foreign culture, far from its homeland and fighting for its existence and identity, so that Esther is a symbol of the Jewish people in their feminine otherness. The challenge in the book of Ruth, then, is whether to accept and accommodate the foreign woman, wherein this question relates directly to the issue of constructing and conserving national identity; and the challenge in the book of Esther is how a nation can preserve and retain a separate identity when it has become the minority, without endangering its very existence. Through the otherness of these women, the question of identity emerges in full force and is weighed from both the inside and the outside – to the point that it can be argued that Ruth and Esther are no longer the main protagonists of their stories. A new character materializes from the intermeshed narratives, and it is the identity of the Jewish people—how it is constructed, how it is threatened, and how it is preserved. Thus the two narratives complement each other, for they describe two alternate realities. Reading the two works together allows for extensive discussion about the issue of identity, from both sides of the coin. Both alternate states of existence were relevant, accurate representations of the Jewish nation’s bifurcated reality at the time of their writing, and have continued to reflect their dichotomous existence over the generations, thus constituting two alternate explorations of how a nation maintains its existence.

Through a comparison with various biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, from Hatti, Ugarit, and Mesopotamia – some have just recently been published – the paper argues that the extant text of Job 26:7-13 represents an inverted order of a cosmogonic myth, identical to Proverbs 8:27-29, Psalms 89:10-13 and 74:13-14. Not having been recognized as such, Job 26 has rarely been discussed in reviews of Israelite cosmogony or adduced as proof that no link between theomachy and cosmogony existed in ancient Israelite traditions. The proposed original order not only explains the text’s composition but also reveals the existence of a unique and previously unrecognized element of the Israelite cosmogony: the motif of the creation of Mount ?aphon. Naming ?aphon rather than Zion or another Israelite sacred site, suggests that this cosmogonic mythologem – although not attested in Ugarit – was common in Canaan prior to the establishment of the Israelite kingdoms. According to this cosmogony, the culmination of the local ancient story of combat between the Storm-god and the Sea was not only the erection of the storm-god’s abode, but also the creation of its site, Mount ?aphon.

How much authority does a dependent text vest in its precursor by the simple act of reference, allusion, or citation? Many scholars, including this one, have long observed the literary dependence of Deuteronomy on the non-Priestly narrative in Exodus-Numbers; less frequently examined, however, is the question of what sort of knowledge of the preexisting narrative the author(s) of Deuteronomy imagine, or require. How familiar with these texts is the imagined audience - or, methodologically speaking, how familiar must we assume an audience be when evaluating such references?

Book Discussion of the T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament

As discussed in previous meetings of this group, the ability to hear a language is critical for fluent reading. If our students cannot process Hebrew aurally as they read, they will not be able to store enough in their working memory to absorb a written text in natural chunks. As language teachers, our task is to provide our students with the aural input necessary for developing fluent reading skills. How then can we best infuse our classrooms with grammatically authentic Biblical Hebrew (BH) speech, and what sort of conversational activities are appropriate in the context of a language classroom thousands of years removed from the biblical text? These questions arise out of our experience teaching the “Intensive Biblical Hebrew” course (6 class hrs/wk) at the University of Texas, which we are modeling after our department’s highly successful modern Arabic program. In this system, grammar is presented and reinforced with written and online exercises at home, and class time is devoted to activation of the language through spoken engagement with instructors, classmates, and authentic texts. Our search for authentic sources of spoken BH has led us to the dialogue sections of the biblical text as ideal places for both students and instructors to begin developing oral proficiency. Practical conversation is easier to interact with than narrative prose. It is a natural starting-point for language learning, and there is plenty of authentic biblical material from which to draw in taking such an approach. Simple conversational tasks for building spoken proficiency can draw on specific biblical texts as model dialogues for students to imitate, enacting situations such as meeting a stranger on a journey (Judg 19.17–20), finding out where someone lives (2 Sam 16.3), or finding someone/something in a city (1 Sam 9.13). Since much of the modern world cannot be authentically discussed in BH, re-enacting ancient scenarios such as “coming before the king with a request” (1 Kgs 2.20–24; 2 Sam 14.4ff) gives students the chance not only to role-play in dialogue, but also to explore the linguistic peculiarities of such a meeting in BH. In short, the situational contexts of specific dialogues in the biblical text dictate the setting for conversational activities conducted in class. Immersion in direct speech and dialogue at the beginning stages of a BH course provides students with critical aural input and, just as significantly, gives them the confidence to produce the language themselves. This in turn paves the way for in-Hebrew discussion of narrative BH texts, a conversational activity which is a key tool for strengthening active comprehension. Such conversations enable students to develop a much deeper understanding of the texts and equip them more completely to dive into the biblical material on their own.

With the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the shift in social and political power led to a change in power relations between Christians and Jews in Late Antiquity, with increasing instances of violence against Jews particularly through the destruction and appropriation of religious buildings. Despite imperial law that forbade the building of new synagogues and even specified that they would be automatically transformed into Christian churches, Jews continued to build synagogues in Late Antiquity, some of which remained in use for centuries. Not only that, but they built even larger and more elaborate synagogues than ever before. I argue that the emergence of monumental synagogue buildings in Late Antiquity in both Israel and the Diaspora was a form of non-written narrative of empowerment used to reinforce communal identity in the face of increasing aggression and violence and the loss of communal autonomy.

The Jewish tradition of Kabbalat Shabbat, literally, “receiving Shabbat”, incorporates the special Friday sundown synagogue liturgy and festive home meal customs developed by the Kabbalists of sixteenth century Safed. These traditions infuse the beginning of the sacred day with celestial imagery and vivid human experiences of love and companionship among family and friends at the festive dinner table. The liturgy of psalms and special piyyutim (liturgical poems) immerses worshippers in mystical imagery of divine energy and wisdom in the human world, while the combination of liturgy and dinner-table customs, reminds celebrants that they both re-enact and honor the Creator’s seventh day rest as they greet the Sabbath. Indeed, the Kabbalistic tradition holds that human Sabbath observance actually affects the dynamics within the godhead. The unity of the godhead, and the unity of humankind with the divine comprise central themes in the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgies and the kabbalistic thought from which they spring. These unities are often symbolized by the image of man and wife united in love. Today, however, in the era that has seen the dating of the Big Bang, that has developed a physical understanding of the unity of all matter, the current cosmological model presents an expanded vision of the unity of all matter and creative force. This paper and its accompanying slide presentation will explore the process and problems in developing an original illuminated manuscript interpreting the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgy and traditions according to both the classical Safed Kabbalistic metaphors and the current physical understanding of the unity of all matter.

Is the Qur’an an oral document, not merely transmitted orally but generated orally? The classic work exploring oral composition was that of Parry and Lord, who demonstrated that formulaic diction is one key indicator of creation-in-performance. Their theories have been applied to hundreds of traditions and in 2003, folklorist Alan Dundes argued that their model of oral-formulaic composition applies to the Qur’an, which is replete with formulaic phraseology. His work was much criticised, chiefly because he worked from an English concordance. But was Dundes’ work dismissed too quickly? Historically, the Qur’an is certainly located in an oral strata. Immediately before, much of pre-Islamic poetry appears to have been composed in performance. Whilst after the Qur’an, oral preachers, the qu??as, played a formative role in shaping the Islamic tradition. So what about the Qur’an itself? This paper explores how computerized analysis of the Qur’an, made possible by deploying a morphologically tagged database of qur’anic Arabic, enables us to conduct a systematic analysis of the Qur’an for the first time. Computerized analysis demonstrates the Qur’an’s formulaic density to lie between 23% and 53%, depending on the length of formulaic phrase that we search for. We also highlight some further fascinating features that computerized formulaic analysis can reveal, such as the fact that those surahs traditionally considered ‘Medinan’ are considerably more formulaic than those considered ‘Meccan’. We will also demonstrate how computerized analysis can detect not just repetitions, but entire ‘formulaic systems’ throughout the Qur’an, an even greater indicator of oral generation. Recognizing the Qur’an as being (at least partially) orally composed relocates it back in the strata from which it is often removed, the oral milieu that both preceded and succeeded the composition of the Qur’an—whilst also demonstrating the potential of computerized linguistic analysis of the Qur’an.

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W. Johnson in his investigation of literary book roll production in Oxyrhynchus devised three categories of quality in order to distinguish grades of book production quality. His three categories are: (1) formal, semi formal, or pretentious, (2) informal and unexceptional (for the most part probably professional), (3) substandard or cursive. In using these categories Johnson is more concerned with the type of book that the scribe thinks he is writing and so does not, for example, use the term ‘formal’ in the strict palaeographical sense as used by Turner (1987) 20-22. Something like Johnson’s categories is necessary to be able to distinguish the quality of book production of early Christian literature. For the purposes of the inquiry his categories are too broad and vague and a different system of categorization is needed. This paper will outline that system of categorization and give an explanation of how each category is determined. The concern is with the quality of the manuscript that the copyist has produced for his/her client and the ability of the scribe. Having categorized the manuscripts a tentative proposal will be made as what conclusions we can draw from them as to their use and the socio-ecomonic standing of the early Christians.

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Contemporary faith communities read the Sermon on the Mount in a radically different economic context than the one in which Matthew’s earliest readers found themselves in the late first century. What kinds of economic dynamics would the Matthean community have heard in the Sermon? What kinds of communal responsibility and economic conduct would they have found it seeking to engender? What might such values and practices provide for those who read Matthew 5–7 today, in the context of widespread individualism and neoliberal economic empire? Building on the insights of Richard Horsley (Covenant Economics, 2009) and others, this paper explores how early readers of Matthew’s Gospel may have understood the Sermon on the Mount—and themselves as those commissioned to embody its message—with regard to economic justice. Matthew 5–7 indicates that Jesus expected more from his followers than what was explicitly articulated in the law (e.g., 5:21-48); nevertheless, he assured his listeners that his teaching had to be understood as in continuity with—indeed, as fulfillment of—both the law and the prophets (5:17-20). Framed by Matthew as Jesus’ “covenant renewal speech” given to his followers, the Sermon surely presupposes at least the broad outlines of the Israelite covenant tradition of communal economic justice (such as gleaning laws; condemnations against mistreatment of widows, orphans, and aliens; and prohibitions against charging interest on loans to fellow Israelites). The “covenant renewal” character of the Sermon on the Mount is critically important. Matthew 5–7 serves to (re)form community values and economic conduct. Neither Jesus nor Matthew understood the Israelite covenantal legal tradition as mere exhortation to ideals. As “covenant speech,” Matthew surely assumes that Jesus’ words are to be concretely embodied in the community to which he writes: A faithful reading will have concrete implications for the community’s values and actions (see, e.g., 5:14-16, 17-20; 7:24-27). This paper considers some of those implications, both ancient and contemporary.

The standard analyses of Hosea 2 rightly devote considerable attention to the marital metaphor that is as undoubtedly present in the conflict as are the roles of husband and wife. However, an overreliance on this one metaphor places an unsustainable burden upon it. This overburdening becomes evident in interpreters’ attempts to explain difficult historical and logical elements of the narrative by means of the marital metaphor alone. In terms of history, the extreme images of the husband’s reprisals in forcibly confining, stripping, and killing the wife send interpreters off on a relatively fruitless search for historical evidence of such practices within marital conventions of the author’s social context. In terms of logic, the wife’s confusion between husband and lovers over the source of her material support so contorts the marital metaphor that many interpreters recognize its breakdown at this point. By identifying two common conceptual metaphors that have not previously been identified in this passage--INTIMACY IS CLOSENESS and WELL-BEING IS HAVING POSSESSIONS--these problems are substantially alleviated. These two metaphors form the conceptual substructure for the narrative and explain the aforementioned extreme elements as poetic uses of these conceptual metaphors within the marital domain rather than reflections of historical practice. The marital metaphor’s contribution can then be more precisely and narrowly understood as contributing important emotional and ethical elements to the story rather than operating as the single, controlling metaphor. This one in-depth example illustrates a more general approach to identifying metaphors based on recognition of overburdened and complementary metaphors.

Many sentences in the Synoptic Gospels call the reader’s attention to the serious strain on traditional family/kinship relationships provoked by Jesus’ call to follow him. Jesus is widely remembered to have challenged the authority of fathers and of loyalty to family ties, including his own. The various synoptic contexts suggest that Jesus’ critique of conventional purity rules, including blood-solidarity, resulted in many of his followers experiencing heavy pressure from their families of origin to “come to their senses,” abandon their fascination with this new prophet, and resume their honored places among their families. While many scholars have commented on these passages and Jesus’ creation of alternative kinship relationships, none have approached Paul’s letters and the analysis of his various opponents from the perspective of the serious tension between these Christ-followers’ new social world and relationships and their previous consanguineal family responsibilities and loyalties. At one point, Paul’s converts in Corinth had granted him greater authority over their lives than they had previously given to their parents, extended family, friends, patrons (if any), and perhaps employers, whom they had naturally grown up imitating. For them, religion was embedded in family life. So many, if not most, of these people must have repeatedly warned these Christ-followers to “come to their senses” and return to blood-family solidarity and the practice of traditional and honorable cultural values and social codes. They must have exerted pressure on Paul’s converts to give up Paul’s culturally suspect views and their new “in-Christ” identity and to come back to the “real world” in which they had been raised. In this paper, I explore the ways in which Paul implicitly rejects parental authority over his converts (e.g., regarding marriage) and explicitly challenges that authority by his creation in the Spirit of alternative kinship relationships and by his call to imitate his own behavior rather than follow the values and codes of their consanguineal families—whom we should include among Paul’s opponents.

Both ancient and modern combatants have staked out territory and dug trenches, fighting a feverishly-pitched battle over a simple question: Was Paul an allegorist? Within antiquity, Origen and those congenial to his allegorical method felt that the answer was simple: Of course Paul was an allegorist! Meanwhile Theodore of Mopsuestia and others objected—although Paul uses the term ?????????µe?a in his recounting of the Sarah-Hagar narrative in Galatians 4:21-31, he in fact respects the basic narrative sequence of Genesis while gazing upon it from a higher vantage point. Since Paul’s interpretative practices are felt by many to supply a precedent sufficient to establish a norm for all Christians, contemporary theologians and biblical scholars have continued this polarized debate, frequently pitting so-called “typology” against allegory. Yet, drawing on ancient rhetorical and compositional theory, I will argue that the question, “Was Paul an allegorist?” is the wrong question because it obscures Paul’s larger concern with mimesis. It falsely assumes that Paul’s “allegory” is primarily about exegetical generation when it is really an ornamental description of narrative imitation.

The study of fish consumption in antiquity is complex, as there is ongoing debate as to a) the degree to which ancients actually ate fish; and b) understanding the extensive “fishy” ideologies (Beer, 2010) that existed, which in turn, could involve the avoidance of fish altogether, eating certain kinds, sizes or portions of fish, or raising the creatures on private fish farms. Although “fishermen” were low on the social scale, eating fish was considered a luxury, and sometimes associated with effeminacy. This paper offers a survey of these issues; then addresses specific biblical and early Christian texts that refer to fish and fish consumption in light of such questions.

The earliest Gospel films are passions, brief, mute, linear in structure and static in photography, that depict the final hours and death of Jesus. Most are based not on the Gospel but on the Christian devotional practice of the “stations of the cross,” of which only 8 of 14 scenes are attested to in the Gospel. In recent years, several film makers return to the beginnings of the tradition, but now producing often elaborate, and quite dynamic passion films, some of which use complex sound tracks and special photographic and digital effects. This paper will study two of those films, Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ" (USA 2004) and Giovanni Columbu’s "Su Re" ("The King") (Italy 2013). Radically different in both style and content, the two film texts raise many questions about how the Seventh Art represents this particular part of the Gospel; further they compel a reflection on, and evaluation of the relationship between these films and the Gospel. After a description of each film, particularly important for the recent but narrowly-distributed "Su Re," the paper develops a comparative analysis of diverse aspects of the films, indicating how these exercise a determining effect on the meaning of these texts. Of prime importance is the source material of their narratives–biblical, Christian-devotional, fictional or a mix of these–and the attitude of the directors towards that material. No less significant is the basic concept or understanding the director has of Jesus: his physical attributes, his speech, his psychological state, his way of relating to the disciples and others in these crucial final hours of his life and mission. Then various extradiegetical elements of the films are considered: settings, scenography, cinematography, camera movements, direction and blocking, lighting, the use of digital effects, and sound/music tracks. Further, and regarding intradiegetical elements, the paper considers how the films portray the secondary characters and how they depict and justify–by biblical or other means–the violence, both physical and psychological, visited on Jesus. Finally it considers and evaluates the radically-different ways the Resurrection is represented–in one case, quite directly and in the other, indirectly, through largely-symbolic means–as the key to determining how, and the extent to which, the films succeed in respecting the element of Holy Mystery in the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus. Supplementing the paper, printed stills from the films will be provided at the beginning of the presentation and a short series of video clips will be screened at the end.

In recent years the study of biblical historiography has turned increasingly to issues of identity negotiation. A prime example is the book of Ezra; one of the most salient features of this text is the negotiation of group identity through language. Scholarship of late has emphasized how the figure Ezra calls for separation from the people of the land so that his community might become a “holy seed” (Ezra 9:1-2, 11-12). In this instance genealogy provides the basis for Ezra’s rhetoric, and a similar situation prevails in Ezra 2:59-63 where certain parties are barred from the golah community because their “seed” and lineage (kinship through the father’s house) are in question. This study provides additional perspective on the historiographical issue of identity negotiation by comparing Ezra’s rhetoric of genealogy with that found in Leviticus. Ezra 9 has several lexical counterparts in Lev 20:22-26, an admonition to separate from other groups on purity grounds and to reject all their customs. Rhetorically, there are also telling differences between the two texts; the passage in Leviticus presents a community whose identity is negotiated differently than that of Ezra’s group. A comparison and contrast of Ezra and Leviticus sheds new light on both texts and leads to the conclusion that in the case of Ezra the biblical writing did not simply reflect the dynamics of identity negotiation in Persian-period Yehud but likely influenced and affected these dynamics as well.

More than three decades ago, Halvor Moxnes published one of the most influential treatments of socio-economic relations in the Gospel of Luke (The Economy of the Kingdom). Since then, Moxnes has been incessantly coming back to the crucial issues that he had raised in that book by opening several innovative and insightful methodological directions of research. The present talk aims to reexamine Moxnes’s Economy of the Kingdom by tapping into some of the perspectives sketched by the Norwegian scholar throughout his long and fruitful career. In particular, the paper will focus on the category of “space” that has been brought to the forefront of New Testament studies mainly thanks to Moxnes’s creative use of it in his landmark Putting Jesus in His Place. There the “space” of Galilee is read as an ideological construal, so that a critical analysis may interrogate it as the means to uncover power relationships and material structures that shape the text of Luke. Moreover, Moxnes has been a proponent of a more decidedly intersectional approach to the study of early Christian writings. Such methodological shift can also take advantage of other points of view (such as gender, ethnicity, or status alongside class) in order to render more complex and nuanced our reading of the Lukan texts.

This paper reviews and evaluates a part of a recent debate about the background and origins for Paul’s use of the word ekklesia. Paul Trebilco argues that the word ekklesia is to be understood mainly from its Septuagint background, where it refers to Israel in its congregated form. G. H. Van Kooten has responded to Trebilco by contending that the word is better understood, not against an LXX background, but primarily from the Greco-Roman background, where it refers to gathered public assemblies of a political nature. This paper is an attempt to present further evidence that there, indeed, is a clear Septuagint background for Paul’s use, especially his multiple uses of “church of God” (ekklesia tou theou). These uses in Paul appear to be derived from Neh. 13:1, which quotes Deut. 23:4-5 (3-4 in Eng. versions) and renders Deuteronomy’s ekklesia tou kuriou by ekklesia tou theou. Neh. 13:1 is the only place in the LXX where ekklesia tou theou occurs. Significant parallels occur in Philo, where he also repeatedly translates ekklesia tou kuriou (“assembly of the Lord”) in Deut. 23:2-4 by ekklesia tou theou likely under the influence of Neh. 13:1. This is, at the least, a precedent for Paul’s use. This does not mean that there is not also a Greco-Roman background, though the limits of the paper cannot explore this further. [special note: I could not show the eta in ekklesia as a long vowel in the above transliteration nor could I put the transliteration into italics].

Tel Hazor was the largest Canaanite city in the southern Levant during the second millennium BCE, when it covered an area of approximately 200 acres. During this time, both the Upper and Lower Cities were occupied. The Upper City consisted of monumental public buildings while the Lower City included public and cultic structures, as well as residential buildings. The Renewed Excavations at the site began in 1990, and have uncovered large amounts of information regarding Bronze Age Hazor. In the past two seasons, new finds provided more information on the administrative and royal complexes of Late Bronze Age Hazor. These include the identification of the administrative palace of Hazor, which is situated at the connection between the Lower City and the Upper City, on the northern slopes of the tel. This palace is the focus of the presentation. Its architectural remains will be presented here, together with the material assemblages that were found in this context. These include the ceramic assemblages as well as parts of two stone statutes which were found in the last phase of use of the palace. The implications of these finds will also be presented and discussed in their relation to other finds from the same period as well as Carbon 14 dates.

My thesis is two-fold. First, the author of Luke-Acts builds aspects of his portrayal both of Jesus and his disciples in Luke-Acts on the servant, who is the human agent of the Isaianic restoration in Isaiah 40-66. According to scholars such as Brueggemann and Hanson, in Isaiah the servant’s mission being embodied is, to a great extent, how the renewal comes to fruition. Second, Luke is sensitive to the Isaianic co-text of the servant’s mission in chapters 40-66, often called the New Exodus, and he demonstrates his awareness at least partly by concluding Acts with the same notes of triumph and tragedy that end Isaiah. The servant figure from Isaiah has attracted great interest in modern critical scholarship, and a recent trend in Isaiah studies is to see the servant’s role as integral to its co-text(s) and to take seriously the book’s own identification of Israel as the servant as various points. In Second Temple Judaism the servant was interpreted corporately in some texts, and individualistically in others, though an Israel-as-servant identity in Isaiah allows for such fluidity. Many Lukan scholars see Luke identifying Jesus with the servant in Luke 4:18-19 (quoting Isaiah 61:1-2; 58:6); 22:37 (using Isaiah 53:12); Acts 3:13-15 (cf. Isaiah 52:13; 53:6, 11-12); and 8:32-33 (quoting Isaiah 53:7-8). My claim is that Luke also portrays the disciples embodying various aspects of the servant identity, and I will argue this specifically in Acts 1:8 (through the use of the phrase “to the end of the earth (??? ?s??t?? t?? ???) , lifted from the servant’s commission in Isaiah 49:6 LXX); 13:46-47 (where Paul and Barnabas quote Isaiah 49:6 in reference to their own mission and identity); and 28:17-31. In this final passage, Paul is blanketed with servant language such as pa?ad?d?µ? and d?aµa?t???µa?, and he quotes from Isaiah 6:9-10 when the Jews who are present refuse him and his message. This pre-New Exodus passage and its judgment is thus the result of such rejection. Significantly, the book of Isaiah ends with hope and judgment, and my claim is that Luke models his ending in Acts, with its own such emphases, after the ending of Isaiah.

The Aramaic apocalyptic texts preserve numerous variations on one basic theme: a prophetic dream which depicts a tree or trees – sometimes a cedar – and their destruction: by cutting down, by flooding or by other means. The dreams often depict a confrontation between the imposing cedar and a feebler tree, a grapevine or date palm. The dream accounts go into considerable iconographic detail. In Daniel 4, the most famous exemplar of such a dream, the tree iconography carries with it an anti-imperialistic message, which has often been connected with the Assyrian ‘Tree of Life’. Accounts in the Book of Giants and in the Genesis Apocryphon shed light on earlier formulations of the motif, preceding Daniel. Some of these also connect the trees to the motif of the Watchers, i.e. the Fallen Angels which indulge with the trees. Later on similar iconography comes to fore in the dream of 2 Baruch 36, and in addition, outside a dram account, in the Hodayot (1QHa XVI). Much of this imagery was collected in a useful article by E. Eshel. In this paper I aim to examine: 1) what added value is gained in the apocalyptic narrative by presenting these visions as dreams, 2) the iconographical sources for this motif, and 3) the link of the tree motif with the imperial or anti-imperial message.

This paper will illustrate the application of textual analysis to the Qur'an by uncovering some aspects of Lexical Cohesion that are contained in the Qur'anic comments connected to the discourses of Noah and the Leaders of his people in their verbal exchanges. Noah's discourse focuses on worshiping Allah alone (Q. 7:59; 11:26; 23:23; 71:3) and encouraging his people to make the shift from polytheism (71:23) - that being the current worldview of his community - to monotheism, the new worldview championed by Noah as a messenger. In order to accomplish this, Noah's approach concentrates on changing the disparity between two social classes: that of the leaders who are mandated to support polytheism and to speak on behalf the community against Noah's discourse; and that of the rest of the people who are ordered by their leaders to resist (23:24) and then to rebel (23:25) against Noah, thus taking into account the aim of the leaders. This disparity is founded on a vertical relationship, as the verb "to follow" shows by its connectedness in Noah's discourse "[they] (.) followed those whose riches and children only increase their ruin" (71:21). Here, Noah, being from outside the worldview of his people, judges what happens inside the worldview of his community. The same verb is used by the leaders but through pointing out the relationship between Noah and those who moved from polytheism to monotheism. An illustration of this kind of connectedness may be seen in "the worst (.) followed you" (11:27; 26:111). Here the leaders are still inside their worldview and judge what happens outside, referring to Noah's worldview. Consequently this lexical repetition is used, from each character, differently towards the two referents. Another aspects is seen when Noah names those who accept his call "those who have believed" (11:29), "the believers" (26:114; 26:118; 71:28) and "a believer (71:28). This lexical repetition shows its cohesion, in terms of opposition, with the previous discourse of the leaders toward the same referent, and in terms of similarity with the Qur'anic comment about also the same referent (11:36; 11:40). How can we understand what is at stake in the verbal exchange between the characters cited? And how does the discourse of each of these aspects progress and make its ultimate point about the move from polytheism to monotheism? Through my work I will try to answer these practical issues with which I am presently concerned with the Qur'an.

Character in the New Testament has been the subject of focused literary-critical study since the 1970s, but there has never been consensus on how character should be understood either in contemporary literary theory or in biblical studies. This paper will evaluate a range of approaches, from Forster’s elementary classification of characters as “flat” and “round” in 1927 to more complex and nuanced approaches developed in the last five years. It gives specific attention to the scope and limitations of Cornelis Bennema’s approach to character in the Gospel of John, which is outlined in A Theory of Character in New Testament Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014) and applied in Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John (2nd edn; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014). The main question of this paper is whether Bennema's uniform approach to character study has advantages over an open-ended approach, which has been adopted in the most extensive contribution on the subject—Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann (WUNT 314; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013).

1 Kings 12 records a significant transition in the political life of Israel. Echoing the process of David’s rise to power in 2 Samuel 5, the elders of Israel gathered at Shechem to ratify Rehoboam’s authority. Several scholars have noted that this narrative illustrates a critical aspect of Israel’s early political structure that is reflected in the Amarna letters and the much later “Israelite” portions of the Bible. Corresponding to the strategies used to limit the exercise of exclusionary power outlined by Richard Blanton and others, the collective decision-making body of Israel reserved the right to accept or reject a king’s bid for the throne. In the case of Rehoboam, the elders appear to have concluded that the Jerusalem-centered House of David had attained a level of centralization through the processes of linearization and promotion articulated by Kent Flannery that threatened the corporate ideals upon which Israel was founded. The rejection of Rehoboam set in motion several reforms enacted by Jeroboam, including the establishment of a new capital at the site where Israel’s collective decision-making body convened and the installation of two bovine representations of Yahweh in Dan and Bethel. Scholars generally regard the latter act as an example of religious heresy, an interpretation supported by the later Deuteronomistic condemnation of Jeroboam and his calves. However, a reevaluation of this decision in light of the larger political concerns involved suggests that it was motivated by political orthodoxy, and therefore represented a return to an earlier vision of Israel’s religion.

In recent years, close lexical studies of Ezekiel and H have been executed (e.g. Lyons and Levitt Kohn), suggesting that Ezekiel is (with nuances) dependent on H. Using an analysis of the *conceptual* relationship of Ezek 46:16-18 and Lev 25:8-55 (jubilee laws) as a test case, this paper argues that Ezekiel 40-48 appears to combine Holiness concepts with some elements of the "Zion theology" so prevalent in the psalms, some prophets, and other biblical sources. The implications of this finding for evaluating the literary relationship of H and Ezekiel is discussed.

The Song of the Sea (Exod 15:1-21) has long been examined against the backdrop of West Semitic mythopoeic compositions such as the Baal Cycle. This paper claims that the Sea account of Exodus 14-15 must be examined in light of Egyptian context as well. In particular, I claim that this account bears striking similarities with the Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II, and specifically with the composition known as the Kadesh Poem. A common plot emerges: the protagonist army is attacked while on the march by an enemy chariot force. A plea is made for divine help, and victory is promised. Single-handedly, the king (Ramesses and YHWH respectively) engages the enemy, without assistance from his troops. The enemy charioteers are met with divine fire, and recognize the divine force that overpowers them. Many meet their death by drowning. Most significantly, in each composition the king's troops (Ramasses' and YHWH's respectively) return to the battlefield following the victory of the king over the enemy charioteers. There, they survey the corpses, are awestruck by the king, and offer a hymn of praise to him. The paper demonstrates that the Song of the Sea is replete with stock terms found in New Kingdom military inscriptions, and with terms found only in the Kadesh Poem. The paper concludes by surveying the role of the Kadesh Poem in the Egyptian literary tradition and offering conjecture as to when and why Israelite scribes would have composed the Sea account with the Kadesh poem in mind.

“We have come from a far country …” (Josh 9:6). It is with these deceitful words that the Gibeonites introduce themselves to the unsuspecting Israelites and talk them into making a covenant. What necessitates their deception, is Israel’s war legislation which prescribes that all inhabitants of the land must be annihilated (cf. Deut 20:17). According to Josh 9, the Gibeonites were well aware of these stipulations and eluded them by pretending that they had come from a place far off. In this way, the chapter offers an explanation for why they were spared by the Israelites. Now, the obviously artificial character of the text strongly suggests that its author reacts to a problem he has already encountered in an earlier version of the narrative. In my paper, I try to demonstrate that it is in fact possible to reconstruct an early version of Josh 9 which did not yet contain the motif of the Gibeonites’ deceit. Rather, the text briefly told that the Gibeonites made peace with the Israelites, and thus prepared for the ensuing battle account in Josh 10. At this stage of development, an influence of the Deuteronomic Law is not yet discernible. Only later, Israel’s transgression of the divine commandment to utterly annihilate all inhabitants of the land was sensed as problematic which then triggered an extensive reworking of Josh 9. As a soultion, the editor now introduced the idea that the Gibeonites tricked the Israelites into making a covenant which, once established, had to be respected. Interestingly, the prohibition to make covenants (Exod 23:32; 34:12, 15; Deut 7:2; Judg 2:2) does not yet seem to be in view. Quite to the contrary, it is reasonable to assume that this peculiar law was only conceived in the light of Josh 9, as a means to close a potential legal loophole. By discussing these literary developments, I wish to illuminate the complex and fascinating interplay between law and narrative. Based on the results of the exegesis, I will then draw some general conclusions concerning the relationship between the Deuteronomic Law and the so-called Deuteronomistic History in the final section of my paper. [This proposal is intended for session 3.]

Because of their substantial size and virtual completeness alone, the Damascus Document (CD) and the Temple Scroll (11QT) have dominated most broad discussions of legal material at Qumran. Whether the matter under discussion is the content of the laws or the exegetical derivation of the laws or the arrangement of the laws, the focus is almost always one or the other or both of those two documents. Especially when it comes to consideration of the literary forms in which the laws are presented, it has become a virtual given in the field that there are two forms of legal documents at Qumran, the CD-type and the 11QT-type. The former is said to be analogous to the mishnaic form, while the latter stays close to the style of the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, it is due primarily to their fragmentary and incomplete nature that the “minor” (i.e., other than CD and 11QT) legal texts from Qumran have not been brought into play in consideration of the forms of Qumran legal interpretation. Texts that do not match up neatly with either CD or 11QT, such as 4Q159 (so-called Ordinances-a), 4Q251 (Halakha A), and a variety of others such as the Tohorot material, have thus had little impact on the theoretical discussion. This paper will examine a number of the “minor” legal texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls in order to demonstrate that the forms of Qumran legal texts actually lie along a spectrum which might be said to run from 11QT to CD in terms of their adherence to “biblical” or “mishnaic” styles, respectively. The standard view is thus seen to be useful only as a broad paradigm, and attempts to force the legal texts into binary pigeonholes should therefore be abandoned.

This paper explores the literary use of otherness in Isaiah 63:1–6—a unit that presents an encounter between the prophet and the bewildering figure in garments stained crimson, coming from Edom. The passage abounds with images and metaphors, including the image of this commanding and yet strange figure treading grapes. The rhetorical development of the passage relies on extensive use of otherness as a literary device. As has long been noted, this unit is strongly related, first of all, to Isa ch. 59, and next to chs. 60–62, while remotely to ch. 34. The paper will mainly discuss two aspects of the unit: first, how the prophet perceives and describes this strange figure—otherness as deviance of image from reality—using the references to other related passages in Isaiah (mentioned above); second, how this imposing figure himself explains his identity, objectives, activity, and inner urgency—he thereby does not dissolve his otherness, on the contrary, he enhances it in a conspicuous way to the extent he defines himself with new otherness. From all this, it will be shown that otherness affects both the prophet and the inscrutable figure. The two forms of otherness are not fixed images/metaphors but develop through interaction. As will be shown, the references of 63:1–6 to the immediately preceding chs. 59–62 and the far-off oracle against Edom (ch. 34) are not meant to dissolve the cloud of otherness that encloses the two actors. Rather, they help readers entering that cloud to become engaged in what takes place within it.

In the course of the discussion about the original beginning of a first narrative of Israel’s history that may be labelled “deuteronomistic”, the spotlight of scholarly interest has been turned on 1 Sam 1. Martin Noth identified Dtn 1 as the opening chapter of his Deuteronomistic History not least out of necessity, because Josh 1 could not serve this purpose due to its transitory character (cf. Noth 31967, 12 f.). A reassessment of the redactional status of Dtn in the context of the story about the exodus and the conquest of the land led Reinhard Kratz – among other arguments – to the affirmation of an idea that had been tentatively suggested by Ernst Würthwein (1994) and Konrad Schmid (1999): 1 Sam 1 once opened a (first) deuteronomistic narrative about the history of Israel’s monarchy from its beginnings to its end (cf. Provan 1988, 164 f. with the concept of a pre-exilic DtrH from 1 Sam 1 to Hezekiah). This thesis has been challenged by Christoph Levin in 2011. He refers to the similar openings in Judg 13:2; 17:1; 1 Sam 1:1; 9:1, and comes to the conclusion “[that a]t no time was there [...] a Deutero¬nomistic History composed only of the books of Samuel and Kings” (Levin 2011, 152 f.). In this regard, Levin is followed by Reinhard Müller, who recently emphasized this position and instead opts for “a pre-Deuteronomistic collection of stories that also [scil. together with 1 Sam 1, H.B.] included the narrative about Saul’s anointment in 1 Sam 9–10*, as well as the cycles about Samson in Judg 13–16* and about Micah and the Danite sanctuary in Judg 17–18*” (Müller 2013, 219). Without denying the thesis of a literary connection between the four references in question, the paper will argue that this connection rather should be explained diachronically. On this understanding, the case of the character(s) of 1 Sam 1 as well as of the oldest beginning of a Deuteronomistic History is reopened again.

In the Hebrew Bible young women were assigned the task of drawing water from wells to supply the family household. At the wells these women frequently acquired more than water; they often gained blessings and husbands (Gen. 21:14-20; 24:10-27; 29:1-11; Ex. 2:15-19). Yet, the meeting at the well was more than a biblical betrothal type-scene. Rather, water gathering was a gender-specific and time consuming task that was essential to the household and community. Cross cultural ethnographic data from nineteenth and early twentieth century Levant also depict women were the water barriers. Using the results of the 2014 Jezreel Expedition field season, with a focus on the ancient path that led from Tel Jezreel down to the spring (‘Ein Jezreel) below, this paper will discuss the length and gradient of the path while investigating the mechanics of water bearing. As women were drawing water from ‘Ein Jezreel for usage in settlement on the tel, various questions to reconstruct the social situation must be explored. This paper will examine the amount of daily time devoted to water carrying, methods of conveyance, and types of vessel employed.

While dikaiosynê only occurs once in 1 Corinthians (see 1:30 where it is used with reference to Christ), this word is found seven times in the canonical 2 Corinthians. The noun dikaiosynê is present in the first apology 2:14-7:4 (namely in 3:9; 5:21; 6:7 and 6:14 which belongs to the disputed passage 6:14-7:1), in a collection chapter (9:9-10) as well as in the second apology 10:1-13:10 (namely in 11:15). In this paper we shall examine the meaning of “his dikaiosynê” in 2 Cor 9:9 and of “your dikaiosynê” in 9:10. In 9:9 Paul quotes Ps 111:9 LXX. Here the interpreters are divided as to whether Paul intends the subject of the statements to be the human person as in the original context of the psalm or rather God. Consequently the question is whether “his dikaiosynê” refers to God’s righteousness or to human righteousness/uprightness, possibly in the sense of benevolence or generosity. In 9:10 “your dikaiosynê” clearly refers to the “dikaiosynê” of the Corinthians/Achaians as the addressees of the letter. But what is the precise nuance of meaning of dikaiosynê in 9:9-10 in light of the occurrences of this vocabulary in 2:14-7:4 and in 10:1-13:10? In particular we shall investigate what the expressions “hê diakonia tês dikaiosynês” in 3:9 and “dikaiosynê theou” in 5:21 can contribute to our understanding of dikaiosynê in 9:9-10. We shall argue for a genuinely theological understanding of dikaiosynê in 9:9-10 reading these verses in line with 3:9 and 5:21. We shall investigate whether 9:(9-)10 and 3:9 can be understood as practical reflections of the theoretical theological statement of 5:21. In this way we shall examine whether 9:(9-)10 can be viewed as evidence of Paul’s dikaiosynê theology “in the making” or rather “in evolution.” Potential implications for the discussion of the unity of the letter will also be addressed.

This paper accomplishes two tasks. First, it provides an introduction to the textual history of the works which inform the medieval Ethiopic text of Joseph Ben Gurion, which is also known as the Zena Ayhud. Secondly, it traces the story of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem from its Hellenistic origins in works like Josephus to its appearance in the Ethiopic texts of the medieval period. The Zena Ayhud depends on an Arabic translation of the tenth-century Hebrew text commonly referred to as Yosippon. Yosippon itself builds upon various earlier traditions, including a Latin recension of Josephus known as Hegesippus, or Pseudo-Hegesippus. Yosippon also incorporates material from the Latin translation of Pseudo-Callisthenes, which is a Hellenistic account of stories about Alexander. This long and varied trajectory that connects the Hellenistic world to medieval Ethiopia affects the stories transmitted between the two points in an interesting way. Having provided an introduction to the various textual traditions involved in the transmission process, this paper analyzes some of the changes which can been seen between Josephus’s account of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem and the Ethiopic version of that same story as it appears in the Zena Ayhud.

The omission of “other” Gospels from the canon of the orthodox church has often been attributed to the theological narrowness of its leader. Whereas some think that a top-down approach imposed “orthodoxy” on a diverse and pluralistic when it came to sacred literature, this study examines other reasons for the omission of “other” Gospels from ancient canon lists including their failure to convert the imaginations of persons in the proto-orthodox churches and their inability to provide a coherent narrative about God, Israel, Jesus, and salvation.

Dance, in both its historical formulations during the slave trade and its contemporary manifestations in carnival celebrations, has enormous significance for numerous Caribbean cultures. Using some biblical texts to think with (2 Sam. 6: 14; Song 6:13), this paper explores the historical and contemporary event of Junkanoo as a reflection of Bahamian culture and its interaction with colonialism and contemporary tourism. Junkanoo is not explicitly biblical or religious, though it does show the marks and tussles of colonization and hence Christianization. The stories and themes of the Bible, impacting Caribbean history and culture as they have, are an apt resource. Indeed, Caribbean writers have often used the Bible to explore dynamics of colonialism and resistance, as for example in the poetry of Luis Pales-Matos. Two significant instances of biblical dance are explored here: the first is practiced by King David in celebration of the Ark’s return to Jerusalem, and is the subject of Michal’s censure (2 Sam. 6:16, 20-23); the second is the mysterious dance of the Mahanaim, performed by the Shulammite in Song 6:13, and the subject of her admirers’ gaze and potentially, a tool of her defiance. These biblical moments of movement and resistance frame dance in various and interesting ways—as the vehicle for emotional expression, as liberation, as licensed revolt, as the tool of empire—allowing for exploration of dance as a multi-valent, political act, as much as a powerful reflection of affect.

Analogies to the economy of the offering are typical of Greco-Roman religions—one need only point to the ubiquity of sacrifices and votive offerings dedicated at temples. However, when comparing Greco-Roman economies of the offering to that of modern French Catholicism, one must reckon with culturally specific modes of exchange. The aim of the present study is to delineate the economic and social functions of the “economy of the offering” as presented in the Metamorphoses, in its specific form shaped not least by the ideology and practice of Roman patronage. As a corollary, the study hopes to demonstrate that sociological models such as that developed by Pierre Bourdieu can serve useful heuristic functions for the study of antique religions, provided those models are appropriately nuanced and adapted to the ancient cultural contexts to which they are applied.

This paper seeks to investigate the nature of Paul’s use of “boasting” language in Philippians 1:26 and 2:16, where the Apostle uses this terminology in discussing the ministry he has among his converts in Philippi. The study attempts to situate Paul’s language within the milieu of two important Greco-Roman topoi: friendship (building on the work of Stowers, Fitzgerald, Reumann, etc.) and political/military rhetoric (following Krentz, Geoffrion, Johan Vos). The thesis of the paper is that the idea of multiple individuals boasting in each other was not foreign to the culture of ancient Philippi, but rather was familiar, and was able to be used as a motivating factor for ethical behavior. The framework gleaned from such a background will then be applied to the epistle of Philippians as a whole, showing how Paul develops the concept of sharing with the Philippians in a mutual boast as a key motivating factor to promote their obedience to his exhortations given within the letter.

In her dystopian MaddAddam trilogy, Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood constructs a frighteningly plausible future world in which climate change, environmental degradation, genetic engineering, consumerism, materialism and the greed of multinational corporations have led to the development of a deeply divided and dysfunctional social landscape. In this fictional world, Atwood engages with the complex questions which dominate the rhetoric of late twentieth/early twenty-first century “western” society. The second book of the trilogy The Year of the Flood centres on the figures of Toby and Ren, members of an eco-religious cult called God’s Gardeners. The novel is shaped around the stories and hymns told and sung by the Gardeners on their feast days. Spoken by Adam One, the founder and leader of the group, the stories/sermons weave together familiar threads from Genesis, Job and the Psalms, elements of evolutionary science, a devotion to vegetarianism, pacifism and harsh warnings about the evils of modern technology. The novel explores the dynamics of religious belief and its place in a world dominated by science and technology. This paper seeks to explore the way in which Atwood brings the biblical text into conversation with evolutionary science in order to critique fundamentalist beliefs in both the religious and secular spheres. It will be argued that the stories and hymns of God’s Gardeners arguably reflect the eco-justice principles which form the hermeneutical framework of the Earth Bible Project. Atwood’s fictional eco-theology is one example of the way science and biblical faith might, and perhaps even does, find expression in a world in which science and faith are so often seen as oppositional rather than complementary.

The paper will start from the metaphor of the marital relationship between Yhwh and the city of Jerusalem presented as his wife in Ezekiel 16. As pointed out by André Neher, the matrimonial metaphor employed in Ezek. 16, implies the continuity of the nation through progeny. By denouncing corrupted love the prophet fights for the protection and restoration of true love and faithfulness. He also speaks about and hopes for a change of human heart (Ezek. 11:19). He is Yhwh’s ally in the ge?ullâ “redemption” of his compatriots. The prophet's role will be compared to similar figures in ancient Near Eastern literature with comparable roles: 1) Ištar as the guardian of human love par excellence in Iddin-Dagan’s Hymn and in the Atra?asis Epic I 299-304, insuring that marriage be fruitful with progeny. 2) Išum the guardian of both divine love (Erra and Mami) and human love relationships (young men and women) in the Poem of Erra I 21-22. He is also invoked in a profilactic incantation protecting people from destructive demonic influences that “tear the wife away from her husband.” This paper is part of my continued work on Babylonian influences on the themes and motives in the Book of Ezekiel.

*

In The Power of Images, art historian David Freedberg claims that the idea of there being cultures or religions completely without images—that is, purely aniconic—is "a deep and persistent historiographic myth." Much of the same can be said about ancient Israel. As such, some biblical scholars offer a narrower definition of ancient Israel's aniconic tradition. For instance, in his highly influential study (No Graven Image? 1995) Tryggve N. D. Mettinger draws on Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory to suggest that only iconic signs—i.e., images that aim to resemble the deity's appearance in a naturalistic or anthropomorphic fashion—were prohibited. While Mettinger's use of Peircian semiotics makes an important contribution to the study of Israelite aniconism, his definition tends to assume that what makes a religion aniconic or iconic is primarily determined by what its images look like or how they signify. However, an equally important, and perhaps more relevant, issue to consider has to do with how certain images were utilized, relied upon, and responded to by their users regardless of whether those images are classified as iconic or non-iconic signs. Drawing on evidence from ancient Near Eastern art and religion, this paper makes two observations about the correlation between iconographic preferences and visual practices. First, the absence of iconic representations of the deity in a given media (such as glyptic art) does not necessarily indicate that a given culture's worship practices were aniconic. Second, there is ample evidence that non-iconic divine images (such as symbols, emblems, and metonymic or "empty-space" representations) were often described and responded to in much the same way as anthropomorphic cult statues or other iconic signs. In light of these observations, this paper revises Mettinger's definition of aniconism and, more broadly, suggests that Israel's so-called "aniconic tradition" shared far more in common with other ANE visual practices than is often assumed.

Though libraries and canons can both be collections of texts, the terms are not synonymous. The precise definition and characteristics of each entity are necessarily distinguished. Further, the use of these terms are tied to specific contexts. This paper will survey several libraries and library-like entities particularly relevant for the ancient Judean context (e.g. the “temple libraries” of Judas Maccabeus and Nehemiah, the “library at Qumran”, the library of Alexandria, and gymnasium libraries) highlighting their function and the nature of their collections, so far as we know them. The paper will then proceed to discuss these findings in comparison to the qualities associated with the term ‘canon’ as it is used when discussing scripture. The aim of this paper will contribute to the ongoing discussion attempting to clarify the definitions and necessary conditions for both ‘library’ and ‘canon'.

In the Fall 2013 Semester, I was given charge to develop and teach all of our honors sections of a new course entitled "Interpreting the Bible" at Huntingdon College. This was the debut of this course for our college, required for all incoming freshmen. Since I was responsible for pedagogical design and implementation, I combined the 3 sections as one "think tank" through a class website using wikis, blogs, photos, etc. Students began working on a project to determine the most dominant symbols of society (in our case, the American South) that expressed who they were as persons, individually and collectively. They were to interpret these symbols and begin to work together to explain how these shaped who they were as individuals and as a group. We took these symbols and used the biblical text to consider possible connections or disconnections between them. The class encouraged a large group of students to consider the spiritual dimensions of their secular context, assisting them as we explored questions of meaning and purpose within a broader context of knowledge as a social construct. Based on results from my first attempt, the second iteration of the course will improve upon the above strategy by specifically exploring the sacred dimensions of the classroom space. Particular attention will be given to the challenge, offered in Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives, that “there’s little opportunity [on campus] to talk specifically about spiritual matters.” In my previous attempt to teach this course, I was surprised to find that my students perceived “education” and “college” and the “classroom” as sacred spaces. By sacred, I mean that students have been formed to think and act in certain ways when occupying the classroom space. Students were unaware of this learned sacredness until it came into conflict with their attempts to add their own voices to the learning process. In our case, students’ preconceptions of this sacred space actually discouraged self-reflection and expression. The learned sacredness of the classroom space was exposed as a spiritually oppressive symbol. As I modify the course for the Fall 2014 Semester, I am wondering how attention to the space of the classroom itself may open up for students new possibilities for exploring the spiritual dimensions of society at large.

Propaganda is a persistent messaging technique (or series of techniques) employed by the elite that has for its goal, whether intentional or not, obtaining or maintaining the legitimacy of these elite and the consequent imbalance of resources provided them by means of this legitimacy. In ancient Judah, one available propaganda technique was via the writing of literature, including the prophetic books. This paper will examine how propaganda theory may shed light on the prophetic books as one aspect of the propaganda messaging system employed by the elite in early Persian-period Judah by analyzing the books of Haggai and Zephaniah. In the case of Haggai, the tradents promoting and distributing its message very overtly support or even require the redistribution of resources to the temple. In the case of Zephaniah, the propaganda is more subtle, but the tradents responsible for this book thoroughly delegitimize the worldview and religious practices that were in competition with their own, the net result being that should the book’s message be accepted, the religious functionaries serving Yahweh would benefit.

There are links between adopting an itinerant life style and distinct expositions of divinity and moral issues. Given that places are the clear supports of identity, and that no one has a natural, inborn inclination to become itinerant, the various implications of the spatial and communal identities developed by the itinerant early Christian “teachers” require investigation. The constitutive other of communal identity is neither an ontological nor a psychical geography but an epistemological entity, integrated with and defined by distinct somatological metaphors. The focus will be on selected traditions from the early Roman empire to explore possible relationships between religious and moral views and aspects of the social construction of the human body. The Jesus movement will be approached as situated in this context. Being ostensibly ‘on their way to nowhere’ expresses ways of thinking about the role of religion and moral behaviour that contrasts not only in terms socio-economic realities but also how human bodies should and can be constructed. The alternative somatological sensibility — ascetical and uprooted — that emerged may have been more about not liking what it saw in elite body construction than about really imagining an alternative vision.

It is interesting to note that none of the major or minor biblical prophets other than Jonah appears in the Qur’an. This paper examines the interplay between the Qur’an and the Hebrew Bible traditions of Jonah as a prophet. One of the main methodological questions this paper will address is how the interplay between both traditions can be best described and how these traditions are used in their respective contexts. This paper will suggest that the Qur’an uses Jonah as an example, or illustration, to warn its audience. If we assume that the Qur’an is interested in Jonah’s narrative with this particular purpose in mind, focusing on the dynamics of repentance and divine mercy, then one can argue that the Qur’an tells the story in such a way that serves this purpose, and is not concerned at all, as some scholars suggest, with establishing a basic sequence of the events. This paper, thus, raises the question of whether we need the biblical subtext of Jonah’s narrative in order to fully understand and solve some interpretive problems of the Qur’anic narrative. This paper will be divided into three major sections. The first section will briefly review different approaches to the interplay between the Qur’an and Hebrew Bible traditions, with particular interest in Jonah. The second section will attempt to identify differing functions and emphases of the two accounts of Jonah in their respective contexts to show how the function of the narrative in the Qur’an affects the choice of materials included and the treatment given to it. The third section will reflect on the interplay between the Qur’an and the Hebrew Bible traditions of Jonah suggesting that both Muslims and non-Muslims are encouraged to appreciate both traditions in their respective contexts.

Review of James Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation

The Book of Mormon reports Jesus preaching to the Nephites the Sermon on the Mount almost exactly as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew (3 Nephi 12-14, cf. Matt. 5:3-7:27). John Welch has proposed that the temple setting of the Nephite sermon provides a hermeneutical key to the biblical Sermon on the Mount as a temple text. In this paper, Welch’s temple-text model for interpreting the Sermon will be compared with an alternative interpretive framework, the Messianic-kingdom model. The paper defends the following six conclusions. (1) Although temple motifs do appear in the Sermon on the Mount, its dominant theme is the Messianic kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate. (2) The problem with moralistic interpretations of the Sermon is not that they are exoteric but that they are superficial misinterpretations that ignore the kingdom context of Jesus’ sayings. (3) Jesus’ authority in the Sermon derives not from the temple but from Jesus’ own status as the royal and divine Son of God. (4) The Sermon’s structure is not a temple-oriented ritual ascent through ever-higher stages of spiritual development, but that of a Jewish didactic literary composition. (5) The genre of the Sermon was not that of an ascent or ritual text but an anthology of Jesus’ teachings on the Messianic kingdom, composed around the core of Jesus’ historical sermon in Galilee. (6) Jesus’ agenda in reference to the temple was not its renewal or restoration but the revelation that the temple’s typological purpose was being fulfilled in his coming. Thus, in all six aspects of the Sermon—its themes, interpretation, authority, structure, genre, and agenda—a Messianic-kingdom model proves superior to a temple-centered model for understanding the Sermon as a whole. Therefore, the temple theme is not a long-lost hermeneutical key to the Sermon on the Mount.

Esther A.12-17 (plot1) and 2:19-23 (plot2) comprise a doublet within Greek Esther. In both pericopes Mardochaios learns of a plot against the king by two eunuchs, reports the matter, and is honored accordingly. While plot1 has no direct counterpart in MT (it does occur in the ancient Greek version referred to as AT, but neither in the Old Latin nor Josephus), plot2 is evidently the translation of a source similar to MT 2:19-23 (for which AT lacks a parallel). The tradition history of the doublet remains highly controversial, and there is no consensus regarding the relationship of plot1 to the activity of the Hebrew-Greek translator responsible for plot2. This uncertainty raises serious problems for a genetic historical-critical commentary such as the SBLCS, focused as it is on the text as produced (see the Preamble to the Guidelines). Without losing sight of these problems, I hope to show through detailed commentary that the thematic mirroring of the two episodes in Greek Esther is intentional and not a mere bi-product of redaction. Whatever its tradition history, plot1 is an integral part of the text as it comes down to us. Motifs peculiar to it are echoed both in the translated material paralleled by MT as well as in material found in the so-called Additions. I shall suggest, therefore, that in this particular instance synchronic literary analysis of the extant text is not inconsistent with the aims of genetic commentary.

The Bible is rich with textual relationships. The textual relations within the Biblical text are frequently studied, but the relationships between the Biblical text and other ancient literature do not play as large a role, probably due to the difficulty in tracking them down. Logos Bible Software is developing data that classifies relations between the Biblical text and literature such as Talmuds, sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, and other corpora. These sorts of textual relationships matter because they shed light on how the Biblical text was used and understood in antiquity. They also provide greater insight to ancient cultures. With this sort of data available, when studying a Bible passage it will be easier to examine possible relations between the current passage and a wealth of ancient literature. The references have been classified as intertextually related (citation, quotation, allusion, echo), topically related (topical, historical), or lexically related (phrase, word). Further, because these references are abstracted to their structure and the relationships use a limited vocabulary, the reference and relationship can be localized to languages other than English when located and displayed within Logos Bible Software, making this valuable data available to those working with primary languages other than English.

Since the turn to the social in the study of religion in the late twentieth century it is a cliché to announce that religion cannot be disarticulated from other dimensions of the social. Rarely, however, is this cliché analytically influential. Taking it seriously means to consider “the social,” not “religion,” as the preeminent theoretical challenge. A consideration of the work of Theodore Schatzki is offered here as an attempt to question the perverse distinction between religion and the social.

In the Persian period the figure of Daniel offered hope to disaporic Jews living under foreign rule, and in the Hellenistic period Daniel encouraged Jews living under the oppression of Antiochus IV. It is unsurprising, then, that Daniel functioned in similar ways for various disaporic, minority and oppressed communities throughout history, who often read Daniel as a statement about their political situations. Some saw the text as an example of quietism or subtle resistance, while others understood it as a call to armed rebellion. But Daniel also functioned as scripture for many dominant groups that had attained temporal power, and these groups continued to read and interpret the book of Daniel as somehow instructive for their political consolidation of power. This paper will explore the markedly different dynamics of interpreting Daniel in oppressive and oppressed communities. It will introduce a variety of ways that those in power have interpreted the book of Daniel to legitimate their authority and offer hope for their eternal dominance--and offer a glimpse of those rare instances in which the reception of Daniel prompted internal critique among the powerful. This paper will also analyze the types of oppression that cultivated interpretation of particular texts in Daniel within minority groups, and the specific hopes that the different stories and visions of Daniel tended to offer to these groups. Particular attention will be given to the four-kingdom schema in Daniel 2 and 7.

Perhaps, a more natural comparison would be between Plutarch’s monotheism and that of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, rather than that of the New Testament. Presumably, many of those attracted to Judaism, Theosebeis, would have been coming from religious Platonism, especially in a monotheistic form. On a number of points, however, Plutarch’s monotheism fits with the New Testament concept, even granting certain essential differences. These are the beliefs: 1. belief in a Middle Platonic God who alone has the fullness of being and good (thus equated with the Platonic Form of the Good and Beautiful) and living in instantaneous eternity; 2. belief in the literal interpretation of creation in the Timaios and in God’s providential oversight over the world; 3. the possibility of divine filiation; 4. that certain gods of popular religion vaguely reflect the supreme Middle Platonic God, such as Apollo (The E at Delphi) and less explicitly, Osiris (On Isis and Osiris); 5. belief in a god who undergoes suffering and death, is resuscitated, and ascends to reign in heaven as in the case of Osiris.

Alfonse Borysewicz (b. 1957) is a Brooklyn-based, American artist who, after receiving a B.A. and an M.A. from St. John’s Provincial Seminary (Detroit, MI), decided against the priesthood, moved to Boston and enrolled in the Studio School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Early success led to a string of exhibitions in Boston, New York and Tokyo, as well as two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowships, and a John Simon Guggenheim Painting Fellowship. Nevertheless, Borysewicz has confessed that he was reserved about his Catholic beliefs in these early exhibitions. That said, in the mid-nineties Borysewicz began to explore the biblical images which fed his imagination. This resulted in increasingly explicit religious imagery, and culminated in 2005 with four Emmanuel Paintings: Emmanuel I – Bethlehem (2005), Emmanuel II – Jordan River/Galilee (2005), Emmanuel III – Jerusalem (2005), and Emmanuel IV – Alpha and Omega (2003). In this paper, I will present a visual theology of Borysewicz’s Emmanuel Paintings, and argue that they are, indeed, the culmination of his early work, as well as a beautiful transition of art and artist from Art World to Church. More generally, I will argue that Borysewicz’s work challenges James Elkins’ taxonomy of religion and contemporary art (Elkins, 2004), and in so doing might serve as a successful example of contemporary religious art.

The narrator(s) of 1-2 Kings makes no apologies in laying the blame for Judah’s exile at the feet of the Judean kings through their regnal formulas located in 1 and 2 Kings. One of the astonishing factors of these formulas is that the mother of the king is named in each formula with two exceptions. If the narrator uses the formulas to make a theological statement regarding the reason for Judah’s exile, is this naming also a theological statement upon the king’s mother as she is almost always included in the formulas? To answer this question, this paper will first look at the regnal formulas where the queen mother figures prominently. Then the paper will demonstrate how the king’s mother can be seen as an archetypal advisor to her son through Proverbs 31:1-9. Next, the paper will investigate the three Judean queen mothers (Maacah in 1 Kgs 15:11-14; Athaliah in 2 Kgs 11:1-15; and Nehushta in 2 Kgs 24:8) who appear in the narrative, revealing that these women acted as advisors to the king or demonstrated a considerable cultic influence upon him and/or the court. Their naming in the regnal formulas appears to be a testament to this influence upon the monarchy. By naming the mothers of seventeen kings in the regnal formulas, the narrator seems to be laying the blame for the exile at the feet of the queen mother as well as the king.

I will explore the history and the iconic use of a "cut Bible" that belonged to John G. Fee, one of the founders of Berea College. This Bible, which has some 46 passages removed, has, for many years, played a ceremonial role in the opening procession and in the graduation ceremonies of Berea College, located in Berea, Kentucky. The myth surrounding this Bible, which was printed in Philadelphia in the early 19th century, is that the staunch abolitionist John G. Fee removed, supposedly in anger, all of the slave passages from his Bible. After exploring the iconic status and use of this Bible, I will deconstruct its mythical dimensions and offer a critical assessment of its history and use. In doing so, I will place it alongside two other Bibles with similar histories. Finally, I will explore the more recent use of the Fee Bible at Berea College, which is more historical, but also more metaphorical in its representation of the values of the founders.

This paper uses speech act theory to examine certain ancient Near Eastern ritual utterances intended to transform reality. Hittite, Akkadian, and biblical Hebrew commonly use third-person modal verb forms in these contexts. Akkadian made frequent use of the precative or vetitive in incantations. Hittite oral rites typically ended with a third-person imperative. Biblical Hebrew often used the jussive in blessings and curses (“May YHWH bless you and keep you”). All of these modals share an important attribute: all have significantly different senses depending on the relationship between speaker and addressee in ordinary human discourse. Uttered to a social inferior, they typically serve as indirect commands (“Let the prisoner be brought forward”), yet uttered to a social superior they function as petitions, requests, or pleas (“May my lord not consider me guilty!”) Significantly, some ancient Near Eastern deities are quoted as issuing supernatural directives with such forms (“Let there be light!”). The question arises: when humans use these forms in ritual speech, are they petitioning the deity or are they imitating divine speech? This paper makes the argument that such ambiguity is no accident and may underlie the popularity of these forms in ancient Near Eastern ritual discourse

Brent Nongbri’s Before Religion drives home a point that is hopefully becoming uncontroversial. Religion is not a universal feature of human cultures, but a heuristic device, developed by modern European intellectuals, in their efforts to classify and control the behaviors of others. Now that this point is conceded in a growing body of literature, however, researchers run the risk of treating the history of “religion” as an intrinsically interesting subject. Nongbri makes his history of “religion” interesting by arguing that it demonstrates why “ancient religion” should be classified as a “redescriptive” concept. By endorsing descriptive narratives of ancient religion, however, Nongbri undercuts this normative conclusion. Indeed, Nongbri’s distinction between descriptive and redescriptive narratives calls for a classification of “religion” that fails justify itself as a response to pressing questions in the student of religion’s field. Instead, this classification serves the end of securing certain markers of professionalization.

My paper focuses on the ways in which “the kingdom” is imagined spatially in Q, the Gospel of Thomas, as well as in Roman imperial proclamations, inscriptions, and other imperial documents. A great deal of scholarship has already been devoted to reading “the kingdom” in light of the Roman Empire, much of which assumes that “kingdom” is deployed by Jesus traditions as a direct challenge to the Roman Empire. In these instances the kingdom is often imagined as a future utopia presented in contrast to the current Roman world. I will complicate this reading by looking at the different ways in which the space of the kingdom is imagined in Q and Thomas. I argue that, while “the kingdom” in Q and Thomas certainly borrow the language of “the kingdom” from the Roman Empire, all three imagine different spaces with their use of the term. In spite of recent attention to constructions of space in early Christian texts, spatial theorizing has yet to focus specifically on kingdom sayings, or the relationship between the kingdom in Thomas and Q and the kingdom in Roman Imperial rhetoric. Combining spatial and postcolonial theory, my paper examines the ways in which Q, Thomas, and the Roman Empire imagine the space of ßas??e?a.

Recent forays into interdisciplinary exploration between theology and psychology have sometimes been mired in methodological considerations of disciplinary priority or even hierarchy. For example, the issue of theology’s priority as queen of the sciences remains a standing question (e.g., Wolters, 2007; Porter, 2010). In response to and in conversation with these discussions, we will suggest an interdisciplinary model of relational integration that thematizes the embodied and culturally located nature of interdisciplinary integration. These values in interdisciplinary pursuits are important to highlight, since abstract disciplines themselves do not “do integration.” Rather, it is the disciplinarians themselves, such as psychologists and theologians, who are involved in the practices of interdisciplinarity and pursue integration. Most particularly, we will explore the intercultural nature of relational integration, namely the importance of differentiation of self in the midst of conversations where differences in methods, assumptions, and conclusions can often appear to preclude productive interdisciplinary understanding. To highlight the tension of difference and connection that is important to maintain in interdisciplinary dialogue, we will bring to the conversation Paul’s admonitions to the ‘weak’ and the ‘strong’ in Romans 14:1-15:13. In this text, a balance emerges that values relationship through welcoming the Other, while allowing differences to remain and to be mutually influential and formative.

The Sabbath plays a prominent role in John’s gospel. It is the first holy day addressed in the Festival Cycle (John 5-10), recurs in John 9 and is even invoked at the crucifixion, which is set on the eve of “a great Sabbath” (John 19:31). Yet the Sabbath’s role in John is often interpreted differently than the other festivals. Several recent studies on the temple and festivals in John skip over the Sabbath (e.g. Hoskins, Fulfillment of the Temple; Coloe, God Dwells with Us) or explicitly treat it differently (e.g. Kerr, Temple Theme). According to Kerr, the Sabbath is “transformed” while the temple and festivals are “replaced” by Jesus (266-67, 374-75). This distinction is problematic, as is the larger replacement paradigm on which it is based (on the latter, cf. esp. Lieu, “Temple and Synagogue”; Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism; Spaulding, Commemorative Identities, none of whom focuses on the Sabbath). This paper will argue that Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath in John 5 and 9 provide the paradigm for John’s treatment of all the temple festivals. Jesus’ healing activity on the Sabbath is not, for John, an indication of its abolition, but rather a sign that Jesus’ stands in the same basic relation to the Sabbath as God himself does (John 5:16-18). I will argue that this sets the tone for John’s entire temple festival theme. Throughout, John invokes the traditions and symbolism of these festivals not to signal their “replacement,” but to emphasize Jesus’ divine prerogatives and identity.

Biblical scholars often ponder the intent—and even the existence—of chapter 21 of John’s Gospel given the profound concluding notes of 20:30-31. Nonetheless no ancient manuscript exists without the scenes of this chapter as the final act of the Gospel. Many of these same scholars also agree that the Gospel was likely composed in stages over a period of time. This final chapter could have been added late in the composition history of the Gospel to respond to the changing needs and circumstances of the Johannine community. John 21 therefore can be understood as an epilogue insofar as it brings the Gospel story beyond its conclusion into the time of its early audience and clarifies the form and mission of the community it engenders. This paper explores the performance features embedded in this text as a storyteller crosses the dramatic axis into the theatrical axis when John 21 is performed as an epilogue. A Gospel telling that has beautifully faded to black is then picked up again; and a performance critical approach to this text helps to explain the very existence of this chapter as well as how it was intended to be received by the audience.An epilogue, as an “afterword,” carries forward some aspect of the narrative by describing the consequences resulting from its climax, its solution or outcome. Broadly speaking, the relationship made possible by Jesus in John 1–20 leaves its community with two commands: to love and to believe. However completely these truths are revealed, living through them as a community can become problematic over time when members differ on who and what exactly to love and to believe. Therefore, the storyteller actualizes the new covenant commands into the lived experience of the audience through the performance of this epilogue written for them.

As the first of a two-part presentation (the second given by Stanley Saunders), this paper explores the literary and theological connections between creation and temple in the Hebrew Bible with an eye toward their ecological implications. Particular attention is devoted to the opening chapters of Genesis, the building account of the Tabernacle in Exodus, Temple architecture and theology in 1 Kings and Ezekiel, and the Temple controversy profiled in Isaiah 66. In light of these various traditions, I argue that creation made in the image of the Temple provides a promising theological framework for ecological reflection and practice.

Many scribal changes involving the consonantal text exist in early Qur'ans. Types of change include insertion, erasure, erasure overwritten, overwriting without apparent erasure, covering, and covering overwritten. Usually these changes result in a consonantal skeletal text (CST) that is in conformity with that of the standard King Fahd Qur'an based upon the 1924 Cairo edition. In some cases, these scribal changes are found at points that are dealt with in the qira'at literature and other early Islamic traditions. At these points the manuscripts may serve to corroborate the secondary literature that acknowledges certain textual concerns that were being dealt with by the early Muslim community. However, in others cases the secondary literature is completely silent about a verse at which some change has been made in the earliest manuscripts. Acknowledging the fact that some scribal change was conducted near the time of original production and in order to correct obvious slips of the pen or other sources of human error, there are yet some cases in which a manuscript change does not appear attributable to such causes. What is the meaning of these for scholars of the early history of Islam and of the Qur'an in its written form? This presentation will show and discuss some instances of scribal change that do coincide with and/or reflect the concerns that emerge in the early qira'at or tafsir literature, as well as some examples of changes that do not.

Cross border feminist collaborations enhance efforts to combat violence against women, including sexual violence. Sexual assault was a pervasive human rights violation perpetrated against many Liberian women during the over decade long Civil War. Based on a review of the mental health literature focusing on the realities of this crime against humanity in the lives of Liberian women, thirteen interviews were conducted with Liberian Church leaders. The participants and the first and second authors are collaborators on faith-based initiatives aimed at serving and empowering Liberian women and girls through the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Interviewees highlight the effects, dynamics, needs, and solutions for Liberian women attempting to recover from these atrocities. This article utilizes feminist theology and feminist psychology as a frame for understanding the experiences of Liberian sexual assault survivors and feminist cross-border collaborations in West Africa.

Brock, Barr and others have pointed out that, having no precedent, the Pentateuch translators proceeded in what could be termed ad-hoc fashion, varying their strategies from moment to moment, now being freer, now being more literal. Sadly, this spontaneity became abandoned by later LXX translators as it became more and more normative to view, and therefore render sacred writings as “law” rather than as “literature” (Brock). And so, many translational precedents set in the Pentateuch became replaced or “rectified” by works that either were more literal at the outset or became revised towards a Hebrew text. Examining some of these “corrections” towards a Hebrew understanding, makes for fruitful reflection on the residual persistence of a Hebrew tradition, in spite of the widespread use of the Septuagint as Scripture.

There is significant debate concerning the impact of ‘religion’ on self-sacrifice and outgroup violence. We argue in this paper that just as the cognitive science of religion has advanced our understanding of the construct ‘religion’ by fractionating it into its component parts , so too will the field advance by fractionating the notions of ‘cohesion’ and ‘ingroup commitment’. We will present evidence from a series of studies with American Christians showing that ‘fusion’ with one’s religion, more so than one’s degree of fundamentalism, group identification, sacred values, religious orientation, or conservatism, predicts one’s willingness to sacrifice one’s life for Christianity and one’s fellow Christians. Further, these studies show that fusion’s power is mediated by its ability to trigger perceptions of kinship among co-religionists and that the altruism produced is limited to members of one’s religion, regardless of the content of one’s Christian beliefs.

Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America: a Gay Fantasia on National Themes” and Jonas Gardell’s “Don’t Ever Wipe Tears without Gloves” both make extensive use of biblical motifs in their exploration of the AIDS-crisis in the 1980s and its effect upon the gay male community in New York and Stockholm, respectively. This paper explores the use of eschatological prophecy and prophetic identity in the screen adaptations of the two works (“Angels” by Mike Nichols and “Don’t Ever Wipe Tears” by Simon Kaijser, with screenplays by the original authors). Both works use the figure of the prophet to articulate the gay community’s experience of trauma and to investigate the identity crisis brought on by the AIDS-epidemic. Particularly interesting are the ambiguities inherent in the presentation of prophecy, which comes to symbolize both threat and solution in the two works. In “Angels”, eschatological and prophetic language is used to emphasize the severity of the threat to the gay community. However, as the protagonist, Prior Walter, reluctantly takes on the role of a prophet, the community is simultaneously given prophetic voice and agency. In “Don’t Ever Wipe Tears” the references to biblical prophecy appear in particular in relation to the main characters’ experience of societal, religious, and individual attempts to erase their identity. While offering for the most part a negative view of the potential of prophecy, “Don’t Ever Wipe Tears” also shows how prophetic identity can be appropriated as a strategy for retaining control of one’s own life-story. This is most clearly apparent in a climactic reenactment of Isaiah’s eschatological vision (Is. 11) which reinterprets the wish for a new world into a quest for maintaining one’s own identity. The paper focuses in particular on the two works’ use of prophetic call visions (especially Isaiah 6 and Jonah 1) and visions of eschatological salvation (Isaiah 11 and Revelation 21). Discussing the ambiguities of prophecy in “Angels” and “Don’t Ever Wipe Tears” may also offer new perspectives on biblical depictions of prophecy – and the dual role of the prophet as a messenger of doom and a voice of hope.

The purpose of this essay is to recover the interpretive tradition of figural reading depicted in the Syriac Book of the Cave of Treasures with the hope that this method of interpretation might serve as an avenue of investigation for modern day biblical scholars. Throughout his extended fifty four chapter narrative that recounts the story of biblical history from creation to Pentecost, the author uses the interpretive method of figural reading as a means to unite the biblical story and provide cohesion. Although present day readers may question any number of the unique interpretations presented in this pre-critical document, it is not the intention of this essay to evaluate the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the various figural readings as such. Rather, the goal of this essay is to recover the various types of interpretive moves that the author himself makes with a view towards proposing these figural readings as interpretive possibilities for contemporary scholars. This essay will be divided into two sections. First, I will discuss the content, literary character, and theological message of The Cave of Treasures (CT). Second, I will present a taxonomy representative of the author’s figural interpretations under five headings: 1) Adam-Christ Readings; 2) Soteriological Readings; 3) Christological Readings; 4) Ecclesiological Readings; and, 5) Cessation-Replacement Readings. By recovering the interpretive tradition of one of the most influential documents in Syriac Christianity contemporary scholars are afforded a rich store house of interpretive data that may serve as gateways for further investigation.

This paper aims to demonstrate how a Christian Trinitarian reading of Ps 119 illustrates the unity of law and love. Firstly I will offer a description of the law as the expression of God’s love and faithfulness in Psalm 119. I will show how this psalm identifies the law very closely with God, being life-giving and eternal and identified with the word of God. It will also be seen that the law is described as the way of true life and wholeness, the supreme expression of God’s love and faithfulness. The law is never presented as the possession of the observer but always belongs to God and God’s communication. The psalmist also expects that the observer will be graciously enabled by God to obey. I will then identify a Christian reading as specifically Trinitarian in terms of God’s economy of salvation. This will involve a co-identification of revelation and reconciliation and the argument that revelation occurs in participation in Christ. I will argue that participation with God in Christ is the telos for which all humanity was created and that this divine fellowship is the expression of God’s love. The role of God’s commanding and forbidding is central to participation in Christ since participation involves reconciliation and transformation. In this role the Law has its true purpose as humanity is shaped into the likeness of God’s beloved Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. The law understood in terms of the Trinity is not only God’s command to us as we participate in Christ, but involves his salvific action on our behalf as we are made into the likeness of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Here law and love find complete unity in the reconciling work of the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

In attempting to respond to the failure of so many Christians in Africa during the first systematic testing of the church under Decius, Cyprian described himself and his episcopal colleagues struggling to discern an appropriate procedure for restoring the fallen to the communion of the church and hope for salvation. Neither the scriptures nor preceding church practice provided a solution: they had to innovate (ep. 54.3.3, 55.6.1). In this, they continued a process that began no later than Paul’s responses to the questions posed by the Corinthians. Christians constantly developed and adopted new practices though which they attempted to remain faithful to Christ. This paper will focus on the decisions made in Africa by Christian leaders dealing with the effects of Decius’ attempt to revive the empire by requiring all to sacrifice to the immortal gods guiding its fortunes. In play were developing practices of avoiding persecution, using the martyrs as agents of forgiveness, and differentiating types of church membership. The central argument of this proposal is that the African church debated and rejected the view, earlier argued by Tertullian and then championed by Novatian, that salvation could be attained by penitents outside the church’s eucharistic communion. After a struggle, the Africans rejected the permanent exclusion of lapsed Christians. They developed and institutionalized two divergent practices for reintegrating the sinners into the communion. The competition between the two parties focused attention on their shared belief that participation in the eucharistic ritual was a necessary condition for salvation. This commitment led, in turn, to a conflict with the Roman church over sacramental efficacy. In their innovative response to failure in the Decian persecution, the Africans shaped a peculiar identity that would influence the future of Latin Christianity.

This paper tests the increasingly influential theory that Mark knew Paul’s epistles by examining Mark 8:31-9:1 as a potential adaptation of Paul’s representation of Peter in Galatians 1-2. Consideration of points of contact between these texts supports the hypothesis and allows for a fairly precise accounting of the literary relationship it proposes. For example, (1) Galatians presents Peter’s resistance to table-fellowship with Gentiles as a rejection of the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection (2:19-21). Mark 8:31-9:1 represents Peter as resisting Jesus’ death and resurrection, with Jesus proceeding to clarify their implications for his followers. (2) Galatians associates Peter’s resistance with the cursed demonic opposition to God that Paul’s opponents in Galatia display (cf. 1:8), claiming both Peter and they pervert the gospel: the latter want to metastrepsai it (1:7); Peter and his party do not orthopodousin according to its truth (2:14a). Mark too characterizes Peter’s resistance as demonic and signals its perversity with a metaphor analogous to Paul’s: “line up behind me, Satan” (hypage opisô mou, Satana, 8:33a; cf. opisô mou akolouthein, 8:34). (3) Galatians accuses Peter of being more attentive to human concerns than to God’s commandments (2:12-13), as Jesus accuses Peter in Mark (8:33b). (4) Paul claims it is he who has been crucified with Christ and accordingly participates in Christ’s new life (Gal 2:19-20), thereby presenting himself as a positive example against the implicit failure of Peter to do the same thing with respect to his relationship to the Law. In Mark, Peter’s rebuke of Jesus for prophesying his death prompts Jesus to call on all who would follow him to take up their cross. Mark underscores Peter’s literal failure to do this, not only by having Peter vow he will die with Jesus before denying him (14:31) immediately before representing him deny Jesus thrice out of shame and fear (14:66-72, anticipated in 8:38), but also by reporting that Peter’s namesake, Simon of Cyrene, manages to take up the cross of Jesus that Peter shuns (15:21). Incidentally, understanding Mark 8:31-9:1 as a revision of Paul allows for an persuasive account of Matthew 16:13-20, which is often viewed as a source of independent traditions about Peter whose occasional convergences with Galatians 1-2 may point to direct reliance on Galatians (Sim, JSNT 31 [2009]: 401-22). In fact, Matthew merely redacts the Markan passage by systematically eliminating and reversing the troubling representation of Peter Mark adapts from Paul’s polemical portrayal. The parallels between Paul and Mark involve similarities of language and ideas (e.g., Gal 2:19-20; Mark 8:34-35), and of characters and context. They are sufficiently extensive to make plausible the hypothesis that Mark 8:37-9:1 adapts Galatians 1-2. Mark’s employment of Paul’s letters, however, involves not merely the adoption of discrete Pauline ideas or theological perspectives, but also the adaptation of Pauline polemic and theological argument into narrative form. My analysis points to an unexpected structural dimension in this literary relationship that complicates, even as it supports, the hypothesis that Mark employs Paul’s epistles as a literary source.

To teach a language, it helps to know the language. Last year we heard how Greek professors disagreed about the meaning of the Greek perfect. Did it represent a simple aspect, whether stative or imperfective, or was it a more complex aspect, a resultative? Morphology was considered irrelevant to the discussion. However, the Greek perfect is etymologically and structurally different from the imperfective system (AKA ‘present’), from the aorist system, and from the future system. Verbs in the imperfective system, the aorist system, and the future system have one marker for their respective stems. However, the perfect active has two markers. Another asymmetry occurs only in the perfect between the active and middle where the perfect does not use the same stem—the middle stem does not have a kappa. The perfect is the only aspectual system to have different stems for the active and middle. Semantically, within Indo-European linguistics there has been a hypothesis that the perfect possibly developed from an archaic middle voice into a stative, and finally into a resultative. This has left traces and layers in the morphology. The oldest perfect marker appears to have been a vowel shift. Reduplication added a later stage as a stative. This has remained in the language as a perfect middle where verbs are typically stative and the reduplication iconically fits such open-endedness. The last stage of the perfect morphology has added a kappa to the reduplication. The kappa iconically brings along a previously complete action to create a resultative semantic. There are several kinds of idiosyncratic verbs that are used differently in the perfect, if they use the perfect at all. Other verbs are almost restricted to the perfect. The question for pedagogy is to ask how the young Greeks would have learned to use these verbs that seem to resist the generalized currents in the language. What can help us maximize this for students and teachers today?

In view of the predominant role that humorous invective played in discourses of persuasion in the ancient world, it is striking that the similar utilization of this form of rhetoric by early Christian authors has not received the scholarly attention that it warrants. The goal of invective in the ancient world was to publicly denigrate an individual as deviant from shared social and ethical preconceptions, with the aim of isolating him or her from the community. Humor highlights insiders and outsiders (who is "in" on a joke and who is the outsider "subject" of the joke), forging and enforcing group boundaries, and in antiquity the form humor took was often an aggressive form of personal derision. While to a modern audience such ad hominem invective is rightly deemed a logical fallacy, to an audience in the ancient world such aggressive humor yielded real powers of persuasion. In antiquity personal attacks were efficacious even if they had seemingly little relevance to the details of the argument - it was sufficient to discredit the opponent him or herself. In addition to the persuasive power this form of discourse held, it had the additional benefit of simultaneously conveying to an audience the speaker or writer's own intelligence and rhetorical polish. As Valentina Arena suggests, "the effect of humorous invective is thus twofold: it denigrates the opponent while simultaneously asserting the speaker's authority." In light of this I argue that the vitriolic insults employed by some early Christians against other Christians were done so with cognition of this two-fold purpose. Rather than merely inflammatory expressions of disdain, I argue that some early Christians utilized these hostile assertions much like their contemporaries trained in the use of rhetorical strategy did. I suggest that in addition to rational argumentation this method of persuasion was also utilized by some early Christians in works that were composed and circulated to help negotiate insider and outsider group boundaries, and to demonstrate their perceived superiority over opponents, in particular so-called heretics.

The massive civil war in south China known as the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) was largely inspired through the millenarian hopes of Hong Xiuquan, a self-baptized Christian who believed that he had God-given mission to rid China of all demons. His message was a fundamental rejection of the deeply entrenched Confucianism but neither was his message Christian. It represented more of a syncretism that at its core included a renewal of the Ten Commandments. A major tenant of belief and outward marker was Sabbath observance, which occurred initially on the European Saturday. Feng Yunshan, a key leader of the Taiping rebellion, developed a calendar that observed a weekly Sabbath. Thus Sabbatarianism played a significant role in one of the greatest military conflicts in world history, with a loss of an estimated 20 million people. This paper describes the theology and nature of Sabbath observance in the Taiping movement. Taiping Sabbatarianism furthermore illuminates the confluence of religion and culture as Protestant and indigenous religion synthesized into one. Such interactions highlight the ideological force and lasting value of the Sabbath.

Using Paul’s undisputed letters, especially Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Galatians, this paper will demonstrate that Paul’s change of viewpoint with regard to Jewish orthodoxy and orthopraxy when he joined the Jesus movement was, in his judgment and in reality, neither radical nor without precedent. It was, in fact, well within first-century Jewish self-understanding. The paper will argue that the Jewish community of Paul’s era consisted of a variety of groups and expressions all coexisting within first-century Judaism. The diversity of Jewish beliefs and practices at the time involved what many consider to be first-century Judaism’s core concepts, viz., circumcision, temple worship and its corresponding purity requirements, and messianic expectations. As a first-century Jew, therefore, Paul, both before and after becoming part of the Jesus movement, would have been aware and at least tolerant of Jewish individuals and parties espousing positions that conflicted with his own. The opposition of certain ethnic Jewish members of the new Jewish party galled Paul not primarily because his disputants disagreed with specific doctrines or practices, quarrels that were common among first-century Jews, but because they insisted on a strict constructionist understanding of Torah obedience for Gentiles wishing to join the Jesus movement (and so the Jewish covenant community) that was not demanded of ethnic Jews.

Rachel’s agreement in Genesis 30:14-24 with Leah to exchange sex with Jacob for mandrakes discovered by Leah’s son, Reuben, constitutes an exchange of sex for fertility drugs. The story is rooted in an ancient fertility myth in which mandrakes are understood to possess physical and chemical properties that enhance fertility. This article examines the exchange of sex for drugs in Genesis 30:14-24, the origin of the fertility myth, and examines the myth’s reception history, including apologetic devices employed by biblical and extra-biblical authors to disguise the fertility myth, its efficacy, and the willingness of the biblical characters to participate in it.

The author will discuss his book with an emphasis on methodological issues pertaining to understanding trauma for biblical interpretation.

This paper critically reviews a decade or so of imperial critical work on the Gospels and Jesus Traditions. It offers some critiques and suggestions for further work.

How does the justification material in the Epistle of James relate to justification in Paul’s epistles? This is one of the great puzzles of New Testament studies, but at least since the Reformers placed justification at the center of Pauline interpretation, the vast majority of commentators have offered variations on a single solution to it, taking Jas as derivative from and somehow responsive to Paul. This paper entertains the possibility that this strategy is fundamentally mistaken, and that, far from being dependent on Paul, Jas might represent the earliest extant installment of justification discourse, which was relayed to Paul by “the Teachers,” a group of Jewish-Christian missionaries closely linked with James and Jerusalem, who adapted James’s discourse for a Law-observant mission to the Gentiles, thus provoking a dramatic rejoinder from Paul in the Letter to the Galatians.

Celsus, the late second century philosophical critic of Christianity, and Origen, who responded to his critique in the middle of the third century, are both aware of philosophical allegories of Greek myths, as well as the myths of other ancient cultures such as those of the Egyptians. But Celsus regards the biblical stories as “trash,” not even susceptible to allegorical interpretation. They are not “philosophical” enough to have the capacity to bear any deep, hidden truths. Origen is quick to defend the biblical narratives as containing hidden depths that are, indeed, made available by allegorical exegesis, and yet at the same time, resist reduction to myth. This paper examines the way in which Origen argues for the unique status of biblical narrative as neither merely history nor simply myth, but something in between, which we could appropriately, following Origen’s lead, call “mystery.”

In 1 Clement the second most frequent cited biblical texts are the Book of Psalms (or Psalter). In spite of such an impression, scholarship lacks detailed investigation (cf. Hagner 1973). The overarching purpose of the paper is to examine how 1 Clement received the Psalter in the history of interpretation. The results are illustrated in a threefold outline. First, 1 Clement exemplifies a thematic exegesis of the Psalter. Unlike Ignatius, Clement of Rome rarely opted for a single biblical passage as his interpretational basis. Instead his fragmentary but composite quotations, which perhaps originated from a Jewish anthology, form coherent, extensive arguments (contra the Letter of Barnabas). In addition, he quoted extensively from all five Books of the Psalter. Thus, 1Clement weaves (or intensifies) not only an intertextuality between the Psalter and other biblical writings, but also between individual psalms. Second, 1Clement emphasizes a moralistic reading of the Psalter (cf. Lindemann 1992). Unlike Hebrews (and other NT books), Christological reading of Psalms play an insignificant role in 1Clement. Though Clement adopted a High Priest Christology just like that of Hebrews (cf. Mees 1978), he did not reflect similar interpretation of "messianic" psalms. He mentioned neither soteriological nor eschatological ideas. His numerous choices of psalms focus chiefly on anthropic verses. Consequently the Jewish ethos of Psalms was inherited by previously unrelated recipients, namely Christians (1Clem. 48:2-4). Third, 1Clement emancipates the individual psalms from liturgical setting. In a non-liturgical epistle (contra Drews 1906), Clement reproduced the LXX dictions more or less verbatim and cited mostly with a quotation formula (Pratscher 2010). The popularity of 1Clement catalyzed the canonization of the Psalms in Early Christianity (Ehrman 1983; Metzger 1987 cf. Lona 1998).On top of the spread of Frühkatholizismus, (Beyschlag 1966; Fuellenbach 1980; Moriarty 2012), 1Clement also popularizes Psalms-dictions as daily language in Christian life.

In War 6.267, Josephus directly compares the fate of living creatures with that of the destroyed Temple and its objects (ergois) and the place where they once stood (topois). This paper will examine the extraordinary narrative space devoted to the Temple in War in contrast to the relatively sparse Tacitean description of the Capitoline Temple, another temple destroyed in a Flavian war (Histories 3.71). Rhiannon Ash (2007) has analyzed Tacitus’s “personification of the suicidal Capitoline Temple,” which provides counterpoint to Josephus’s statements about God sentencing the Temple to death by fire. Both Tacitus and Josephus provide ‘obituaries’ for their respective temples; whereas Tacitus has the opportunity to report the Capitol’s rebirth, Josephus’s ekphrasis in Book 5 also allows for a future for the Jerusalem Temple, even if simply literary in nature. Ultimately, both buildings stand in these texts as symbols of their nations, and both authors in these descriptions question—and answer—whether their nations deserve respect.

Since ancient times, rhetorical theorists have recognized that the most powerful forms of persuasion are appeals to pathos (or emotion). Changing someone's mood or disposition goes a long way toward changing their willingness to entertain new ideas and opinions. The most powerful emotional appeals make use of enargeia, vivid description and imagery that evokes in hearers/readers the physical sensations and emotions of real-world experience. Imagining and visualizing are so powerful in part because, as neuro-psychologists have found, they activate areas of the brain associated with perceptual organs and motor activities. The psalms, particularly the first-person laments, are filled with evocative description and imagery. Yet the persuasive function of these passages often goes unrecognized. They are treated as expressive, as a release or articulation of feeling, rather than as persuasive, a move to change the disposition of others whose attitudes, beliefs, or actions the speaker wishes to influence. A particularly interesting example of the persuasive use of enargeia comes in Psalm 77. Psalm 77 has resisted easy classification. As in many laments, the speaker vividly describes physical distress and distance from God but fails to call on God to respond and or to make a vow of public praise. Rather, the psalm takes on the quality of a hymn with a lengthy historical narrative of the exodus from Egypt and revelation at Sinai. In this talk, I will suggest that the speaker is recounting, enacting, and prescribing an active form of self-persuasion. Rather than asking God to intervene to relieve his distress, the speaker calls to mind images that change his own disposition. In this way, the speaker uses both first-hand experience and imaginative recreations of such experiences as a way to build moral character, as a form of self-discipline or habitus.

The traditions of the deliverance at the Red Sea and the theomacy during creation have been well noted in many of the individual psalms; however far less attention has been directed toward how these traditions have been expressed through the poetry of the Psalms. This paper explores how poetic macrostructure, parallelism, metaphor, and other poetic devices shape how these traditions were understood and utilized. It will focus primarily on Psalms 74, 77-78, 89, and 106. Psalm 74 will be analyzed according to how the two aforementioned traditions are intertwined through the poetry; Psalms 77-78 according to the theophanic imagery and the relationship between the shepherding metaphors and the tradition of the deliverance at the Red Sea; Psalm 89 according to the relationship between the theomachy tradition and God’s anointed one; and Psalm 106 according to the personification of the sea.

The earliest written Gospel did not spring from the pen of a single writer. “Mark” is composed from materials that had been used before, some emerging first in Aramaic, and then in Greek, while others began life in Greek. Because he composed his work for hearers already familiar with the sources involved, the composition of the Gospel represented a communal interaction between composer and audience in a principally oral environment of communication. Any knowledge of Mark’s informants comes by way of inference, by assessing the material they handed on to be incorporated within the Gospel. Sometimes, we are aided in this evaluation by the existence of Aramaisms in the text, which might indicate when an Aramaic tradition has been taken up by Mark, whenever it was initially translated. But other criteria are at least equally important: instances where possible tradents (such as Peter) are named or their identities alluded to, the alignment of interests signaled in the New Testament with those of a known tradent, and signal changes of scene or style as passage flows after passage.

In this presentation, I will reexamine the marriage metaphor in Hosea 2 through the lens of R. Jakobson’s analysis of a speech event (“Linguistics and Poetics,” in Style in Language [ed. Sebeok; New York: Wiley, 1960] 350-77), replacing “message” with “metaphor.” In so doing, I will (1) rearticulate one feminist critique of male and historical-critical interpretations of the marriage metaphor using Jakobson’s terms and concepts, (2) rearticulate one feminist interpretation of the marriage metaphor, and (3) attempt to move beyond the impasse by providing a fresh reading of the metaphor within Jakobson’s analysis of a speech event that underlines the inadequacies of both historical-critical interpretations and feminist interpretations. While affirming feminist critique of Hosea’s portrayal of sexual violence, I will attempt to show that the metaphor functioned to criticize the male audience and to motivate them to be less like the abusive God portrayed in the metaphor.

What is at stake in any reference to money in the gospels? What 'work' does money perform in the various contexts in which it appears? This paper, intended for the second project, addresses these questions from an anthropological perspective, focusing in particular on money's role in constructing value. It then analyzes Mt 10.29-31//Lk 12.6-7, a curious aphorism that estimates human worth according to the price of sparrows, reckoned in assaria. I suggest that the saying's explicit reference to money and price is remarkable in that, quite unlike other sayings with similar themes (e.g. Mt 6.26//Lk 12.24; Mt 12.12), it quantifies and calculates value. It is, therefore, a good test case for demonstrating the insights to be gained from an anthropological approach to money in the gospels.

In Baltimore, Jacob Wright stepped in at the last moment and presented a paper on leaders and the qualities of leadership and the relationship with Yahweh. However, he did not discuss the relationship of the leader and those that he or she led. The nature and functions of leadership should be seen in relationship to those who are led. Is there a difference in the leadership qualities and functions of David and Solomon? How about Saul? Do we see a difference in the authority of Moses at different times? Or Joshua? Is there a difference between leading "all Israel" and the "tribes or families of Israel? It is important to see who were led, where the authority resided, as we examine the concept and functions of leadership in the Biblical Texts.

The imperatives of Eccles. 7.16-17 have long intrigued readers (e.g., Christianson 2007: 193). Concerning these intriguing imperatives, I will argue that, whereas... - Perry sees them as “contradictory proverbs” (1993: 128); - Ogden places them in the mouths other than Qoheleth’s (1997: 249); - Salyer sees “incongruous admonitions” that “advocate a utilitarian ethic” [2001: 240]; - Bartholomew, 2006, (following Seow) sees them as arguing for moderation; it is prefer to see these imperatives as... - coming from Qoheleth himself (vs. a third party) and, therefore, complementary; - aiming to guide the reader between the extremes of radical adoption and radical rejection of dominant/foreign behavioral and intellectual norms. Why? The key lies in rightly interpreting the two key sets of antonyms, which are regularly translated ‘righteous’ / ‘wicked’ and ‘wise’ / foolish’: As a lexical-semantic analysis will bear out, both sets of antonyms are very generic, such that a usage’s immediate context must provide the precise standard of conformity / nonconformity (for ts-d-q and r-sh-‘, respectively) and of wisdom / folly (for chakmah and saqal, respectively). The immediate context (v. 15) indicates not a conformity to a standards of Torah (contra, e.g., Odgen and Zogbo [1997, 247]) but to the standards of a daily life that is deeply informed by a dominant/foreign culture, as Qohelet himself experienced it (cf. Salyer 2001: 339). Similarly, the immediate context suggests that the standard of wisdom / folly is not the ‘fear of YHWH’ a la Proverbs) but again that of a dominant/foreign culture. While Fox et al. are right to speak of Qohelet’s limits to wisdom, my proposed explanation more easily accounts for these otherwise perplexing imperatives, esp. v. 17, in which Qohelet (purportedly) says, “Do not be overly wicked.”

The Gospel attributed to Luke claimed to have been written to a second generation Christian community whom had heard the story of Jesus but somehow had neglected to embrace or hear the stories of his encounter with marginalized people. Luke’s narrative of the Messiah is an attempt to intentionally insert stories, teachings, and encounters with the poor, marginalized, and outcasts in Jesus’ world. This seems to be an intentional challenge for the community to address either a neglected area of their ministry and teaching. The Lucan call to free the captives who were marginalized socially, rather than geographically (Luke 4:16-19) is one that needs to be practiced again, as it was in the days of the Theophilus community. As a minister who planted and preaches for a church in inner city Portland and teaches at a seminary, the task of moving students, Christ followers, and our audience to engage those on the margins of Portland has heavily depended upon Luke’s Gospel. As we continue to partner with our community abuse providers, law enforcement, and services to those in prostitution and provide a welcoming environment to them, the need for merging biblical interpretation and homiletics continues to be a challenge, but one that is working.

The expectation of a prophet like Moses, based on Deut 18:15-18, was very much in the air in first century ancient Judaism. Thus it is not surprising that both the Gospels of Matthew and John show considerable influence of Moses typology and especially the sending motif (cf. Exod 3:10-15). In Matthew Jesus presents himself as being sent by God (Matt 10:40) and sends out his disciples (Matt 10:16; 28:16-20). In the Fourth Gospel the sending formula is the key to Jesus’ self-understanding: The Son is sent by God, the Father, and Jesus sends the disciples into the world (17:18). “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (20:21). This paper will explore the history and reception of the sending motif in light of Moses typology in both Matthew and John.

In a 2012 article, François Bovon noticed not without surprise that he devoted almost no time to study New Testament manuscripts, whereas he was all his life so fascinated by some new manuscript of a Christian apocryphal text. To pay attention to the «materiality» of the New Testament, to consider it first through its documents and concrete historical traces, leads clearly the researcher to revise his/her perceptions of ancient Christian texts categories, whatever one call them «useful for the soul», «apocryphal», «canonical». This general affirmation will be study on a specific test-case, the notion of «reproach», or «reprobation» (oneidizo), applied to the death of Christ in a famous variant in Mk 15.34, but also in Rm 15.3, Mt 27.44, or He 11.26, or to qualify for example a not usual pregnancy in Lk 1.25, or for persecutions as in Lk 6.22. The variant of Mk 15.34 will be questionned from this NT background, but also from the «other» Christian texts perspective. According Bovon’s terminology, this variant was at the evidence «useful for the souls» at least for certain ancient Christians, even if it remains difficult to specify them clearly. In a probably clearer way, it challenges our present perception of categories of «texts», leading us to map early Christianity also with the more flexible notion of «traditions».

The linguistic debate between the supporters of the tense approach and the supporters of the aspect/mode approach concerning the Biblical Hebrew verbal tense system can be seen as two generalizations, on the basis of which each school endeavors to bend the entire system to a single perspective. Since the verb is a “predicative complex,” a comprehensive description of the verbal system must take into account the fact that there is more than one perspective with which to describe the system. We propose that the biblical verbal system’s two central axes are the modal axis, which is underpinned by the indicative-modal contrast, and the reference-time axis, wherein every form is defined according to the chronological relation that it maintains with the deictic center R-time. Not only do these two axes not contradict one another, they may be viewed as complementary.

In the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the proto-martyr Thecla endures torture in light of her hope in bodily resurrection. The virtue of endurance took on new meaning among Second Temple Jews who held to the resurrection of the body, and became a key virtue for Christians. Endurance was a second order virtue for the Roman philosophers, who saw it as appropriate for women, but not for men. Endurance was often typified by the image of a woman in childbirth. Christian appeals for endurance, linked with images of childbirth and with bodily resurrection, challenge the gender-constructed virtues of the wider Roman world.

In his important work Empire and Apocalypse, Stephen Moore persuasively argues for translating Basileia as empire specifically in the Gospel of Mark and the Revelation. By translating Basileia as empire rather than the traditional kingdom, Moore highlights the anti-Roman sentiments in these two New Testament writings. In this anti-imperial mode of discourse, however, the author of Mark and Revelation offer a Basileia of God that is none other than the Roman Empire reversed and expanded to heavenly proportions. I will explore the intersection of Moore’s analysis of the Basileia of God with Globalization Studies specifically related to the issue of translation. In the aggressive rise of multinational corporations over the past several decades and their challenge to the autonomy of sovereign nations, how does the ancient concept of the Basileia of God challenge, coopt or comply with these powerful entities if one translates Basileia as corporation or specifically as multinational corporation? Can the Basileia of God be used as a moral critique against multinational corporations and argue for modern economic justice? In other words, how would/could Basileia function if it is translated as the Multinational Corporation of God? I will examine these translational questions with the critical lens of Globalization Studies.

The mysticism of Paul

The works of the third century Latin fathers Tertullian (Apology), Minucius Felix (Octavius), Cyprian (On the Vanity of Idols), and Lactantius (Divine Institutes) contain strikingly similar (often verbatim) accounts of the origin and nature of demons. Direct dependence between some of the sources is possible, but the overall trajectory of any influence is obscure—particularly given the uncertain dates of Felix—and to date, no scholars have undertaken to clarify the relationship. The demonology presented by these African sources draws heavily on Justin Martyr, and upon especially Athenagoras, with whom they agree in distinguishing fallen angels from demons, the latter being the spirits of the children born to fallen angels and human women. This paper will trace this concept of demons from its origins in 1 Enoch 15–16 and Jubilees 10, through Justin and Athenagoras, and then compare it to the demonology evident in the Testament of Solomon. This will firmly locate T. Sol. within the context of third-century Christian thought, reflecting a specific sub-stratum of the Enochic fallen-angel complex in which the giants—rather than the angels themselves—were seen as the primary tradents in forbidden heavenly knowledge. Finally, a synopsis of the relevant passages will demonstrate that the commonalities and divergences of the African authors are better explained by a shared, external Latin source than by any direct dependence between them, or by the shared influence of the Greek text of Athenagoras. This study will enrich our understanding of the vital role that demonological concerns played in the worldview of the early fathers, and how these concerns shaped—and were shaped by—pseudepigraphal works.

The labels, sobriquets, and typological language utilised within the sectarian Qumran scrolls have, ever since their discovery, generated widespread speculation and countless theories as to the precise nature of their significance and, of course, the identities of their historical referents. While debate has raged over the identities of such figures as “the Teacher of Righteousness” and “the Wicked Priest”, there has, in most quarters, been an uncommon degree of consensus (or at least, tacit acceptance) that use of the scriptural terms “Judah”, “Ephraim”, and “Manasseh” in the pesharim should be understood as typological labels for the Community and its opponents – according to most constellations, the Essenes, Pharisees, and Sadducees respectively. This paper will first highlight some ambiguities in the use of “Judah” and “Ephraim” (and to a lesser extent, “Manasseh”) in the sectarian texts, problematizing a straightforward reading of these labels in relation to distinct groups. It will then focus in on the use of “Ephraim”, proposing that the explicit association of this patriarchal label with “the Seekers of Smooth Things” and the community of “the Man of the Lie” in the pesharim can be straightforwardly derived from implicit scriptural allusions present in the Damascus Document.

In 418 CE Severus, the bishop of Minorca, wrote an account of the conversion of all of Minorca’s Jews. The arrival of Stephen’s relics to the island made this miraculous conversion possible according to the letter’s author. These relics reminded the Christian community at Minorca of their suffering at the hands of the island’s Jews, and at the hands of Jews in the past, which is reenacted through a public stoning that parallels Stephen’s own martyrdom. Peaceful relationships between Jews and Christians soon disintegrated, and Stephen’s relics galvanized Minorca’s Christians into action against the Jewish community on the island. According to Severus’ narrative, the Jews, under the influence of Christian reasoning and divine intervention, began to convert, and thus the Christians were no longer subject to their persecution. With this success, Christians had yet again proven themselves to be a community of victorious sufferers who had triumphed over their powerful, historical persecutors, the Jews. While Severus’ account is not purely “historical” and the author employs many pious embellishments in order to tell this story, it is precisely these pious embellishments that reveal the normative narrative beyond the “facts” of the situation. Thus in this paper, rather than focusing on questions of the historicity of the events recounted in this text, I employ Maurice Hablwachs’ theory of collective memory and Elizabeth Castelli’s work on Christian martyrdom and collective memory in order to engage with this letter as a piece of Christian memory-making inspired by a continuing sense of persecution and violence inflicted on Christians. In order to craft such an argument, I build on Castelli’s thesis in her book Martyrdom and Memory so as to demonstrate that through this letter the Christians on Minorca are creating a collective memory that serves to define not only themselves but also the Jews in their community. More specifically, I will argue that Severus, through the presence of Stephen’s relics and the acts of violence that accompany them, creates and propagates this collective memory in which Christians are the righteous sufferers and Jews their persecutors. The bishop suggests in his writing that Minorca’s Christians had failed to recognize their own suffering and that it was only brought to light when Stephen’s relics were brought to light. Stephen served not only as a reminder of their shared heritage of suffering but he also served as validation for Christians who felt embattled and persecuted. In this way, Stephen’s relics reminded Christians that they were a suffering people and thus through his presence, as well as the act of writing and circulating this letter, this facet of Christian identity was further entrenched and justified.

Modern historians map the diversity of early Christianity in a variety of ways, from declines into heresy to competition among “varieties” of early Christianities. In this paper, I argue that we might better map the remains of second-century Christianity by focusing on networks of people, ideas, and letters that moved along broader patterns of trade and communication in the eastern Mediterranean. Focusing on the costs, velocities, and viscosities of movement and commerce, I examine two early Christian networks associated with Dionysios of Corinth and Ignatius of Antioch, respectively. In each case, I show how non-human actants such as geography, economic activity, and trade routes shape the interactions among the various nodes in each network, allowing us to map second-century Christianity as a series of emergent networks that form, coalesce, and dissolve in the flow of movement and connectivity that characterized the Roman Mediterranean. This proposal is for project three.

Popular piety in the ancient Christian East eagerly embraced early oral traditions about the life of the Virgin Mary and expanded to create fanciful apocryphal stories. Some of these apocrypha were ultimately embraced as acceptable for “historical” content while simultaneously rejected from the canon of Scripture and decried as historically false by some early Church fathers. The Orthodox Church is characteristically conservative, refusing to engage in speculative theology and hesitating to venture beyond unspoken but implicit boundaries of theological expression and scripture interpretation. But the apocrypha remain an area for a certain freedom of expression in popular devotions and theology. To this day, the piety of the faithful maintains a delighted and lively fascination with the more remarkable, fanciful and downright impossible details of the stories about the Virgin Mary with no apparent concern for what is historically accurate, possible or even reasonable. Treated as almost quasi-canon in the Orthodox Church, these apocryphal books, which themselves were the fruit of theological interpretation, in turn gave rise to feasts, hymns and iconography which remain very vibrant in the Eastern Christian tradition. Interpretation of Old Testament prophecies led to poetic statements about Mary which were historicized in the apocrypha, and by turn inspiring centuries old hymnology and iconography. Orthodox iconography not only depicts apocryphal stories about Mary but, more importantly, this iconography also conveys theological meaning. Furthermore, even though both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions apparently accept as historically accurate certain details which are found in the apocrypha, specific features in Orthodox iconography reveal theological disagreements with Catholic doctrine about the Virgin Mary, her parents and even the person of Joseph. The interpretive interplay between piety, theology, scripture, apocrypha, iconography and hymnology in the Christian East has resulted in an amazing - and even impossible - “life” of the Virgin Mary.

An Evaluation of Ehud as Revealed by the Narrative Appraisal Method

The tense-aspect-mood system of Biblical Hebrew continues to attract scholarly attention. In this paper I present a case for discrete general meanings for each of the verbal grams and illustrate how specific meanings in the context of 1 Samuel 1–2 are derivable from the respective general meanings based on a strong compositional approach that distinguishes the contribution of the verbal grams from other contextual contributions to the meaning of the passages. Attention is given specifically to the philological reasoning from a the semantic theory to specific instances and the role of the verbal grams in the temporal structure of the passages under discussion.

In 1875 a tomb was discovered in Rome that contained five frescoes. One of them depicts a man attached to a horizontal bar. Interpretive hypotheses of the image have identified the man as: an element of a pompa funebris (funeral procession); an element of a voyage to the Underworld; a telamon; or part of a triumphal procession. Some have identified the tortured man as the crucified Regulus. The horizontal bar to which he is bound by a fetter is best described as a patibulum. This is confirmed by the ancient usage of the term including its occurrence in the lex Puteolana, a law regulating crucifixion during the Augustan era. Comparisons of the image with Andromeda exposed on a patibulum (an Etruscan cista), the crucified individual in taberna 5 of Puteoli (Alkimilla), the Palatine graffito, and the Pereire gem are relevant to the interpretation of the Arieti fresco. The research has implications for the understanding of John 19:17.

Historically, epistemology in the Hebrew Bible has received the most attention from biblical scholars focusing on the wisdom tradition, or from theologians and philosophers. These perspectives, to be sure, possess their own individual merits. Nonetheless, they have rarely concentrated on the topic of epistemology from the viewpoint of the sociology of knowledge of scholarly cultures. This latter outlook has long been employed by science historians, e.g., Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962). Within that vein more recently, scholars such as Karin Knorr Cetina (Epistemic Cultures, 1999) have highlighted how specific scholarly cultures have specific epistemologies. Such an approach, I maintain, provides a powerful heuristic for understanding how the professional scribal circles in both ancient Judah and Mesopotamia functioned. We know a great deal, of course, about the practices and conventions (both mental and instrumental) that defined Babylonian scribal culture, and thus the sociological models developed to understand epistemology in modern learned cultures has already begun to be applied to Babylonian scribalism. To be sure, we know less about the specifics of Judean scribal culture, but we do know that the Hebrew Bible itself is a product of it. In this paper, then, I will discuss how the problem of epistemology within the biblical text reflects the distinctive knowledge culture of Judean scribes. In both Mesopotamian and Judean scribal circles, knowledge could be revealed by the gods and handed down with the authority of previous generations of scribes. But it could also be uncovered by learned means of textual exegesis. Thus, written language served as a particular medium through which acceptable knowledge was not only received and distributed, but also discovered and created.

There are three narrative fragments in Exodus that mention Moses’ marriage and offspring: 2:21-22; 4:20, 24-25; and 18:1-7, respectively. The disparate fragments pose critical problems of chronology, consistency and coherence that must be addressed. In addition to raising critical issues of composition, they engender provocative questions including: How could Moses marry a Midianite woman—daughter of a priest, no less? Why did he fail to circumcise his son prior to his departure from Midian? And, how is it that Zipporah embarks for Egypt with Moses in chapter 4 but turns up in Midian in chapter 18? Traditional Jewish commentary harmonizes and fills gaps as necessary, supplying the coherence that the biblical texts lack, and typically offering apologetic answers to difficult questions. For example, Zipporah converted prior to marriage; Moses failed to circumcise his son because the operation might endanger an infant embarking on an arduous journey. Alongside that approach, however, there is a provocative alternative, based on a brief passage in the Mekhilta that finds more elaborate expression in Spanish commentary of the 14th-16th centuries. In this alternative account, not only did Zipporah remain non-Jewish, but because of an agreement between Moses and Jethro, she intended to raise a non-Jewish (and hence uncircumcised) son. The goals of this paper are to describe the development of this alternative line of interpretation, to explore its social context(s), and assess its value in relation to critical commentary.

It is generally accepted that the Pseudo-Clementines should be read as a Jewish-Christian text. They certainly have a word to say on the issue of defining Jewish-Christianity in Late Antiquity, but the literary form adopted by the authors, the Greek novel, the contents of many discussions between Peter and Simon, and the Pseudo-Clementines main plot (the conversion of the “pagan” Clement), tell us that the greatest threat the authors had to face concerning religious identity was not Judaism but Hellenism. In terms of the narrative, the main opponent of the Apostle Peter is Simon Magus, who represents, in a way and amongst other things, Greek culture. In the Pseudo-Clementines, Simon Magus is not only the Samaritan magician known since Irenaeus as the Father of all heresies, he is also described, exactly like Peter, as some sort of a Greek philosopher endowed with supernatural power. Unlike Peter’s ability to perform miracles, Simon’s power to accomplish prodigies has nothing divine as it comes from the practice of necromancy. The magician is said to have murdered a child and separated the child’s soul from his body in order to use this soul as his assistant for any exhibition of power (Hom. 2, 26). In this paper I shall suggest that the necromancy’s episode in the Pseudo-Clementines should be understood in the light of another similar episode of necromancy and murdering of children reported by Gregory of Nazianzus about the Emperor Julian (Or. IV, 92; V, 31). Since the accusation made by Gregory is probably a way of attacking the theurgic rites performed among Neoplatonists like Julian, I shall also suggest that Simon Magus’ necromancy in the Pseudo-Clementines might be a manner of dealing with Neoplatonists and theurgy as well, in a context (4th century AD) where magic and theurgy are getting increasingly repressed after the imperial administration became Christian.

According to the literary critic Barbara Herrnstein Smith, readers or hearers continually form new impressions of a poem’s meaning as they experience its performance. These impressions give rise to certain expectations for how the poem will develop. When their initial hunches are frustrated or contradicted by the unfolding poem, the readers or hearers must both adjust their subsequent expectations and reinterpret earlier lines of the poem accordingly. Smith calls this ongoing process “retrospective patterning” (Smith, Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968], 10–14). In this paper, I discuss several examples of this phenomenon in Isaiah 1–33, including Isa 1:9–10; 5:29; 29:4–5; and others. Poems in these chapters frequently prompt retrospective patterning, which often entails the nearly total reversal of earlier expectations, especially in contexts of judgment and deliverance. These rhetorical effects are achieved through a number of different literary strategies, such as syntactic and morphological parallelism, paronomasia, semantic ambiguity, or novel uses of familiar language. The frequency of retrospective patterning in Isaiah 1–33 has a number of important poetic effects. Minimally, it increases the audience’s interest in a poem and thus sustains their attention throughout its performance. At the same time, however, it destabilizes their confidence in their own understanding of the poem and the world the poem depicts; indeed, it threatens to destabilize the possibility of meaning itself. Finally, it mimics and reinforces one of the central theological claims of these chapters—namely, that YHWH has a divine plan for the kingdoms of the ancient Near East that is shocking, unpredictable, and unopposable.

In his important study of the exegetical method of the School of Rabbi Ishmael, Scripture as Logos (2004), Azzan Yadin pinpoints a previously underappreciated characteristic of this school of tannaitic midrash: the notion that the personified Scripture (ha-katuv)—in contradistinction to the personified Torah (ha-torah)—interprets itself. In short, “Scripture speaks” (maggid ha-katuv, ha-katuv medabber). This exegetical phenomenon, Yadin argues, finds an important counterpart in the scriptural exegesis of 4QMMT and Clement of Alexandria—particularly in the latter’s hypostasized Logos. While such connections are plausible, Yadin leaves largely unexplored a more intuitive lexical and exegetical parallel in the New Testament: the personification of grafe as an interpretive authority in the letters of Paul. Using Yadin’s discussion as a springboard, this paper will study the personifications of grafe and nomos in the Pauline corpus, focusing particularly on the formula legei he grafe in Galatians, Romans, and 1 Timothy. While Paul’s use of the personified Scripture in Galatians and Romans does not map exactly onto the Ishmaelian paradigm, Scripture functions similarly as an exegete in both corpora. This suggests not only that Paul stands as an important predecessor to the Ishmaelian practice, but also that studying the Rabbi Ishmael midrashim offers a new window into Pauline biblical exegesis and Paul’s construction of interpretive authority.

This paper traces the transmission of the text of OG Job from the time of its translation, through early corruptions, its earliest textual witnesses, revisions toward the Hebrew; the recensions of Origen and Lucian; the subversions, with particular attention to the Armenian; the great uncial manuscripts and medieval miniscule witnesses; then printed editions, down to Ziegler's eclectic text (1982).

This paper deals with two passages in which characters caution listeners against fighting God, the Jewish War (JW) 5.362-419 and Acts 5:12-42, in order to explore what these passages reveal about the writers’ understandings of divine and human action in history. In the first passage, Josephus stands as a character in his own narrative and, in light of his revelation that the war represents God’s punishment by means of the Romans, passionately exhorts his fellow people to repent – to God and to Rome. In the second, following the arrest of the apostles Gamaliel advises the Sanhedrin against action, reasoning that movements that do not enjoy divine support die out naturally, while those that do cannot be stopped. As a speech attributed to the implied author’s own character, the rhetorical frame of Josephus’s speech can be dealt with more quickly, however interpretation of Gamaliel’s voice in Acts has proven more contentious. I argue that the use of irony reveals that the implied author shares Gamaliel’s views in relation to God’s providence, while simultaneously exposing Gamaliel’s response as inadequate. Thus, both the JW and Acts affirm divine providence as an unstoppable force, but in other ways make allowances for human action. Significantly, I argue, the writers present the human choice to align oneself with, or to oppose, divine providence as having eschatological consequences. Indeed, although they place stress differently on divine judgement and invitation, both the JW and Acts present divine and human action in history in ways which reveal their understandings of the telos of that history. Therefore, after outlining some relevant considerations of literary convention in Hellenistic historiography, I will discuss the passages from the JW and Acts in turn, with a particular focus on the rhetorical function of Gamaliel’s statement in the narrative of Acts. Finally, I will comment on the implications for eschatology in Josephus and Luke/Acts.

Among those texts which vied for a position as authoritative Scripture, but were eventually rejected by ecclesiastical authorities, was the so-called Diatessaron of Tatian. Having been compiled from the four canonical gospels, Tatian’s work occupies a liminal position between the categories of “canonical” and “apocryphal,” since the majority of its content was common to users of the fourfold gospel, though this content existed in a radically altered form and was tainted by association with a known heretic. In this paper I intend to give a close reading of the only surviving Greek witness to this work, a fragment of parchment found in excavations at Dura-Europos. Dura’s very location as a borderland between Rome and Persia corresponds with the fact that in this outpost garrison city Christians were using a gospel text that would have appeared markedly strange to those in the mainstream of the Christian tradition. Here I want to highlight how the text that can be recovered from the Dura fragment shows Tatian creatively and intelligently combining the text of the four gospels to produce a new narrative of the life of Jesus, choosing to leave out certain elements and to highlight others. Moreover, comparison with the early medieval Arabic gospel harmony and with the Latin Codex Fuldensis illustrates well how later users of Tatian’s work engaged in their own editing of this text in varied attempts to improve it and to bring it into line with the authoritative gospel versions with which they were most familiar. The Dura fragment, therefore, as our oldest extant witness to Tatian’s work, provides a window into the rewriting of canonical Scripture in the second century, and how this attempt was further received by later generations of Christians.

Central to the book of Joel is the place of the temple, as seen by the cultic activity of lamenting, fasting, and prayer. The temple suffers as the people suffer, experiencing a deprivation of offerings and a loss of joy. The temple, however, transforms desolation into fertility and it establishes justice for the people of Judah in Joel 4:18-21 (MT). This essay will utilize a comparative methodology focusing on temple ideology found in the Gudea Cylinders and the Baal Cycle, which will demonstrate that fertility and protection motifs are linked as provisions from the temple in the ANE and in Joel’s conclusion. The close association of the temple with fertility and protection motifs will set the stage for a detailed examination of the cultic references in Joel that will highlight the reversal from judgment to blessing (from Judah’s perspective) in Joel’s conclusion, while also showing the centrality of the temple and the unity of the conclusion with the rest of Joel, especially Joel 1-2. I will argue that Joel 4:18-21 (MT) serves to communicate the eschatological reversal that will take place in Judah with the restoration of an ideal temple that provides Edenic abundance, perfect security, and joy for the people of the LORD.

Often times the primary texts used in Religious Studies research are difficult to understand or comprehend. This practical teaching tactic facilitates student engagement with, and appreciation of primary texts before they begin to analyze them. It also helps the students internalize the implicit and explicit messages of the texts studied.

The forced migration of major portions of the ancient Israelite and Judean populations by the empires of the Iron Age are a significant theme within the Deuteronomistic History. The debates about these forced migrations, often called exiles, revolve around archaeological findings and demographic realities of the time. This paper will use comparative empire data along with related anthropological theory to explore the role of empires in the forced demographic shifts in Iron Age Israel and Judah.

Dr. Csordas, an anthropologist noted for his early, enduring, and influential work on embodiment and religion, will respond to the five papers presented by the panel.

In this paper I will interact with two central chapters of Patrick McNamara’s “The Neuroscience of Religious Experience”, that is, chapters five and six that deal with the neurology and neurochemistry of religiosity. Drawing on McNamara's conclusions in these chapters, I will turn to early Christian apocalyptic texts that describe tours of heaven and ask the question of how far the available neuroscientific evidence and models can help us make sense of these reports. A perennial question in the research of such literature is whether there is any actual religious experience behind the accounts. I will argue that the best approach is one that combines knowledge about the neurological bases of religious experience, the role of tradition and beliefs shaping experience at subconscious and conscious levels, and the different ways in which memory and textual transmission influence the preserved forms of the seer’s story.

Psalm 121 is one of the popular Psalms in contemporary Africa where physical and metaphysical insecurities are ever-present threats. It has been differently interpreted and used. In its original setting, the Psalm is classified as one of the pilgrim Psalms. It was subsequently used in the history of its interpretation to enhance physical security. However, in my own interpretation of the text I will like to contextually ground it in the Yoruba (African) cultural and metaphysical realities. For example, vs. 6 “the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night” when read from the Yoruba metaphysical realities most probably indicates that the enemies that the Psalmist was dealing with were not just physical in character they could also be metaphysical or malevolent diabolical forces. Approaching the text from solely Western epistemological perspectives may not make the meaning of the text relevant in the African context. This is because from the Western perspective, reality is basically limited to things that can be subjected to objective parameters of verifiability. This paper therefore will establish the position that the enemies the Psalmist encountered in this text, when read from the Yoruba context are not only physical entities but mystical and unseen diabolical forces which are said to be responsible for much of the calamities and crises in the world. The Yoruba are one of the largest homogeneous ethnic groups and found mainly in Southwestern Nigeria and pockets of them are found in North Central Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo, Cuba and Brazil.

Dress was a signature part of religious life in the Roman world. Historians have begun to consider how dressing as well as undressing figured in initiation ceremonies across religious communities in antiquity. But dress could also serve as an indicator of religious affiliation in a variety of cults. Adherents would be put such religious costumes on display in civic processions as well as memorialize them in portraiture and images, all in a effort to establish their place in civic life. Did Christians likewise utilize dress to make themselves visible and recognizable in this context? This paper considers the writings of Tertullian of Carthage as evidence for how, in Roman North Africa, Christians might have utilized their dress (both discursively and performatively) in this way. While scholars have examined Tertullian’s vestimentary advice with regard to gender and sexuality, philosophical virtue, and to a lesser degree, ethnicity, we have paid less attention to his comments in light of the garb of rival religious communities in Carthage and its vicinity. A consideration of cultic clothing associated with Asclepius, Ceres, and Mithras (which feature in Tertullian’s writings) illuminate the complexity of constructing a distinguishable Christian look. In fact, Tertullian’s advice on dress could find his Christian audience in garb that might also identify them with these groups. This paper will consider what we know about the clothing of these communities, as well as their presence in Roman North Africa. It will consider Tertullian’s rhetoric about particular garments (such as laurel crowns, pallia, and white tunics) as attempts to lay claim to certain looks and garments as authentically Christian, and then to promote them to his Christian audience. His goal, it suggests, was to construct recognizable Christian dress that would situate this group advantageously in the civic space of Roman Carthage.

The paper examines the soteriology and sociocultural framework of Ephesians 2. It observes conceptual parallels with African conventions to elucidate the multifaceted aspects of the salvific vision usually minimized or overlooked in scholarship. The method of analysis is not ideological (i.e. post-colonial) but social-scientific study grounded in the milieu of the early readership/hearers and exegetical analysis while simultaneously showing the contributions that an African reader brings to our understanding of the concept of salvation in the letter. For example, parallel notions of ethnic stereotyping, kinship, worldview and community in the concept of salvation will unveil some perspectival blinders accompanied by some Western existential and individualistic approach to the text.

This paper examines two types of foundation narrative prevalent in the biblical literature in light of as-yet-undiscussed parallels from ancient Greek and Mediterranean texts. The first type, embodied in the Genesis narratives and Greek genealogical traditions, portrays the founders as leaving a distant land to settle peacefully in a new land. The second is exemplified by the central Hexateuchal theme of the Israelites’ migration to Canaan by dispossessing the native population as well as the Dorian migration traditions. Several factors indicate that the foundation-story genre also became central and foundational in other small kingdoms around the Mediterranean—as indicated, for example, by the Phoenician-Luwian inscriptions referring to bt Mpš/Mopsus and related classical sources. The popularity of the genre in ancient Mediterranean is striking in light of the fact that, while experiencing tribal migrations and wanderings, the great Mesopotamian and Egyptian kingdoms never represented themselves as “immigrants.” It is suggested that this genre may have emerged with the rise of the new, small-scale kingdoms in the Mediterranean basin towards the end of the second millennium B.C.E. The Phoenician and Greek colonization enterprises of the first third of the first millennium B.C.E in particular increased awareness of the Mediterranean states and focused attention on ethnic identity.

Christianity has always been plagued by a supersessionist impulse. The question of who constitutes the "true Israel" has formed a background not only for Christian-Jewish relations, but for intra-Christian relations in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. While such disputes have tended to emphasize the theological aspects of the supersessionist question, we can also find a distinct and troubling racialist undercurrent that weaves its way through the history. One of the most pronounced examples of this racialist impulse is the "British Israel" movement, which claims a direct lineage from the current British royal family to the line of King David. Those making arguments in favor of British Israelism often turn to the existence of the King James Version of the Bible as "proof" of the racial, intellectual, and theological superiority of English-speaking caucasian Europeans. The claim is made that, in this English version, the text actually surpasses the quality and veracity of the Greek and Hebrew predecessors, and offers the most accurate version of God's Word in existence. This paper will argue that such a claim, which defies not only the accepted tenets of historical criticism, but perhaps reason itself, is evidence that the KJV functions for the adherents of British Israelism as a very distinct type of object. Using the analytic tools developed in the disciplines of Iconic Books and material Scripture, this paper will examine the mechanism by which the King James Version of the Bible subtends this counter-rationalist, hyper-racialized identity politics.

Two theological themes—the prophets and their relationship with God, and repentance and salvation—provide fruitful ground for exploring points of both commonality and difference between Christianity and Islam. Yet even in their differences, both traditions show strong connections with different strands of the prophetic traditions of the Bible, in both Testaments.

4QJeremiah-a (4Q70) consists of 50 fragments that appear to preserve material from Jer 7:1 to perhaps Jer 26:10, although the extant remains are more clearly confined to Jer 7:28–22:16. This ms. is one of the oldest witnesses to any text from the Hebrew Bible ever discovered, and has been palaeographically dated to the late-third cent. b.c.e. Emanuel Tov edited and published 4QJer-a in DJD 15 (1997), and characterised the text as a "proto-Masoretic" witness to the dynamic textual history of Jeremiah. His reconstructions throughout almost unfailingly follow the MT, but there are several instances in which this appears to be in error, and in which the text seems closer to the LXX. Furthermore, the unique feature in this scroll of an enormous secondary insertion consisting of six full additional lines of the text in the margins distinguishes this copy as an intriguing subject for further study in the textual history of Jeremiah. This paper shall examine in some greater detail one section of this scroll, preserving Jer 9:11–15, which contains a variety of textual variants that do not appear in Tov's edition. Following the presentation of a new reconstruction, an attempt is made to account for the textual variations in these verses, and how they might reflect the scribal character of this text. The implications for the rest of the fragmentary remains of this scroll are significant, especially if it can be demonstrated that 4QJer-a is not necessarily "proto-Masoretic", but rather a considerably more independent or "freeform" witness to the development of the Jeremiah scriptures and their malleability even as late as the second cent. b.c.e.

As demonstrated by Holmgren, Duggan, and Williamson, the covenant renewal ceremony in 2 Esd 19-20 (MT Neh 9-10) conflates the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants and addresses a postexilic controversy concerning the identity of Abraham’s seed and the exclusion of all others from the temple cult. I will argue that 2 Esdras’ understanding of the covenant, along with the text’s depiction of the people’s voluntary submission to the authority of the “curse of the law” as the proper means of atonement and reconciliation with God, plays an important role in the controversy over the identity of Abraham’s seed as it is recorded in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and is representational of the growing conflict that resulted in the parting of the ways between Jews and Christians. By alluding to statements in 2 Esd 19-20, Paul shapes his argument in Gal 3-4 to combat the confluence of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants and to counter the threatened exclusion (Gal 4:17) of the law-free Galatians. Although Paul quotes Gen 15:6, which indicates that Abraham was considered rectified solely on the basis that he believed God’s word before he was circumcised (Gen 17) or was tested (Gen 22), I contend that Paul’s reference to “the faithful Abraham” (Gal 3:9) is an allusion to the theological reinterpretation of Gen 12 and Gen 15:6 presented in 2 Esd 19:7-8. Additionally, Paul’s discussion of the “curse of the law” is shaped to combat his opponents’ insistence that, just as 2 Esdras 19-20 describes, the law-free Galatians must voluntarily submit to the “curse of the law” in order to be truly reconciled with God. However, by declaring that Christ is the sole seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16) and that the Galatians are in Christ and, therefore, the seed of Abraham (3:28-29), Paul can uphold the covenant with Abraham while insisting that the covenant at Sinai is a separate covenant that enslaves (Gal 4:24). Although the covenant with Abraham obviously included circumcision (Gen 17), Paul can claim that circumcision is unnecessary for the Galatians since they are in Christ, who was born under the law and, therefore, circumcised. While 2 Esd 19:14 claims the Spirit was given to instruct the people in the Mosaic covenant, Paul claims that the Spirit is now the authority for ethical behavior and the proof that the Galatians are reconciled with God without submission to the “curse of the law.”

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Moral excellence (fadl) is a critical paradigm for early Muslim conceptions of legitimate leadership. The qualities and signs of moral excellence are complex and contested, as Afsaruddin shows in Excellence and Precedence (2002). Examination of the term fadl in the Qur'an can help elucidate early Muslim understandings of the concept and the theological underpinnings of its usage in Muslim socio-political discourse. I undertake a co-textual reading of fadl and its cognates (faddal and tafaddal) in the Qur'an, informed by Izutsu's influential semantic analysis of The Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an (rev. 2002), in which fadl figures only briefly in a discussion of "God's bounty" (218-9). Operating on the theory that the Qur'an has a harmonious internal logic, I collate verses involving fadl in order to understand them in light of each other. Comparative analysis of relevant verses throughout the Qur'anic corpus reveals a coherent, if multivalent, concept of fadl that correlates divine grace, moral excellence, and social order. Fadl in the Qur'an usually signifies God's bounty or "grace," which He bestows gratuitously upon whom He wills (e.g. 3:73) as revelation (e.g. 2:105), worldly wealth (e.g. 24:22, with fadl meaning economic "surplus"), kingship and wisdom (e.g. 2:251), and life itself (e.g. 2:243). His grace establishes hierarchal degrees of "excellence" in the social order (e.g. 17:21): to check people by means of each other (2:251), and to test their gratitude (e.g. 2:243, 89:15-16). God exhorts recipients of His fadl to show gratitude through acts of socio-economic charity (e.g. 16:72, 24:22), and He gives preference (faddal) to those who expend their wealth and lives for Him (e.g. 4:95). Correlations between divine grace, moral excellence, and social order in the Qur'anic field of fadl suggest similar correlations in the use of the term in debates over legitimate leadership. God bestows virtues befitting leadership upon whomever He wills. The gratuitous nature of His bounty makes its recipient incur a sacred debt and duty to expend his wealth (material, intellectual, etc.) in the service of others. Thus leadership itself becomes an act of charity to which one well endowed is exhorted as a moral duty. The social order thus implicates a blessed leader duty-bound as an agent of God's grace and will on earth, and a community of subjects duty-bound to obedience as a sign of gratitude for the blessing of excellent (afdal) leadership.

In the course of Qumran Scholarship, scholars have moulded and remoulded early theories of Qumran that, on the basis of a limited amount of texts, constructed a sectarian entity behind these texts. In this paper, I attempt to demonstrate that, at least part of these texts, do not fit this 'Qumran Paradigm', but that scholarly investments prevent the Paradigm to be reconsidered at its foundations. The Qumran Paradigm connects the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran to, on the one hand, the manuscripts from the eleven caves in its vicinity and, on the other hand, the descriptions of the Essenes by Philo, Josephus and Pliny the Elder. Thus, the Qumran Paradigm hypothesises that the Qumran manuscripts reflect the ‘sectarian’ library of a radical minority group (or ‘sect’), which was closely connected to the Essenes and resided at Khirbet Qumran. Part of this group’s ideology is thought to be their self-identification as ‘the chosen righteous ones’, awaiting the eschaton. Their exclusivist self-understanding is perceived to be demonstrated by modes of separatism and dualistic thinking in the manuscripts of the group’s ‘library’. Several of the hypotheses that have formed the foundations of this prevalent Qumran Paradigm can be named: the idea of a ‘sectarian library’; literary and socio-historical models of textual classification; the use and accurateness of certain terminology to describe particular textual peculiarities (such as ‘dualism’), and finally, the implications of conclusions drawn from the perception of ideological coherence in the Qumran texts. This paper wants to address the latter aspect in the construction of the Qumran Sect, and focuses on the construction of social reality through the perception of ideological coherence, particularly with regard to the concept of ‘dualism’. We evaluate the expansion of its definition into ten types of ‘Qumran’-specific dualism. Subsequently, the concept of ‘dualism’ is discussed with regard to the Treatise of the Two Spirits (1QS iii 13 – iv 26), as its dualistically perceived ideas are analysed and compared to similar ideas in other texts. This paper wants to critically evaluate those elements in the foundations of the Qumran Paradigm that prevent scholarship from theorising about possible social realities beyond the scholarly construct of the Qumran 'library' and 'sect'. Hence, it wishes to advocate a more revisionist approach that more fundamentally questions the foundations of the Paradigm, specifically for those texts that do not seem to ‘fit’ within the Qumran Paradigm and that allow us to consider whether the texts found at Qumran represent a wider range of social backgrounds and a fuller engagement with the diverse forms of Second Temple Judaism than is normally envisaged.

There are many marginal notes in ms 344. Most notes are straightforward, but some are not. Moreover, the author of these notes seems not always consistent. The notes however are very interesting as they are offering comments on variants and on the use of hexaplaric signs. The variants are important for a better understanding of the variants offered by the early jewish revisors. The remarks about the signs offer us insights into the manuscripts or their textual tradition used by the maker of the notes. In this paper, i will demonstrate the variety of the notes and their importance for the history of the biblical text. All examples will be taken from the Book of Joshua. This presenter is especially interested in discussing similar notes used in other manuscripts esp Sam or Kings mss.

This paper aims at explaining the reception of the Revelation of John in the First Extant Greek Commentary written by Oecumenius in the sixth century C.E. It will focus on the history of this commentary by analyzing the ideological assumptions that underpin its contents and by evaluating its subsequent religious, cultural and political influence. The paper will firstly analyze the influential commentary of Oecumenius within its cultural context in the Byzantine Empire when the church was a powerful institution in society with Emperors as its members and its supporters. It will spell out how the Emperors are depicted as pious rulers who are benefactors of the church. It further portrays the Byzantine Empire as a global institution with a peaceful and inclusive character that forms a perfect partnership with the church. It will point out how the commentary reconciles this presentation with the very different situation and message of Revelation in the first century that portray the readers as minority which was felt themselves persecuted in a violent manner by extremely hostile political opponents and that felt themselves under severe cultural attack and sought to escape state and political violence. It will then investigate the irony that the commentary of Oecumenius is driven by the desire to secure and stabilize the state against violent opposition of apocalyptic groups that used the Book of Revelation to promote insurrection against the state. In this way the commentary seek to protect the state against religious violence and opposition. The paper will point out how the apocalyptic fervor of those times was countered by important passages in the commentary that read Revelation as a product of times long past when emperors erred in their persecution of the state or as a book with a mystical meaning that cannot be taken literally. It further contrasted those times with later actions that changed the violent policies of the state and that brought about a time of peace, prosperity and well-being of an all-embracing and global partnership between state and church. In a last part of this paper, attention will also be paid to the underlying ideological considerations that motivated Oecumenius to write in the form of a commentary. It will focus on the question how he relates to previous commentaries on Revelation and how he impacted on subsequent commentaries. Finally the significant contribution of his commentary to the acceptance of Revelation in the East will be spelled out.

Nurses and pedagogues were in many cases either slaves or freedpersons, and of all the slaves involved in the education of a child, they were the most influential. They were, on the one hand, important role-players in the formation of late ancient Roman masculinity, but on the other, they also destabilized traditional patriarchal and kyriarchal frameworks. In light of these tensions, the purpose of this study is to investigate John Chrysostom’s remarks on the role of the nurse and the pedagogue in the education of a child. It will examine Chrysostom’s advice regarding tasks related to birth, nursing, and early childhood education, especially in terms of discipline and punishment of adolescent males, and guarding the chastity of young females. The study will also examine his description of what the character of the nurse and pedagogue should be, and finally, also comment on the use and function of the nurse and pedagogue as metaphor in Chrysostom’s works.

Biblical Hebrew possesses two infinitives: the straightforward infinitive or “infinitive construct”, and the so-called “infinitive absolute”. Typically the latter appears paronomastically with intensifying force, though it often functions adverbially. The syntax and semantics of the infinitive absolute remain problematic. This is despite the monograph by Kim (2009), and generative treatments by Harbour (1999) and Pereltsvaig (2002). I argue that difficulties arise because of the morphosyntactic misanalysis of the infinitive (syntactic head versus phrase), and because of the application of the conventional analysis of Biblical Hebrew syntax (VSO or verb-initial). I pursue the idea that a unified analysis of the various uses and several syntactic configurations of the infinitive absolute can be obtained by adopting my particular verb-second (V2) analysis, set forth in DeCaen (1995, 1999) and Cowper & DeCaen (2014). In this model, there is a double movement: some constituent is necessarily topicalized (and this may be the null pronoun); and the finite verb may raise to realize phonologically features of the complementizer. I also argue that the infinitive is a bare verb phrase (VP)---crucially, not a head---originating as an adverb or VP adjunct. In this light, there are four possible scenarios: the verb may or may not move, and the bare VP may or may not be topicalized. The syntax and semantics of the infinitive absolute fall out naturally from this analysis.

Patrick McNamara defines religion as a form of therapy that promises to heal the “divided self” through ritual (McNamara 2009, 26). The centralization of the self into a “new executive form of the Self” has cultural benefits, he says, including enhanced autonomy, attentional control, and cooperativeness. It also makes possible a dissociative process that allows individuals to gain access to “unusual abilities of healing and aggression” (McNamara 2009, 166). While McNamara’s understanding of religion may reflect many contemporary forms of religion, ancient religions in the Mediterranean largely were not focused on therapy or the construction of the self. Their focus was on overcoming the natural propensity of chaos, and then the maintenance of social order through the strong external control of the moral self by the laws of kings and priests. The person was considered a servant or slave of the god whose purpose was to labor on behalf of the god who desired leisure and gifts. This understanding of the human is drawn from the everyday experience of lives of people ruled by terrifying kings and capricious oligarchies in slaveholding societies. The daily experiences of forced labor, oppressive governments, patriarchal families, and the avaricious wealthy was their reality, and this extended to their conceptualization of the sacred and the transcendent. Once these patterns of subservience toward the sacred were embedded within the myths, symbols and rituals of the ancient religions, the religions became powerful instruments that maintained society’s patterns of dominance and servitude. Religions, then, became powerful advertisements of the human’s place in the world and society as obedient and humble slaves to entities superior to them, whether they were the gods or the men who represented them. So where does McNamara’s understanding of religion as therapy of the self originate? Is it a completely modern concept? I do not think so. At the beginning of the first millennium a new form of spirituality arose and began to interrogate the status quo. Gnostic spirituality provided an alternative model of reality, one in which the human is not a servant to the gods, but is liberated from them. The first Gnostics flipped the old forms of spirituality upside down as they became aware of another reality altogether, and began to initiate people into this. This form of spirituality understood the real self to be divine. This divine self existed within the human as a seed that needed to mature. The movements associated with Gnostic spirituality created elaborate rituals in order to mature and then integrate the real self with a transcendent god who was ineffable. The main purpose of these ancient Gnostic rites was self-therapy, the construction of a powerful divine self through ritual that could overcome the cosmic gods (and their men), bring healing to broken bodies, and foster autonomy to brave an unsympathetic chaotic world.

The work of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) Project has identified three types of case studies related to the textual history of the Ethiopic Old Testament. The first, and most common, is the case of the singular textual history which results from the transmission of biblical books solely in one manuscript type, namely those defined narrowly as biblical manuscripts. The second case is the dual textual history resulting from the transmission of Old Testament Biblical Canticles in two types of manuscripts: biblical manuscripts and in Ethiopic Psalters. The third case has to do with the triple textual history of the Ethiopic book of the Song of Songs, known to us from Psalter manuscripts (in two very different text types!), from biblical manuscripts (narrowly defined), and from lectionary manuscripts for Holy Week known as Gabra Hamamat manuscripts. The investigation of texts with singular, dual, and triple textual histories each requires a particular mode of investigation, and each analysis produces very interesting insights about the nature of the transmission and reception histories of biblical texts in the Ethiopic tradition. THEOT scholars have completed the work on nine books of the Ethiopic Old Testament with singular textual histories: six books from the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, and Habakkuk), two books from the Ethiopic Octateuch (Deuteronomy and Judges) and the Psalms. Each study involved the transcription and analysis of shared variant readings in at least thirty manuscripts and up to a maximum of fifty manuscripts. We can now begin to describe the general trends in the textual history of the Ethiopic Old Testament for these books which were passed down in a singular transmission history. We have also studied the dual textual history of three of the twelve Old Testament Biblical Canticles: The Song of Hanna (1Sa 2:1–10), The Song of Jonah (Jonah 2:2–9) and The Song of Habakkuk (Hab 3:2–18). For this work we transcribed and analyzed the shared variant readings in texts from at least thirty biblical manuscripts and thirty Psalter manuscripts. We will describe the character of each textual history and the relationship between them. Quite interestingly, the textual history for the one is not identical to the textual history of the other. Finally, we have studied the special case of the triple textual history of the Ethiopic Song of Songs. We did this by transcribing and analyzing key sections of the text from all three types of manuscripts in which the Song is transmitted. Of particular interest is a form of the text, called the Hebraic edition, which was transmitted in some Psalter manuscripts.

This paper revisits the issue of Job’s illness with the fresh lens of disability studies. Whereas studies of the past focused on what Job’s precise medical condition might have been, this fresh approach assesses both the mental aspect of his condition and the socio-cultural aspects in reference to his feelings of social ostracization. Whilst it is interesting to reconsider the nature of his skin disease, the focus of the paper is on the wider elements that lead to his disability in mind and body and socialization, following studies in disability such as that of J. Schipper on Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant (2011). The dialogue section of Job will prove to be the most fertile part of the book for studying these sentiments, which bear close comparison to psalmic laments. The theological question is raised whether his illness is indeed punishment for sin, at least in Job’s eyes, or whether in fact it is of a different nature to his other calamities. The surprising fact of the non-statement of the restoration of his health in the epilogue is also considered afresh.

Israel's prophets offer a transformative vision of law that goes beyond the legalities of commandments and ordinances. This vision is rooted in an understanding of divine love and right relationship. This paper explores such texts as Jer 31:31-34, Hos 6:1-6, 11:1-9, and Matt 22:34-40 to show how love is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

In the collection of the Great mosque in Kairouan, MS R 38 has been known for a long time, although its date and its connections with Umayyad art remained unnoticed. Thanks to a recent survey of the collection, it has been possible to collect evidence about the connection existing with other Qur'anic manuscripts from the same period and to offer a new glimpse into Umayyad calligraphy and illumination.

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The dialogues of the book of Job are the example of Biblical Hebrew poetry par excellence. Literary features are abundantly present. Its Old Greek translation, in turn, which is infamous for its 'translational freedom', has been characterized as highly stylized as well. In the translation process, features of the source text can be maintained in the target text. They can, however, also go lost in translation, or be altered. Specifically in the book of Job it occurs regularly that one feature of the Hebrew text is eliminated and replaced by another feature in the Greek text. The question can rightfully be asked what consequences these differences bring about, especially on the level of information structure. In this paper, I want to examine those instances in which the Greek, due to a change in word-order, exchanges symmetry in the Hebrew text for a chiasmus in the translation and vice versa, in order to gain insight in the different ways the same information can be structured and what effect these differences have.

It is clear that Paul considered the circumcision of gentile converts a first-order threat to the messianic age. No other subject, not even the Corinthians’ denial of the bodily resurrection, provoked a rebuttal in the tenor or on the scale of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. His warning could not have been more dire – should the converts submit to being circumcised the work of Christ to free [them] from the present evil age would be negated (Gal 1:4, 2:18-21, 4:11, 5:1-10). Why Paul considered the prospect of the converts’ circumcision a catastrophic threat has been historically unclear. The metonymic significance of circumcision virtually ensured the rabbi’s interpretation of Paul’s argument as a wholesale repudiation of Judaism. For their part, Christians, rationalizing the severity of Paul’s alarm, came to read circumcision in his discourse as a cipher for the entirety of Jewish Law. The Book of Dreams, however, contends that the healing of the world would be completed through the redemption of “gentileness” as a category of being. If Paul was of this eschatological school then his distress over the Galatians’ desire to become circumcised, i.e. the Galatians’ desire to become Jewish, would be greatly clarified. The circumcision of the converts would have eradicated the remaining point of theological distinction thereby threatening the very goal of the messianic age:the creation of a contingent of righteous gentiles as the eschatological complement to righteous Jewry. The panicked imperative of Galatians forbidding the rite of circumcision to the converts was aimed, then, not at negating Judaism but rather at preserving the otherness of the gentiles. Amidst the ever increasing numbers of New Perspective studies asserting that Paul did not conceive of the Epistles as a challenge to Judaism, I offer this one; a reading of the Book of Dreams which offers a precursor to Paul’s argument concerning the reclamation of gentiles qua gentiles predating the composition of the Epistles by two centuries.

Perhaps even more surprising than Elijah's exit from the biblical narrative of 2 Kings 2, is his ubiquitous appearances in classical rabbinic texts. Unexpectedly, Elijah is quite a different figure in the literature of the rabbis when compared to his role in the Hebrew Bible. Elijah reveals information to human beings apart from their canonical, authoritative texts and traditions. He has the ability to change shape, heal, and even to harm. In her recent monograph on the subject Elijah and the Rabbis, Kristen H. Lindbeck agrees with previous scholars as seeing Elijah's role as being comparable to the Greek emissary to the gods, Hermes. In this paper, I argue that while Lindbeck's comparison is valid, perhaps there are other comparisons to be made as well. I refer specifically to Philostratus' work On Heroes.In this text, Philostratus depicts the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey as being still alive in his day instructing people as to what "really" happened thus clarifying and even correcting the Homeric text. In Philostratus' work, the heroes can do other things as well such as heal people, change their appearance, hunt, and even have sex. While I do not think these similarities are to be interpreted as a direct borrowing, I do argue that they reflect a similar cultural milieu. In sum, if my analysis is correct, the rabbis conceived of Elijah as a "hero" like those in the Heroikos.

In this paper I integrate studies of Paul’s “ethics,” Paul’s gender ideology, and the role of women in early Christian assemblies by reconstructing and historically contextualizing Paul’s program of moral development for female Christ followers. Paul envisions Christ followers as undergoing a gradual process of moral development that involves, among other things, the strengthening of one’s mind, the control and eradication of corrupt emotions and desires, and assimilation to Christ. In ancient Mediterranean culture, however, women were generally viewed as possessing weak constitutions and proclivities toward corrupt emotion and desire that would have inhibited such moral progress. Given that Paul wrote to groups of Christ followers that included women, then, what does Paul have to say about women’s ability to progress in virtue? And do Paul’s statements about women’s moral progress reflect ancient Mediterranean gender ideologies? I seek to answer these questions by comparing Paul’s thoughts about women’s ability to progress in virtue with the thoughts of two contemporary Hellenistic philosophers – Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger – on the matter. Certainly, Paul, Philo, and Seneca all consider some particular, historical women to have achieved great virtue, but does Paul agree with Philo and Seneca that women's gender generally puts them at a disadvantage to men when it comes to progress in virtue? Due to the nature of our evidence, Paul’s thoughts on the subject are much more difficult to reconstruct than the views of Philo and Seneca. Yet I argue that Paul, on the whole, is less willing to differentiate between men and women with regard to propensity toward progress in virtue than are Philo and Seneca. I attribute this in part to Paul’s ideas about the role of the pneuma in Christ followers’ moral development and Paul’s emphasis on the role of ethnicity in determining humans’ base moral condition.

Upon the occasion of his retirement in 2009, François Bovon delivered the Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard Divinity School, titled, “The Soul's Comeback: Immortality and Resurrection in Early Christianity.” In that address, Professor Bovon implored scholars of early Christianity to recover the concept of the “soul” (yuchv), which – he argued – was eclipsed by the “rediscovery of the body” in twentieth-century academic discourse. Ultimately, Bovon asks us to avoid letting the pendulum swing too far to either side of the psyche/soma divide, lest we miss the immortal, interior dimension of the self that also was prominent in early Christian understanding. In his lecture, Bovon surveyed a wide range of early Christian authors, beginning with several writers from late antiquity, and ending with a Jesus saying from Matthew (10.28). Perhaps surprisingly, however, he did not draw from a text to which he devoted much of his scholarly career – the Gospel of Luke. Here, I wish to expand upon Bovon’s observations regarding the soul and interiority in early Christianity, with specific attention to the Gospel of Luke. In this paper, I consider several Lukan references to what one says to one’s soul, particularly as portrayed through internal monologues. In doing so, my goal is subversive; like Bovon, I wish to challenge a current consensus in which the scholarly pendulum has again swung too far toward an unhelpful extreme: in this case, not between the poles of “soul” and “body,” but between the poles of supposedly “introspective” individualist and “anti-introspective” collectivist societies.

Discussions of Phoenicia in the Neo-Babylonian period tend to focus on the changing role of Tyre in the wake of Nebuchadnezzar II’s siege (or rather, blockade) of that city, ending in the late 570s BCE. While this event did indeed have dramatic implications for Carthage and the balance of trade in the Mediterranean, other aspects of Phoenician administration and commerce under Neo-Babylonian rule have gone un- or under-explored. This paper will go beyond Josephus’ account of Tyrian royal affairs to survey other types of archaeological and inscriptional evidence that bear on the history of Phoenician sites in this period. What changes would Arwad, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, and cities further south have experienced? How might the status of Phoenician colonies abroad reflect these “homeland” changes? A brief reconstruction of Phoenicia’s political structure and economic role under Neo-Babylonian rule will be offered, moving site-by-site through its territory to illustrate the available evidence. Diachronic change at each site will be discussed where possible. Although this is difficult to detect in a period lasting just sixty-five years, data from the early Achaemenid period in Phoenicia may in some cases shed light on the status that certain sites carried over from Neo-Babylonian arrangements. Finally, Phoenicia’s value to the Babylonians will be assessed given the implications of this new reconstruction.

Background: For 1 John 2:29a, the eighth-revised-1998 Nestle-Aland27 lists no variants while the 2012 Nestle-Aland28 cites eleven MSS for idete (aorist subjunctive) in place of eidete (perfect subjunctive). While NA28 is a much more improved critical edition than NA27, the number of MSS cited are rather incomplete. The 2003 Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior (ECM) provides seventy-nine MSS, plus lacunae, for idete (compared to fifty-four MSS for eidete). Besides, several witnesses read oidate (perfect indicative) instead of eidete or idete. Moreover, the presence of ean and de-kai occurs in some MSS but not in others. Since the difference between these subjunctives occurs in the protasis (here the ean-clause), the meaning of each variant depends little on the tense (factual time) of the verb, but rather on the aspect. Each variant has the potential to affect and nuance interpretive implications: it questions the scribal intention of the text(s); it alters the aspectual types of action in the conditional clause. These variants obviously call for various interpretations of the entire verse 2:29, in that the grammatical and theological distinctions between eidete, idete, and oidate can only be fully appreciated through a careful examination of the apodosis. These distinctions, while subtle, lend significant insight to the Aktionsarten perceived through the aspect of the perfect and aorist subjunctives. Methods: Applying the criteria in the so-called reasoned eclecticism, this paper evaluates the different readings of 1 John 2:29a in the textual tradition to see whether eidete, idete, or oidate (with or without ean) is most likely the initial text. Conclusions: A text-critical analysis, backed by the ECM and CBGM, suggests that idete is the better reading in accordance with the textual tradition for 1 John 2:29a. Thus, the variant eidete (in ? B rell) is mostly likely due to scribal intention.

A collaborative project of the Brooklyn Museum and a number of allied institutions, including Princeton Theological Seminary and West Semitic Research, the Digital Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (DBMAP) is to be both an image-based electronic facsimile edition of the important collection of Aramaic papyri from Elephantine housed at the Brooklyn Museum and an archival resource to support ongoing research on these papyri and the public dissemination of knowledge about them. In the process of building out a (partial) prototype of the edition, to serve as a proof of concept, we have discovered little field-specific discussion that might guide our markup decisions. Consequently, here our chief ambition is to initiate such a conversation. After a brief overview of DBMAP and a demo of our prototype edition, we offer some initial reflection and assessment of XML markup schemes specifically for Semitic texts from the ancient Near East that comply with TEI, CSE, and MEP guidelines. We take as our example BMAP 3 (=TAD B3.4) and we focus on markup as pertains to the editorial transcription of this documentary text and to the linguistic analysis of the text’s language.

A great deal of ink has been spilled on the question of early rabbinic literary culture and the rabbinic dedication to the development of an explicitly oral legal tradition. In this essay I will argue that given that the manifest content of early rabbinic discourse is law, it is productive to look to the very public practices of communication inscribed, literally and figuratively, in the Roman legal culture of the east. Within this context, the rabbinic legal project makes sense as a form of provincial shadowing of a dominant Roman legal culture. This paper will explore the paradoxical rabbinic deployment of the most public of Roman genres, law, in a manner explicitly coded as private. How does one make sense of the public aspirations of rabbinic law with its choice to remain unwritten and therefore largely invisible in the imperial landscape of the rabbinic city?

This paper will examine if a female voice can be discerned in books II–III of the Psalter

As part of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament Project, this paper presents some preliminary results of the research into the textual history of Ethiopic Micah. The collation of eleven select readings in about 30 manuscripts enables a classification of various families of manuscripts in Ethiopic Micah. This paper describes the process of collating and presents the manuscripts families that could be identified for Ethiopic Micah.

In Second Testament and early church texts it is proclaimed that Jesus was due, with God, the devotion, proclamation and obedience usually reserved for God alone by utilising the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom (e.g. Colossians, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, John’s prologue, Matthew, 1 Clement and Justin Martyr’s Dialogue). While Woman Wisdom’s origins in Hebrew tradition continue to be disputed, insufficient attention has been given to the reasons why various early Jesus communities would identify Jesus with Woman Wisdom as they proclaimed understandings of Jesus in relation to God. As early Jesus communities sought to proclaim that a person who had been executed in a state sanctioned murder was actually worthy of devotion, they, presumably, would have utilised only those arguments that were most compelling. Why, then, did various Second Testament and early church authors image Jesus like, and as, the female divine? The view that language and imagery of Woman Wisdom were adopted to bolster convictions about the divinity of Jesus rest on assumptions that christology evolved through a process of rational, linear accretion. This assumption is unconvincing in light of the very early expressions of much Wisdom christology and the “problematic” nature of Jesus’ gender when compared with the gender of Woman Wisdom. This paper will demonstrate that collective experiences within early Jesus communities ignited the proclamation of Wisdom christology in Second Testament and early Christian texts. Furthermore these texts reveal the conviction of early Jesus communities that these experiences were bearing collective ontological transformation: transformation that finds expression in the celebration of a “realised” Wisdom soteriology. The key ignition points of this early, experientially fueled identification of Jesus with Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and early Church texts will be discussed and the “realised” Wisdom soteriology that is proclaimed in these early Christian texts will be excavated and explored.

This paper will provide an opportunity for reflection on the modern phenomenon of suicide protesting, with particular attention to autocremation and self-starvation. Since the 1960s – although certainly with precedent – self-mortification has evolved into its own genus of dissent, which has been labeled “communicative suffering.” By focusing on IRA hungerstrikers and Tibetan self-immolators as primary case studies, this paper will compare Buddhist and Christian understandings of suicide, the body, asceticism and martyrdom as a performative act that paradoxically forms a subject through the destruction of its physical form. It will also critically assess how these phenomena may be contingent upon technologies of globalization, and how they may alternately undermine and bolster neocolonial visions of oppressed communities.

This paper will explore the Pauline concept of union with Christ in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. First, after presenting a brief sketch of the theme of union with Christ in Paul’s letters, the paper will ask how the concept of union with Christ in Ignatius’s epistles compares with that found in the Pauline epistles. Second, the paper will ask if the motif of union with Christ in Ignatius can plausibly be traced to Pauline influence.

Joseph Smith stated that “the Book of Revelation is one of the plainest books God ever caused to be written” (History of the Church, 5:342), but, as some have quipped, “He saw the movie.” Whether or not that is the case, the revelations received as part of the Restoration have given Latter-day Saints a unique interpretation of some aspects of this master work and its authorship. This paper explores some of these and their place in LDS doctrine and theology. Latter-day Saints take the position that the book can be understood. They feel that those who live in the day when prophets of God walk the earth, who have access through the prophets to eternal truths and thus to the gift of prophecy, the central message of the book is clear. Elder Bruce R. McConkie stated: “The common notion that it deals with beasts and plagues and mysterious symbolisms that cannot be understood is just not true. . . . [It] is clear and plain and should be understood by the Lord's people” (Ensign [September, 1975]: 87). For Latter-day Saints, the authorship of the book, debated for centuries, is settled by scripture. The Book of Mormon makes it clear that the Apostle John was foreordained to “write concerning the end of the world” and explains why God did not order his visions, unlike so many others, sealed up (1 Ne. 14:18–27). Among the various schools of thought concerning the book, the Latter-day Saints fall into none precisely. Joseph Smith made it plain that “the things which John saw had no allusion to the scenes of the days of Adam, Enoch, Abraham or Jesus, only so far as is plainly represented by John, . . . [he]saw that only which was lying in futurity and which was shortly to come to pass” (History of the Church, 5:341–42). He came to this understanding through a revelation that specifically addressed issues in Apocalypse (Doctrine and Covenants 77). This revelation went counter to scholarly thinking in Joseph Smith’s day most of which placed the events in chapters 7–9 and 11in the past. The revelation clearly placed them in the future and, thus, broke a long standing point of view. The paper will comment on areas addressed by other scholars such as the timing of the Second Coming (19:11), the work of the angel “flying through the midst of heaven” (14:6), the nature and purpose of the “white stone” (2:17), the work and ministry of the 144,000 (7:4), and the work and ministry of the “two witnesses” (11:3). It will also examine some uniquely LDS subjects, such as the fullness of the priesthood (1:6) and the plurality of the Gods (1:6). Finally, it will assess how Joseph Smith’s work has helped make the book “plain,” noting areas he has clarified but also paying attention to some his insights have complicated.

The role that 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 play in the Corinthian correspondence has long been questioned. In the eighteenth century, Johann Semler wondered why Paul repeats in chapter 9 the same argument that he had just made in chapter 8. A century later, H. Hagge argued that chapter 8 must have been an independent letter since the gar of 9:1 clearly connects to 7:16 and chapter 8 disrupts that connection. Early in the twentieth century, Johannes Weiss followed up with the suggestion that, because Paul’s praise for the Corinthians in chapter 8 is effusive, it must have been composed prior to virtually everything else in 2 Corinthians. Hans Windisch, in his 1924 commentary, proposed that neither chapters 8 or 9 fit into their canonical context. Rather, both represent fragments of separate letters focused on the collection. Chapter 8 is the earlier of the two letters although chapter 9 was probably composed not long after. Noting that Paul refers to Achaia in 9:2, Windisch suggested that chapter 9 had originally been sent to the churches in that province rather than to Corinth. Later on, Günther Bornkamm agreed that chapter 9 was a circular letter to the province. Furthermore, Bornkamm proposed that this circular letter and chapter 8 (possibly an independent letter or perhaps the conclusion to 1:1-2:13; 7:5-16) represent the concluding chapter of the Corinthian story. In his 1985 commentary, Hans Dieter Betz agreed with Bornkamm that chapters 8 and 9 represent late writings. Betz compared each of the two chapters to various other ancient administrative letters and concluded that each chapter represents a single letter composed after the conflict between Paul and the Corinthians had been resolved; chapter 8 was sent to Corinth and chapter 9 to the other cities of Achaia. In the early years of the 21st century, Margaret Mitchell revived Weiss’s idea that 2 Corinthians 8 represents the earliest of the letters found in 2 Corinthians. Particularly noteworthy in Mitchell’s argument is her recognition of the difference between Paul’s instructions for the collection in 1 Cor 16:1-4 and in 2 Cor 8:18-19. In my paper I build on the findings of Weiss and Mitchell (i. e., that chapter 8 represents an early letter in the correspondence). However, I further suggest that chapter 9 represents an even earlier letter than chapter 8. I base my argument primarily on two things. First, I contend that the suggestion that chapter 9 represents a circular letter to all of the churches of Achaia except Corinth is not viable. Second, I argue that information given about the collection in Macedonia in both 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 strongly indicates that the Macedonian effort was incomplete when chapter 9 was written but it had been completed when chapter 8 was penned, This information thereby suggests that chapter 8 was composed after chapter 9.

In Galatians 2:11-14 Paul records how he took Peter to task over the incident at Antioch after Peter had withdrawn from table fellowship with Christians of a Gentile origin due to some pressure. There is a great deal of disagreement among contemporary scholars as to just what happened at Antioch and what significance it holds, and we can see that same level of disagreement in early Christian interpretations of the event. In the correspondence between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo the question of how to interpret Galatians 2 was one of the key topics that sparked the rancour that was to exist between the two men for many years. It features also in his Expositio epistulae ad Galatas. One of the more recently discovered Dolbeau sermons is also dedicated to this question of the interpretation of Galatians 2. The other place where reference to this scriptural text occurs is in seven places in De baptismo contra Donatistas. In this paper I suggest that perhaps one of the reasons why Augustine was so opposed to Jerome’s reading of Galatains 2, in which the disagreement between Peter and Paul was more apparent than real, was because without the reality of the conflict between the two apostles, he could not redeem Cyprian of Carthage from the clutches of the Donatists without having Cyprian, like Peter, being wrong and capable of being rebuked and willing to be corrected. While Matthew Gaumer has explored Augustine’s appeal to Cyprian he has not considered this particular aspect of the importance of Galatians 2 in shaping Augustine’s argument, which will be explored here.

This paper critically engages representative readings of Romans 7 in Continental philosophy as they function to support articulations of universalism that attempt to eschew identity politics. I begin with an analysis of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic interpretation of Romans 7 and then turn to Slavoj Žižek’s appropriation of Lacan’s reading. For Žižek, Romans 7 can be read in terms of what he calls the problem of perversion: the law by its act of prohibition necessarily gives rise to the desire for its own infringement. In unplugging from this cycle, Žižek sees the possibility for a new politics of the universal and a new order of theopolitical solidarity. But in the process—and as part of his polemic against “identity politics”—the distinctives (and attendant dilemmas) of embodied difference recede from view. By way of critique, then, the paper goes on to offer a counter-reading of Romans 7, one that builds on several different trajectories of biblical scholarship: the significance of the Adam-Christ typology, Paul’s use of prosôpopoiia, and the intriguing insight that the narrator echoes not Adam’s language, but Eve’s. I suggest that the chapter’s much-debated first-person pronoun may be treated as an anthropologically significant moment of textual undecidability. The ambiguity of this figure—invoking Eve’s words in the primal scene, yet resolving the conflict with resort to the Pauline two-anthrôpos paradigm—points suggestively toward the interplay of Eve’s presence and absence, a gendered shadow haunting the androcentric self-assurance of the Pauline text. In this way, the anthropological complexities of Romans cannot be fully neutered, as Žižek would have it. Rather, the never-totally-excluded trace of bodily difference troubles the stability of the Pauline typological frame. As such, it calls into question nothing less than the anthropological coherence of the system as a whole—and by extension that system’s pretensions to represent adequately and fully a theological space in which to situate a “universal” human subject.

This paper explains why M. Bakhtin's notions of language are important to linguistic theorizing, and specifically to Hallidayan Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL). The bedrock tenet of the SFL paradigm is its characterization of language as a social semiotic, with ongoing attention to three semantic functions (ideational, interpersonal, textual). The emerging framework can be used to analyze the treatment of "The Other" in the First Epistle of John, specifically in 3:1-18.

When Hannah Tapfield King published her pamphlet Women of the Scriptures (1878) and dedicated it to “the Young Ladies of Utah . . . [from] their affectionate elder sister,” her work became part of the growing body of women’s biblical exegesis. King’s social and religious background first as a wealthy, devout Anglican living in Cambridge and later as a financially challenged, faithful Mormon living in Utah makes her a particularly intriguing exegete as her sketches reflects both faith traditions. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (most commonly known as the “Mormon Church” in the nineteenth century) was founded in western New York in 1830. Although its prophet and founder, Joseph Smith, introduced a new book of scripture called the Book of Mormon, the Bible remained the primary religious text for Mormons in the nineteenth century. Distinct Mormon theology did, however, influence men and women’s interpretations of the Bible, particularly in regards to polygamy, the Fall, gospel knowledge and keys possessed by the patriarchs, and the role of women. Though King was not avant-garde in either her exegetical approach or the place she offered women, she did expand women’s agency and help them recognize the latent power that came as they strove to live up to an ideal within their familial roles and relationship with God. Particularly interesting is her re-writing of Eve’s story solely in terms of motherhood, but a motherhood that places her next to God, and her exegesis on Hagar as solely a mother (as opposed to a slave or plural wife), but a mother who is an active agent calling down heavenly help to save her and her child. Through her work we see how Mormon women negotiated what they saw as their divinely appointed familial roles with their desire for agency and self-definition as well as how their unique Mormon theology influenced not only their understanding of the Bible but also how they interpreted their daily actions.

Two views of Neo-Babylonian imperial policy in the region of Judah after its conquest remain current: one is that they did virtually nothing and imposed at most, minimal administrative presence; they considered this a no-man’s land and deliberately left it a frontier area on the border of Egypt. Its most recent proponent has been Avi Faust (The Archaeology of Destruction), who has characterized it as a post-collapse society. The other is that the Neo-Babylonians set up the region as a province, whose seat was located at Mizpah, and that they extracted taxes from the local inhabitants, as they did everywhere. These different views are attempts to interpret the same data: reduced settlement in Judah and Benjamin after 586 BCE; the failure of the Neo-Babylonian court to resettle the area by forced immigration; the relative lack of archaeological evidence for the introduction of a new infrastructure in the region; the concurrent destruction of Philistia and its lack of resettlement; and the biblical description of the area as an “empty land.” To break what seems to be an impasse, developments elsewhere in the Empire need to be taken into consideration. Philistia and Judah, who had entered into an anti-Babylonian alliance with Egypt, were treated harshly to set an example of the fate of disobedient vassals; mass deportations supplied a needed labor force to build Nebuchadnezzar’s new palace complex along the outskirts of Babylon and to undertake building projects in Borsippa. The unexpected thirteen-year siege of Tyre (186-573 BCE), which required extended manpower and resources, could account for a delay in immediate forced resettlement. A possible unsuccessful invasion of Egypt in 568 BCE when civil war broke out there indicates an early imperial plan to conquer Egypt, but a needed campaign against insurgents in Cilicia under Neriglissar shifted imperial focus, and under Nabonidus, after quashing two more uprisings in Cilicia, interest seems to have shifted away from Egypt to Arabia. The implications for policy in the hill-country of Judah will be presented.

This paper deals with both methodological and literary aspects in investigating the relationship between law and narrative. Firstly, Biblical narratives might reflect legal practices that are not presumed by the Biblical law corpora. Secondly, narrative may employ a literary motif found in a law without actually evoking the law itself. Parallels in circumstances, rulings and wording do not necessary establish literary relationship, since both the narrative and the Biblical law may presume the same common legal practice. Thus, strict criteria are necessary to establish that a literary relationship does exist between a Biblical narrative and Biblical law. Even then, the nature of the relationship must still be explained. A narrative may be designed as a paradigmatic situation that gave birth to a law; or the narrative might be drafted in order to illustrate the law’s application. Finally, a narrative might employ elements of a law in an exegetical or haggadic fashion. In this paper I shall employ the three categories of legal paradigm, illustrative narrative and legal midrash in examining the relationship between the complex narrative in Josh 7:1-8:29 and different Pentateuchal laws, such as Deut 7:25-26, 13:16-18, 17:2-5, 20:10-18, 21:22-23; Lev 26:40; Num 5:6-7.

This paper will investigate Eudocia’s early fifth century interpretation of Eve’s temptation and Fall, a section of one of the earliest remaining female biblical interpretations. Aelia Eudocia Augusta, the classically educated wife of Emperor Theodosius II, retold the biblical account of the creation and fall of humanity (among other biblical events) by rearranging lines and half-lines from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; this type of work is referred to as a cento – that is, a “stitching together.” This retelling of the biblical narrative is in fact a biblical interpretation, in that Eudocia makes interpretive choices by selecting lines from the Homeric corpus in order to shed light on what she considers to be central to the biblical text itself. By taking such a view of Eudocia’s Homeric cento, I am seeking to correct the balance of scholarship, which sees Eudocia primarily as a student of Homer, often at the expense of her interest in, and knowledge of, the Bible. Instead, it will be shown that Eudocia is an able biblical interpreter, often using the well-known events and characters in Homer’s epics to illuminate aspects of the biblical narrative. In this passage, her interpretive choices reveal more precisely what the serpent’s offer to Eve was, who was at fault for the Fall, and what it effected. As the title of the paper indicates, Eudocia interprets the passage in such a way that Eve is representative of, or at least stands in line with, the Greek epic tradition of the weak, wicked, and conniving woman, wreaking havoc upon the race of men.

Schweitzer’s insights on the importance of ‘participation in Christ’ in Paul’s letters rather than settling a debate has triggered a stream of new questions, not least of all Sanders’ recognition that Schweitzer did not come to clear conclusions what it ‘really means’, and Stanley Stowers has commented ‘that apocalyptic did not explain (that is, provide a context for) the central idea of participation.’ Although a link has been proposed by Käsemann with the notion that ‘in Christ’ denotes the sphere of power of Christ’s lordship, this also did not settle the question of ‘what it really means’. One presupposition, which seems to dominate many approaches, is that ‘?? ???st?’ refers to a ‘reality’ which implies the same for all Christ-followers. But the question is whether there is one such central or uniform idea of ‘participation in Christ’ in the Pauline letters at all. This is not to deny that what is expressed with ‘?? ???st?’ is central, but only to question whether a universal meaning is implied. The multifaceted aspects, which Paul expresses, seem to resist any uniformity of perception. What it ‘really means’ may be multifaceted and multidimensional. With these caveats in mind I will focus here on one aspect of ‘in Christ’ language, which catches the eye in the very opening of 1 Corinthians where Paul labels those addressed as ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus’ (1 Cor 1.2).

The cherub is a type of creature mentioned some 90 times in the Hebrew Bible, where it is portrayed as being closely associated with the God of Israel and serving as the predominant motif in Israelite iconography. What is it? Many hypotheses have been put forth, but the prevailing view in modern scholarship is that the cherub is a winged sphinx, i.e. a winged human-headed lion. In this paper, analysis of the relevant biblical texts and investigation of ancient Near Eastern visual art lead to the conclusion that the cherub cannot be a winged sphinx and is probably a winged human.

Scholars have long discussed the distinguishing characteristic(s) and social status of the ’almanâ ("widow") in the Hebrew Bible. However, an important usage of this word has gone yet unnoticed in scholarship, namely its appearance following the common noun ’iššâ (“wife, woman”). Translators inevitably render this construction as “widow woman” or simply “widow,” overlooking the distinction that the pairing indicates. This article argues that the construction ’iššâ-’almanâ represents a particular usage that designates a widow who has one or more living sons, as opposed to simply ’almanâ, which is a general term that refers to a widow who may or may not have living male offspring. In the biblical corpus, the construction ’iššâ-’almanâ occurs five times in four different passages, and each contains explicit reference to living male offspring. Although the evidence is limited to only four passages and there is no comparable construction in any other Semitic language, the word-pairing seems to be a particular designation for the biblical author(s).

The fragments of 1QSamuel, found in Cave 1 by de Vaux in 1949, were published in DJD 1 (1955). With one small exception the fragments derive from the end of the scroll and preserve parts of chs. 20, 21, and 23. Barthelemy noted that the scroll did not contain 2 Sam 24, and suggested that the scribe could have attached this chapter to a scroll of Kings. A material analysis of the fragments shows that this scroll departed even more from the later masoretic recension. Barthelemy’s assertion of a scroll with forty lines should be revised. Only five of the eight appendices to 2 Samuel in chs. 21–24 were present in this recension, and the sequence of the appendices is different from the later canonical order. This scroll, copied in the early Herodian period, did not contain the psalm of ch. 22 (=Ps 18), the story of the census in ch. 24, and the story of the killing of Saul’s relatives (21:1-14). Thus, 1QSamuel shows a stage in the literary growth of Samuel before the book had reached its final form. Two of the minuses are stories about transgresssion and expiation that may be explained as belonging to one late literary layer. The recension of 1QSamuel represents a documentary confirmation and refinement of Karl Budde’s (1903) outlining of the editorial process behind 2 Samuel. It shows light on the development of the varied textual tradition of the books of Samuel in Hebrew and Greek. A tentative outline of some of the editorial processes behind 1–2 Samuel will be suggested.

The emphasis on the Psalms as a collection of diverse voices and theologies in recent times has been if anything reinforced by the acceptance that a ‘wisdom-Torah’ redaction shaped the early Psalms (so, Zenger.) Even apparent attempts to sketch uniform themes flatter to deceive: H.-J. Kraus’s Theology of the Psalms (1979/ET 1986) regards the Psalter as a window on to the religious, worshipping life of Ancient Israel at various times and places. For this reason it is not easy to regard the texts as speaking theology to the reader, let alone be able to discern common threads. Of course the theme of Messiah, or rather, the voice of the promised king (p. 176) is, for Kraus, the ‘cantus firmus ’ of the Psalms, which the New Testament reception of them confirms by its echo. It seems for Kraus as though it is only with the NT that one can get a theology of the Psalms, when at last they are no longer tied to Ancient Israel’s history. Hence with the ‘today’ of Psalm 2:7 one moves into the eternal ‘now’: the relevant Psalms are understood a-temporally: this with a debt to Augustine. The Psalms as prayers have ben fulfilled in Christ, for example Ps 69:9 ‘zeal for thy house’ and 118:22-24 (the stone the builders rejected) reinforce the theme of Christ’s suffering and uniqueness. Kraus’s work here is useful, but it does not consider enough just what the OT Psalms themselves bring to the conversation between the Testaments. It might ssem predictable to propose that pre-moderns in the Reformed tradition provide the answer. Calvin’s theocentrism combined with an interest in spirituality of salvation makes his Psalms commentary as ‘a pastoral variation of the Institutes’. (H.J. Selderhuis, Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms, p. 284) Yet for all his insights, Calvin’s weakness is one of ‘the other extreme’: reading the Psalter is about seeing a timeless God reflected in the experience of the reader. In early modern Reformed controversies, Moses Amyraut insisted that a Church that read the Psalms together, stayed together. The Psalter was common to many forms of Christian religious cult. But just as the synagogue before it, the Reformed Church could not simply allow the Psalms to have a liturgical purpose without using them as a resource for theology. The paper will focus on an alternative Reformed tradition, from A. Alesius (d.1565), W. Musculus (d.1563) and R. Rollock (d.1597).

While some strands of early Christian tradition expected the dissolution of this world’s familial structures in the next, other evidence points to a different perspective in which the married relationship, seen as divinely sanctioned, continues in some way to be a part of Christian identity in the hereafter. One example is the sarcophagus of Catervius and Severina in Tolentino, Italy. Commissioned by Severina upon death of her husband in the 380s CE, this funerary monument is intriguing for its potential insight on the perspectives of a Christian woman, but the few existing publications have not undertaken much interpretation of its overall iconographic program or its social and religious functions, let alone Severina’s distinctive voice. An analysis of the sarcophagus’s iconography and inscriptions (some of which have never been published in English), seen in concert with comparable artifacts and texts, clarifies Severina’s visual presentation of being “joined” to Catervius in life and in death, and allows us to locate Severina among Christians who held a range of beliefs in heavenly reunion and continuing marital identity. The artifacts and texts brought into the comparative analysis include key texts of the New Testament (e.g., Mt. 19:4-6; 22:30 and parallels; 2 Tim. 4:8; 1 Pet. 3:7); the sarcophagus of Bassa, the Velletri plaque, gold-glass couple portraits, Proba’s Cento De Laudibus Christi, Jerome’s letter 57 to Theodora, and Tertullian’s On Monogamy.

This paper will respond to the others presented, with a special focus on the ways in which the exodus theme is put to polemical use, historically and/or in contemporary debate.

Retaining Sinai and Yahweh: The Contours of Engaging with God’s Presence in Three Parts: Babel-Sinai-Pentecost

I shall consider iconographic material from the ANE that is related to sacrifice, asking what implicit view of sacrifice it represents. Figurines portraying the bringing of an animal to be sacrificed and images with offering persons on seals shall be analyzed. The Mesopotamian scene as such is known as Einführungsszene vor einer Gottheit (Introduction to a deity). It may have had a protective function or as well as their impressions – indicating the owner‘s justification before the deity. The paper offers another understanding of it: a picture of someone offering a gift functions as the gift itself. The artifacts are evidence of a transformation of the very notion of sacrifice. The purpose of this paper is to understand this transformative process of the (idea of) sacrifice. In a second step this may help to understand how the offeringtorot in Lev 1-7 functions beyond the First and Second Temple Period, i.e. in times where sacrifice at the Temple has been impossible.

Although a broadly-recognized component of the so-called Jewish “historical apocalypses”, their lengthy appeals to past history are often reduced in modern scholarship to identification of the alluded to figures and events. This approach ignores an important underlying matter, namely the purpose and function of not only these reviews, but the compositions in full. With few exceptions, such scholarship has also broadly neglected one of the most resemblant corpora of antecedent material, namely the ex eventu prophetic historiographical texts from ancient Babylonia. As with the Jewish texts, these documents contain substantial reviews of past events – mostly negative – followed by sudden reversals of fortune towards their ends, all cast as future predictions. Yet, whereas the Jewish texts are almost exclusively interpreted as products of the end of an era of great evil prior to a glorious future age, the Akkadian ones instead locate the reader as having just passed into the second period. Almost certainly composed by political elites during times of political uncertainty and upheaval, these go on to promise those who side with the author(s) abundant prosperity. In these cases, the historical reviews largely serve to disparage the political opposition of the present by linking it to events and leaders (especially foreign ones) deemed to have had a negative impact on the community, thereby further implicitly advocating a particular political choice. Leveraging the Uruk and Dynastic Prophecies as representative models, this paper will explore Daniel 7 and 8 in light of this comparative background both with respect to a) the use and selection of past events and b) the narrative point in time of the author.

Colours are interpreted in various ways and the words used to denote them can range from the exotic, particular when used for humans, to the outrageous. There are several colours mentioned in the Qur’an such as white, black, yellow and blue. White and black in some verses of the Qur’an are mentioned side-by-side and in other verses they are mentioned separately. The Arabic language as a Semitic-Levantine language - has a unique way in the description of colours, particularly white. For example, there are different descriptions of the degree of white/ness in the Arabic language: abya?, yaqaq, lahq, wadih, nasi’, hijan, khali?. This paper examines the subject of colour in the light of the Qur’an and how some of the classical mufassirun of the Qur’an comment on the verses of the Qur’an in which some colours are mentioned. The focus of this paper is on the distinctive nature of two colours in the Qur’an: black and white. It examines how these may be or not be read with a view to examining the question of pigmentation and the related question of race and racism. More specifically, this paper considers whether the privileging of whiteness or blackness may have any implication for anti-Black racism.

Among Halvor Moxnes' contributions to scholarship on the New Testament are a number of significant contributions to its social-scientific interpretation. These include the monograph The Economy of the Kingdom: Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke's Gospel (Fortress, 1988), the edited work Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (Routledge, 1997), and many seminal essays on topics such as social relations, economic issues, patron-client relations, landscape and spatiality, gender, and identity. This paper will discuss these contributions and the important role they have played in New Testament interpretation in the last twenty-five years.

Philo’s exposition of Jewish Law covers many areas, such as cultic laws, festivals, marital laws, and civil laws. The laws of the Sabbath provide an opportunity to touch upon matters with implications on broad issues such as Jewish identity, universalism vs. particularism, etc. and gain insights into Philo’s intellectual world as well as an understanding of his legal system. Even with the initial mention of the Sabbath in the Bible, the laws pertaining to it combine purely technical aspects such as the injunction against lighting fire, as well as “positive” requirements that have a mental or even psycho-physic aspect such as the requirement to “rest” or to “delight” on the Sabbath. The mental aspects of the Sabbath practice allow us to examine Philo’s view on the question of body and soul in the context of Second-Temple Judaism. In addition, we find that while Philo does not seem to reflect the consensus in rabbinic sources (if such a consensus exists), his views are not alien to the Rabbis' world, either. Our study reveals both a textual basis, similar to midrash, as well as a theoretical foundation of Philo's Sabbath.

In his book, The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles, Raymond Person has argued that since the Chronicler lived in a primarily oral society he wrote with an “oral mindset.” According to Person, this “oral mindset” explains the Chronicler’s divergences from Sam-Kgs since he did not slavishly copy his Vorlage but simply preserved its meaning for the on-going life of his community. Thus, scholarly attempts to understand the Chronicler’s divergences from Sam-Kgs as intentional ideological changes are ill conceived due to the fact that an “oral mindset” would not have viewed such divergences as changes at all. This paper critiques Person’s approach and argues that positing an “oral mindset” (like past attempts to posit a ‘primitive’ or ‘Hebrew’ mindset) to ancient scribes is too speculative and difficulties in assessing the validity of such a model too great. Second, through discussion of several texts I will show how Chronicles consciously diverges from his Vorlage, regardless of whether an “oral mindset” would have considered these divergences as such or not. Thus, the issue concerns modern and ancient understandings of what constitutes a “change.” Therefore, the task of understanding the Chroniclers’ method remains even if he had an “oral mindset.”

The documentary papyri preserve a mass of evidence of the greatest importance for Greek lexicography in general and for biblical lexicography in particular, as scholars such as Deissmann and Moulton long ago recognised. These fragile textual artefacts, recovered mostly from the rubbish tips and mummy-wrappings of ancient Egypt, offer us a vast and growing hoard of new Greek words and new senses of previously known words. No reliable lexical analysis of any of this material is currently available. Earlier treatments are now seriously dated, and many inaccuracies lurk in the standard works on which contemporary scholars are forced to rely. To address the urgent desideratum of replacing these works and filling the increasingly yawning gap in our knowledge-base is a daunting challenge. This paper introduces the aims, methods, and significance of a project seeking to address the problem by providing a lexicon for a key subset of the corpus. The project is based at Macquarie University in Sydney and is producing a Greek-English lexicon of the Zenon Archive. The Zenon Archive includes roughly 40 per cent of all third-century BCE documentary papyri. Its vocabulary amounts to some 4,558 words, excluding proper names. This may be compared with the vocabulary of the Greek Pentateuch, approximately 3,453 items, and that of the New Testament, approximately 4,861 items. The vocabulary of the Archive thus represents a very large body of material in its own right and the lexicon will provide a model for the lexicography of the Greek papyri as a whole.

Within the history of interpretation, the rabbis and church fathers alike offer a variety of attempts to mitigate the cruces presented by the episode of the golden calf. Namely, how could the people make such a request at that moment and how could Aaron be complicit in the production of the idol? Among the targms, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (TPsJ) goes to great lengths in vindicating not only Aaron but the people as well (this requires the murder of Hur and the satanic possession of the calf). The targum's sensational rendering of this pivotal text provides an excellent opportunity for examining its position within the history of interpretation. In this paper, I shall provide an analysis of the various rabbinic and patristic interpretations of this passage and, more importantly, make the case that TPsJ is drawing upon or contributing to remarkably late traditions (in addition to earlier ones). These traditions may shed light upon the contested date of this particular targum.

A striking feature of some of the prayers found at Qumran is a structured liturgical progression over the course of a sequence of prayers. In the morning and evening blessings of 4Q503 Daily Prayers, the community tracks the movements of the kingdom of light with the angels over the course of the month, and marks the sabbath rest. Throughout the weekday prayers of the Words of the Luminaries, they relive the history of Israel’s relationship with God progressively from the failings of Adam and Eve on Sunday through to the contemporary time on Friday. In the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, over the course of three months they progress in visionary scenes through the heavenly realm including different classes of angelic priests, temples and animated furnishings, culminating in a vision of the divine throne in the seventh week, and again at the end of the cycle, just after the Feast of Pentecost. In the Festival Prayers as well are seeming indications of progression through the story of Israel, but the scrolls are far too broken to reconstruct the sequence. This feature, in which there are different prayers throughout the sequence, is one of the most significant ways that the prayers in the Scrolls differ from prayers in the synagogue liturgy. Angela Kim Harkins has shown that there is a profound sense of movement in many of the Hodayot. In terms of place, the speaker moves from wilderness to the garden, from the underworld to the heavens, from darkness to light, from danger to safety, from prison to freedom, from a tight place to a wide open plain, from being alone and outcast to having place in community. This is accompanied by language of movement of the body (stumbling, buckling knees, collapsing on the ground, to standing tall and walking erect) and transformation of emotion (from fear, anxiety, and shame to joy, exaltation, and confidence). Drawing on insights from various fields such as neurosciences and theater studies, she has emphasized the experiential dimension of imitation in ritual, and its role in religious formation. Building on such insights, this paper will examine elements of liturgical progression throughout the entire corpus of prayer texts as means of guided experience and formation.

Elazer is the son of Aaron and his successor. He is appointed by Moses to be Joshua’s partner during the conquest and to share in the responsibility of dividing the land. In the later sections of P, Elazar is a pervasive character. (Out of 50 appearances of his name in the Hexateuch, 31 occur in the latter half of Numbers.) In this paper I propose that Elazar is not only a uniquely P character, but that he was added in a later revision of P. This, I will demonstrate by looking at texts where the addition of Elazar subverts the meaning of the older layer of text. In addition to this redaction critical approach, the paper will suggest a number of tradition historical motives for the creation of this character and the magnification of his importance. Elazar creates a familial bridge between two important biblical characters, Aaron and Phineas, each of whom were ancestor figures to a particular group of priests. Additionally, Elazar becomes a partner, even a senior partner, to Joshua, reflecting a Second Temple period ideology, where a high priest (Elazar) may have been seen as more significant than a proto-monarch (Joshua), even when imagining the leadership of ancient Israel. In short, the paper will explore the possibility that the character of Elazar is an artificial creation whose function in the text serves the worldview of the Second Temple Jerusalem priesthood. In some instances, he is inserted into early P redactionally, but he appears as an integral character only in late P.

James R. Royse has built upon previous scholarship by Ernest Colwell and F. J. A. Hort by examining singular readings in the papyri in order to determine scribal habits. With respect to six early New Testament papyri (P45, P46, P47, P66, P72, and P75), Royse has shown that these early New Testament scribes tended to omit more than they added. His findings have disproven, at least with respect to these six early papyri, the long held text critical maxim lectio brevior potior. Royse has replaced this maxim with lectio longior potior while emphasizing the ceteris paribus clause. He calls upon New Testament papyrologists and text critics to continue to analyze papyri using this method saying, “Ideally, of course, all the major witnesses to the text of the New Testament…would be studied in detail in order to provide this same kind of information concerning scribal habits…. One’s assertions could then be based on empirical evidence about the witness” (Royse, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri, 13). In response to Royse’s entreaty to study New Testament witnesses I have begun to analyze P127: a fifth century papyrus containing portions of Acts 10–12, 15–17. My analysis confirms Royse’s findings that the scribe of P127 does indeed omit more than s/he adds. However, although the scribe omits more than s/he adds, the scribe’s habits are strikingly different than Royse’s scribes. Royse also wonders if scribal conventions may have changed, becoming more constant in post-Constantine Christianity. Such a question would require an investigation of many later (fourth century and later) manuscripts. However, P127 does not represent a fixed, more stable text. Rather, the opposite is true—P127 displays a high degree of textual variance. More studies of this type are needed to determine if P127 is indicative of the fifth century or if other fifth century witnesses do exhibit textual fixity. This current study will only analyze P127 and will leave broader issues of general chronological trends unanswered.

Until a few years ago, all scholars treated the Israelites and Israelite identity in a way that embraced both Israel and Judah. Gradually, however, this consensus is questioned, and more and more doubts are cast over this overarching identification. Did Israel and Judah had more in common than other ancient peoples? Did they really share a common identity? Or is it a later perspective, supplied by the authors and editors of significant portions of the biblical texts, which strived to legitimate later territorial and political claims by Judahite or Jewish rulers and authors by claiming an "Israelite" identity for themselves? It is the aim of the paper to reexamine the question of an "all Israelite" identity on the basis of the available archaeological evidence. The paper will examine the political and economic organization in both kingdoms on the one hand, and the distribution of "sensitive" archaeological traits on the other hand, in an attempt to identify differences, commonalities, and mainly patterns of separation and\or inclusion as far the populations of the two kingdoms is concerned.

2014 has been a banner for the flood in both Mesopotamia and the Bible. It may one day rank with George Smith in 1872 and Sir Leonard Woolley in 1924 as key dates in flood historiography. All this attention invites a reappraisal of the flood stories in and of themselves and in relation to each other. This analysis is part of a larger study of “Who Wrote J?” from a political perspective. The flood tradition within Mesopotamia itself appears in different versions with different goals and does not speak with a single voice. Even if a biblical writer was familiar with a Mesopotamian flood story, there still would be the issue of which one or ones and in what context. The study here will show that the biblical flood story did not originate as a global flood but grew to become one based on Mesopotamian motifs. This change was reflective of the development of the idea that the temple at Jerusalem was the cosmic center supplanting Mesopotamian cities. I will suggest that the author of the global flood story also was responsible for Gen. 2:10-14 and Gen. 10:8-10 as part of this transformation which supplemented an existing narrative and which generated written opposition.

Android, Apple OS X and iOS, Linux (including Balsa and Wasta), and Microsoft Windows 7 and 8, all provide excellent support for reading documents in languages other than English. Most provide good support for creating documents in major languages. Support for languages of wider communication (LWC) is mixed. Support for minority languages is best provided through Keyman ($23.99 for Windows) or Multiling Omni Keyboard (free for Android). Apple iOS should be avoided for non-major languages. Documents should be stored in UTF-8 Unicode, the default of most modern systems. Additionally, a language-appropriate virtual keyboard and language-specific font are required. Arial Unicode MS and Droid Sans are both safe fonts for any language; Gentium Plus is a good font for Latin-based alphabets. The appendix includes simple flowcharts for five common Use Cases involving documents in non-English.

The Christianization of Jerusalem began with the founding of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by Constantine the Great in 335 CE. Within a generation Constantine’s nephew, Emperor Julian, attempted to rebuild the Jewish Temple and thereby reverse the Christianization process. This is how many scholars understand Julian’s plan to rebuild the Jerusalem temple. Still others suggest that this endeavor ought to be seen in light of Julian’s efforts to rebuild temples across the empire. But in light of recent scholarship which explains Julian’s program as an attempt to obtain the beneficence of the gods by fostering a correct understanding of the cosmos and correct worship, I re-read Julian’s Letter to the Community of the Jews, his Against the Galileans and his Letter to Theodorus and argue that this rebuilding effort was first and foremost designed to fix the Jewish God firmly within Julian’s cosmological order. Similarly the Jewish people, reformulated as Judeans - an ethnic group subject to the laws of their God - were fixed to a specific geographic region. Only a correct worship of the Judean God could guarantee the success of the empire and Julian’s impending campaign in Persia. No doubt this strategy also helped Julian deal with Christianity. He calls Christians “Galileans” throughout his works, grounding them in the Galilee. The rebuilding of the temple would have returned Jerusalem to the Judeans and presumably would have been accompanied by a renaming of that province to Judea. The rebuilding project also interrupted Christian space and thus undermined its identity. Eusebius described how Christians exiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher could see the garbage heap that was the temple mount reminding them that they had replaced Jews as “Israel”. A Jerusalem in which the Jewish temple was restored, would interrupt that landscape. Now Christians would see a renewed Judean ethnicity with a vibrant cult undermining Eusebius’s defunct image of the Jew and openly questioning Christian replacement theology.

The French sociologist Henri Lefebvre noted, “that spaces made (produced) to be read are the most deceptive and tricked-up imaginable.” Lefebvre was remarking on the nature of monumental architecture in particular and the way this architectural style contains multiple narratives at once. While Lefebvre was speaking of real built space such as the temple in Jerusalem, his remarks carry resonance for the study of written spaces that can only exist if literally read. This is particularly true with respect to the confusing cartographic sections of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Shirot) that simultaneously obfuscate and offer thick descriptions of the nature of the heavens. In this paper, I explore the complicated and contradictory spaces of the celestial temple in Shirot nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen using aspects of Lefebvre’s critical spatial theory, recent work on the practice of ekphrasis of temples in antiquity, as well as the work of Philip Ethington on the spatiality of the past, particularly his notion that places are more “events” than “things”. This paper argues that the spatial descriptions of the Shirot are as confusing as they are because they are attempts to aggrandize the visual rhetoric of the earthly temple in Jerusalem and thus describe its greater heavenly counterpart. This aggrandizing of the already myriad narratives of the earthly temple created an even more confusing set of narratives for the celestial temple. Here I further suggest that the performance of these narratives at Qumran allowed the group there to create the space of the heavenly temple by recreating the “events” of the celestial temple. This performance of the events of the celestial temple created the place of the celestial temple, pure and in proper order at Qumran, a physical place quite other from the earthly temple in Jerusalem.

This paper, as part of the Bible Translation and Nida Institute session on Translating for Performance and Performing for Translation, will address issues relating to the performance of select passages of the Book of Revelation through the use of rhythm and music, both from a theoretical as well as from a practical perspective.

Scholars have long noted the presence of a handful of significant lexical parallels between Lamentations and Deuteronomy 28. In 1963, Bertil Albrektson identified ten “points of correspondence,” both lexical and content-oriented, between Lamentations and the list of covenant curses in Deuteronomy 28:15-68. Albrektson suggested that these parallels were too significant to be “dismissed as pure coincidences.” He proposed that the author of Lamentations consciously alluded to Deuteronomy 28, and in doing so, offered a theological interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem. Since Albrektson’s work, commentators such as Adele Berlin, Robin Parry and Leslie Allen have continued to recognize connections between Lamentations and the curses in Deuteronomy 28. This work has been fruitful, as Berlin has shed light on additional instances of shared language between the texts and both Berlin and Allen have suggested possible reasons for the author’s use of this text. However, the current state of investigation might be expanded in at least three ways. First, while scholars have confined their attention to allusions to Deuteronomy 28, I suggest a focus on the covenant curses more broadly found in Deuteronomy 4; 28-32 and Leviticus 26. Second, current investigation focuses almost exclusively on distinct verbal parallels, while overlooking a multitude of other content-oriented parallels. Finally, scholars often remain tentative or silent when it comes to the significance of such parallels. More emphasis is needed on how the allusions work in the text and the purpose for which the author employs them. The present paper seeks to address these issues. First, it endeavors to show the presence of extensive curse imagery from Deuteronomy 4; 28-32 and Leviticus 26 in Lamentations, especially where allusions have gone unnoticed because they lack distinct similarities in vocabulary. Second, it seeks to demonstrate least two ways in which the allusions function in the text – first, to depict the fulfillment of the curses, and second, to indicate to God that the events of 586 BCE have actually gone beyond what God forewarned. The downfall of Judah represented a worse fate than what was promised in the covenant curses; Judah was not simply a proverb among the nations (Deut 28:37); she had become their mocking song (Lam 3:14, 63). God had said he would not allow the enemy to boast that the downfall of his people was their doing (Deut 32:27), but they in fact believe they have swallowed her (Lam 2:16b). While God had warned that Israel’s overthrow would be like that of the cities of the plain (Deut 29:22[23]), it was far worse (Lam 4:6). And finally, although God had promised not to utterly reject his people (Lev 26:44), that appeared to be exactly what he was doing (Lam 5:22). By alluding to the covenant curses in this way, the author of Lamentations directs God’s own words back to him, appealing to him to respond.

To grasp the eschatology of Q we need to understand three distinctions: (1) The distinction between prophetic eschatology and apocalyptic eschatology; (2) The distinction between Jewish apocalyptic eschatology and Christian apocalyptic eschatology; and (3) The distinction between the first phase of Christian apocalyptic eschatology that looked to an imminent parousia and the second phase of Christian apoclayptic eschatology that recognized that the parousia had been delayed. This paper will explore all three distinctions to set the eschatology of Q in its proper context, and it will show how Q's Christian apocalyptic eschatology gave rise to the gospel genre.

This paper investigates marriages between freeborn women and former slaves in ancient Ostia, Italy, and the implications of this practice for understanding the ancient economy and early Christian communities. It is generally assumed that slaves and freedmen rarely, if at all, could marry outside of their particular status group. This study explains the socio-economic factors that prompted or constrained this apparent cross over, and the economic strategies for survival, viability, or mobility, which depended on these marital connections. Through several case studies I analyze epitaphs, survey onomastic data, and chart out prosopographies. I then set this material in a socio-economic framework of immigration, social networks, and the local economy. In each instance the marriages represent an investment in social and economic resources for the respective families. These examples raise questions about “class” and economy in antiquity, and also about the socio-economic positions of the first Christians, the role of benefactresses, and the impetuses and consequences of marriages in early Christian communities.

The terms deictic or discourse deictic are “used for words which refer backwards or forwards in discourse (anaphora and cataphora respectively)” [Crystal (2008)]. In this paper, I consider the discourse-deictic uses of the 1,175 tokens of kh, kkh, and kn types attested in the Kethiv-text of the Hebrew Bible. Following a brief review of the approaches to these entities found in traditional lexica and grammars, I suggest a discourse-deictic analysis. I then introduce and discuss the anaphoric and cataphoric incidences for each type, report instances of exophoric reference, and present discourses that require multidominance for their proper representation. Finally, I examine the usefulness of Polanyi’s right-frontier constraint when assigning anaphors in discourse.

The homilies of Jacob of Sarug continue to be seen as remote from the controversies of his time. The earliest manuscripts of his works in the sixth century reflect this. They gather his homilies ordered according to the order of biblical canon, seemingly as a commentary, not a polemical tool. But this does not reflect the later manuscript tradition. This presentation examines the transmission of one homily as a means of exploring the value of the manuscript tradition for our interpretation of Jacob’s homilies and, more broadly, any text with varied transmission. Despite its seemingly polemical title, Jacob’s Homily on the Blasphemer offers an exegesis of Leviticus 24:10–15, retaining, it seems, distance from the controversies of his time. The two manuscript witnesses to this homily offer competing interpretations. British Library, Add. 14,604, from the seventh-century, locates it within in a collection of works with a polemical orientation against dyophysite Christologies. Vatican, Syr. 117, from the twelfth century, places the homily within a large collection of texts at a time when the Syriac Orthodox Church was attempting to transmit its tradition by collecting the writings of important authors from the early church. The juxtaposition of these two manuscripts poses an important question: What value does the interpretation of texts, shown through their transmission in manuscripts, have for how we approach and interpret the texts contained within? This presentation will outline several criteria for how we can begin to address this complicated question. I will argue that the transmission of texts can suggest their potential to serve roles that otherwise remain hidden from view.

Discussion of text-critical issues in preparing Proverbs for publication (The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition, 2014).

Determining the "genre" under which the Temple Scroll might be located is difficult in part due to it its sui generis combination of form and content. Is it more like exemplars of "reworked Pentateuch" or of "rewritten Bible," or like neither? An alternative way of asking the question is to look within the text itself for the possible ways in which its textual form, topical contents, and ideological tendenz are mutually serving. This line of inquiry will be advanced through reference to two comparative exercises.

De specialibus legibus 3.34-36 is one of the more intriguing passages in which Philo deals, in one way or another, with sex. Here in the Exposition of the Law, Philo considers the phenomenon of infertile marriage. More specifically, he addresses two different cases of infertile marriage, and offers contrasting assessments of each. The passage is of particular interest for two reasons. First, unlike the surrounding material, Philo has no scriptural basis for his interpretation in this section. Second, in one of the two cases addressed, Philo offers what seems to be qualified approval of the childless marriage as a going concern but does not specify sexual abstinence for partners who, on the face of it, cannot engage in procreative intercourse. This silence appears particularly pointed when viewed against the immediately preceding section and in light of Philo's perspective on sex more generally. In Spec. 3.32-33, Philo unambiguously prohibits sexual activity for the duration of another situation not conducive to procreation, the time of a woman's monthly period. More generally, Philo's perspective on sex is notoriously demanding. In a wide range of passages across the Philonic corpus, Philo presents a strict procreationist perspective that, it would seem, finds no legitimate place for nonprocreative (marital) sex. This paper has three goals. First, it locates and considers Spec. 3.34-36 alongside other sections of Philo's treatment of the Sixth [/Seventh] Commandment, sections with which it shares a conspicuous characteristic: the rationalization of the biblical legislation in the conceptualization of illicit sexual activity as a condemnable wasting of seed. Second, it explores the phenomenon of the inclusion of this passage in Philo's presentation of biblical law. Why does Philo include this material? Third, it addresses the particular puzzle identified above. What should we make of Philo's failure to specify sexual abstinence in Spec. 3.35? If, implicitly, Philo does allow for ongoing sexual activity within some marriages long since proved infertile, why or on what basis might he do this? In response to this question, the paper interacts with the reading of Spec. 3.34-36 proposed by Maren Niehoff (in her influential study, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture), who finds in this passage support for her contention that Philo's procreative concern is directed towards the wider context or general framework within which sex occurs, rather than sexual activity per se. In response, this paper argues that if Philo sanctions ongoing sexual activity in the case of certain infertile marriages, and that without fatally compromising his procreationist convictions, the outstanding candidate for satisfaction of the procreative requirement is the procreative intention of the husband. The paper concludes with some brief reflections on the challenge of framing Philo's perspective on marriage and sexual conduct, and, correspondingly, of accounting for certain details in Philo's treatment of marriage and sexual conduct that seemingly jar with his central convictions.

Recent studies have identified Jesus as a folk healer whose success as an exorcist and healer was contingent upon his reputation and people's faith in his powers. This raises the question: how does one first attain a reputation as a successful healer? Jesus' inability to heal in his hometown of Nazareth (Mark 6:5) suggests that early in his life he enjoyed no such reputation. This paper will argue that it was through his association with John the Baptist that Jesus first gained authority as a healer. The case will be made that John too was regarded as a healer (cf. Mark 6:14) and that the association of Jesus' baptism by John with his reception of the spirit (through which he subsequently healed) offers a critical clue to the origin of Jesus’ reputation as a healer and exorcist.

Perhaps the most important and enduring contribution of critical Pentateuchal scholarship over the past two centuries has been the clear-cut distinction of Priestly materials from other, non-Priestly traditions within the Pentateuchal corpus. However, the same unmistakable distinctiveness of the Priestly material that allowed for such relative consensus in distinguishing between P and non-P texts has also led to some erroneous theories over the years regarding P’s chronological and literary relationships with its non-Priestly counterpart. So, for example, Pentateuchal scholars originally attempted to match P’s literary uniqueness with a historical separateness, such that the sharp differences in P could be said to be caused by, and reflective of, its distance in time and place from non-P. But whereas P was originally conceived of as the earliest “Grundlage” (foundational basis) and was later considered the last contribution to the Pentateuchal corpus, scholars have increasingly attributed non-Priestly texts to both pre-P and post-P origins, thereby desegregating P from its strict historical separateness from non-P. Similarly, the more recent approaches viewing P as a redactional layer or as a “Komposition” have offered less rigid alternatives to the strict separation of Priestly and non-Priestly sources envisioned by the Documentary Hypothesis. However, I believe that there is a somewhat middle position that can still accept the correctness of the “Quellenschrift” (source document) model without retreating to the opposite extreme of contending P’s and non-P’s mutual unawareness, as advocated by Neo-Documentarians. In this paper, I will argue for the possibility of a more dynamic relationship between the Priestly and non-Priestly literary traditions even as the two remained independent, self-standing corpora. Moreover, I will explore specific examples of passages within both sets of material that seem to show evidence of revisions within these separate corpora in response to the competition.

Any reader of the Septuagint will, at some point or another, come across the collocation of the particles alla and e (commonly written as all' e). Out of about 550 occurrences of alla in the Septuagint, almost 140 of them co-occur with the particle e. Despite representing twenty-five percent of the uses of alla in the Septuagint, all' e has received very little treatment in lexicons, grammars, and scholarship on Septuagintal translation technique. At worst, the collocation is ignored altogether; at best, it is assumed to be functionally equivalent to alla. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of all' e in the Septuagint and what a translator may be communicating about his understanding of his source text by choosing this collocation, rather than alla alone or ean me, to render various Hebrew particles. Instead of ignoring all' e or simply equating it with alla, a functional description will be offered that takes into account the discourse context and the relevance constraints of the collocation. In addition, evidence from contemporary papyri will aid the discussion, helping to delimit the function of all' e and clarify its use in comparison with alla. As will be seen, all' e serves a slightly different function than alla. While the two are related, all' e is frequently used as a limiting construction, both actual and metaphorical. The use of this collocation by the Septuagint translators is significant, especially in the many instances in which it is not lexically motivated by the underlying Hebrew. Understanding its function and paying attention to its use may provide further insight into the translators and how they read their Vorlagen.

The Ramat Rahel excavations have yielded the greatest number of Persian Period stamp impressions ever found in one site. Renewed excavations identified for the first time the type of jar which bore them, never before found with stamps; in marked contrast to the well-known late Iron Age Judahite ovoid four handle jars bearing lmlk or rosette stamp impressions. The rich pottery assemblage excavated from one sealed pit includes these new jar types, which were impressed with "lion," Yehud, and "private" stamps on their handles or shoulders. Typological study of this assemblage shows that the former late Iron Age tradition is still present in most vessel types such as bowls, cooking pots and the jars. Despite a difference in raw material and a drastic decrease in the manufacturing quality, one can clearly see that the ancient potters continued to produce the same morphological features. In this paper I will present this new pottery assemblage and its position in the chronological sequence between the late Iron Age and the early Persian period. The consequent implications of this typology for stamp impression studies will also be discussed.

The intermarriage crisis portrayed in Ezra 9-10 (and Nehemiah 13) are literary texts whose sitz im leben demands to be discovered. Is the mass divorce historic, or, is it rather a manifestation of later fears and apprehensions retrojected onto an earlier period? If historic, is it an external matter, imposed on unwilling Judeans as a result of Persian imperial policy (as the mass divorce from foreigners imposed on the people of contemporary Athens was a matter of Athenian imperial policy)? Or, was it an internal matter, a search for a strong Judean ethnic identity as a result of the disastrous and recent effects of exile? If not historic, does the text actually reflect the concerns of the period in which these books were finalized, at the end of the fourth century? That is, was it rather a general fear of the Hellenistic influences prevailing in the region of Palestine after the Macedonian conquest that sparked these texts? While definitively answering these questions may not be possible, outlining the strengths and weaknesses of the various alternatives may enable progress toward the solution of these problems.

The Old Greek of 1 Sam 1:11 includes a component of Hannah’s vow lacking in the MT: “wine and liquor [Samuel] shall not drink.” The status of this phrase in the translator’s Vorlage is ultimately inconclusive: on the one hand, it is plausible that the translator inserted it under the influence of Hannah’s later assertion of her own sobriety (1:15) or in conformity to the Nazirite vow (e.g., Num 6:2-5); on the other, its probable attestation in 4QSam provides this phrase with an early Hebrew witness. This paper explores the implications of this ‘plus’ as it relates to the moral and religious entailments of alcohol in ancient Judaism. Here, Philo’s interpretation of 1 Sam 1 is particularly striking. In De ebrietate, a treatise devoted to the exegesis of biblical texts relating to wine and drunkenness, he takes Hannah’s oath as a starting point for his exposition of Samuel’s spiritual virtue (Ebr. 143-53). In Philo’s reading of this passage, the prophet’s abstinence is not ultimately taken literally, but rather occasions reflections on “sober inebriation,” the condition whereby the truly pious ascend to a divine vision. I argue that Philo’s appropriation of this biblical text functions on at least two fronts. First, he engages with contemporary philosophical debates (esp. among Stoics) regarding the sage and intoxication (Plant. 140-47), and aims to demonstrate that scriptural prohibitions against alcohol were exceptional not normative and were to be understood as spiritual metaphors. Second, in view of Samuel’s prominence in the history of Israelite prophecy, the question of the role of alcohol in oracular inspiration is implicit. This was also a concern of several contemporaries, including Greeks and Romans (e.g., Plutarch and Livy) and Christians; for the latter, I argue, it underlies the narratives of John the Baptist’s abstinence and the apostles’ alleged drunkenness at Pentecost.

This paper will focus on the depiction of Mary and Joseph in two distinct moments of early Christian storytelling. The first moment involves the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which introduce Mary and Joseph as a couple engaged to be wed. Both accounts fasten the messianic credentials of Mary's baby to Joseph's ancestry while raising questions about paternity. Matthew refers to conception by the Holy Spirit (1:18). Luke begins the genealogy with an obscure aside: "He was the son, as was thought (hos enomizeto), of Joseph son of Heli" (3:23). The second moment belongs to the Protevangelium Jacobi, a pseudonymous, second-century account of the childhood and teenage years of Mary. In it Mary and Joseph do not marry, and the nature of the relationship remains somewhat vague. Yet together they brave doubt, scandal, and a potentially lethal ordeal. The Protevangelium Jacobi thus illustrates more clearly than the Synoptic Gospels the strength of the bond between the unmarried pair. The paper has three parts. Part one will discuss the depiction of Mary and Joseph in the Synoptic infancy stories. Turning to the Protevangelium Jacobi, part two will highlight instances of amplification—moments that intensify and perhaps distort the Synoptic tradition. Part three will discuss what these two moments of storytelling can tell us about the complicated process by which later Christian texts both pay tribute to and contest earlier narratives.

Joseph’s enslavement of the Egyptians in Gen 47:13–26 has been interpreted as being culturally benevolent as well as oppressive. Some scholars have disputed the role of the narrator; was he trying to subtly imply Joseph was a tyrant, or was he proudly showing an example of administrative wisdom? More broadly, quite a few different explanations have been given for its function, or “main point” in the Joseph novella as a whole. Regardless of its centrality or marginality to the author’s intention, one interpretive topic that has piqued the curiosity of all types of scholars is the relationship between Joseph and the Egyptians as depicted in the narrative, and how the social hierarchy between the two parties is negotiated. While many scholars have ventured forth opinions on this topic, it has usually been on grounds of general intuition and not within a system that utilizes grammatically substantiated criteria for discerning the dynamics of interaction. The interpersonal metafunction of Halliday is an ideal resource with which to address this question. It provides categories of speech roles into which one can classify each clause of a given speech utterance. Each speech role has an expected response and a discretionary alternative, and by tracking how closely a respondent follows the expected responses, one can discern the social heirarchy assumed on the part of that participant. Additionally, by tracking the exchange of the subject and finite verb throughout a discourse, one can discern which participants take the initiative in setting and modulating the topic. It is the intention of this study to demonstrate that clarity can be brought to the dispute over the nature of the interaction between Joseph and the Egyptians in Gen 47:13–26 by applying the analytical tools of the Interpersonal Metafunction from the Systemic Functional Linguistics of M.A.K. Halliday.

The Textual History of the Bible will provide an invaluable and unique resource for both specialists in the study of the text of the Bible as well as for generalists. Online access to this resource will make the THB of even more use to scholars. This paper will present ideas for the interface and search functions of the online version of the THB. We are very interested in having feedback from eventual end-users before the interface for the THB is finalized.

Theological interpretation of Scripture has enjoyed prominence in many circles over the past two decades in biblical and theological studies—and rightly so. While acknowledging the specific contributions of Richard Hays to the rise of theological reading and the fruit it has produced, this paper will argue that Hays’ narrative-ethical reading of Paul and the New Testament does not go far enough and remains circumscribed by modern historical and philosophical assumptions insofar as Hays’ theological focus remains on ethical formation within the community of faith and not on mystical union with Christ. Using Gregory of Nyssa, I will show that Hays’ use of Scripture is unable to address and articulate, with the same theological profundity as St. Paul and Gregory of Nyssa, the proper telos of humanity in God as evidenced in Scripture. In other words, I will show how Hays risks reading moral formation as an end in itself for Christianity, while Paul and Gregory of Nyssa understand morality as a means to the end of union with God. The paper will engage specific exegetical arguments from Scripture in Hays and Nyssa, but will focus on the use of Scripture and how it’s (re)presented by both exegetes.

The textual variation in Heb 2:9b is a window both onto the history of the textual transmission and on the early use and interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews. In this paper, I will concentrate on citations and interpretations of Heb 2:9 in works of Christian authors, beginning roughly with the time of the council of Nicaea and ending roughly with the aftermath of the council of Chalcedon and of the Nestorian controversy. Christological debates and doctrinal decisions were influenced by contemporaneous exegesis and vice versa. I will pursue the development of the interpretive strategies applied to Heb 2:9 in the context of contemporaneous Christological debates. I will ask which role textual variation did (or did not) play in this process, and how notions of orthodoxy or heterodoxy did (or did not) influence it. Finally, I will suggest that the importance of Christological debates of the 4th-6th centuries for our understanding of the textual history of the NT may be greater than is sometimes assumed.

In ancient war discourse, two ideological tropes discourage the investigation of the ways in which populace-ravaging martial forces attack targeted people: The portrayal of ravaging overlords as superman agents, such as “David slew every male in Edom” (1 Kings 11:15), and the romantic legend that such deeds are manly. Sobering discoveries emerge, however, when we study historical evidence that discloses populace-ravaging methods and aims. There is not, as commonly assumed, a single generic method, the one that includes killing fighting-age males, known in Greek as “andrapodi¬zing.” A second method includes the slaughter of males of all ages at an overlord’s command. For example, Israelite forces in Deut 20:10-14 and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible must “put all the males to the sword” in distant cities whose inhabitants fight back rather than surrender. This command is significantly different from the andra-podizing policy of killing only fighting-age men, despite scholarly consensus to the contrary. These ravaging methods are differentiated in this way by the Greek geographer-historians Strabo and Pausanias and the Christian Platonist Synesius. The killing of all males is further recognized as a broader Indo-European practice from Homeric epic to Synesius. Populace-ravaging by either method has a corresponding female-targeting aspect of aggression. Based on ancient accounts, armed forces kill mature women (Num 31:1-47, Judg 21:1-15), mainly through lethal gang rape (Hdt. 8.33, Isocr. epist. Archid. 9.10, Paus. 10.22.2-4), so as to abduct girls and young women alive. The young female captives are then subjected to survivable rape, compulsory procreation, and coerced labor. Thus, by looking behind the usual tropes of populace-ravaging warfare, we see what the devastating effects of this martial aggression against the attacked people overall, females and males, young and mature.

The opening of Trito-Isaiah unfolds a concept of sedaqa which in its universal orientation is unique for the Old Testament. It is unique, because it unfolds the meaning of a universal understanding of sedaqa without hesitation and with full consequences. This perspective is explored in view of the individual at its limits. The perspective of belonging to the nation of God is exemplarily for all humankind opened up for foreigners and Eunuchs, the ones at the boundaries of the community. Central condition is a life lived in accordance to sedaqa. The text shows a reciprocal approach to this condition. Foreigners and Eunuchs who practice sedaqa by keeping the Sabbath and holding fast the covenant are thereby ritually integrated into the nation of God. The outcome of this is that the house of YHWH is called a house of prayer for all people (Is 56:7). On this background the paper will focus on two questions. First, a central aspect of the paper will focus on the question of the understanding of sedaqa, which is a main topic in the whole of the Book of Isaiah. Here, it will be of main interest which concepts of Proto-Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah are received, continued and modified. Second, the significance of the redaction history of Is 56:1-8 as the opening of Trito-Isaiah will be analyzed. What is the intention of a text which shows such an exposed understanding of sedaqa regarding the composition of the whole Book? In order to answer this question it will be necessary to take into consideration not only questions of redaction criticism regarding Trito-Isaiah but also regarding the whole of the Book of Isaiah.

Rufinus of Aquileia had a great deal to say about the biblical canon. In his Commentary on the Apostle’s Creed, he found occasion to include a list of the canonical books in his explanation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Besides this, he also translated a number of Greek works that contain important statements on the canon, especially the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius. Yet, scholars have not devoted significant attention to Rufinus’ views. This is unfortunate, for he presents an interesting study in several ways. The period of his life—at the end of the fourth century and the first decade of the fifth—saw the hardening of the boundaries of the biblical canon, even as debates continued especially in regard to the deuterocanonical literature and certain New Testament documents, such as some of the Catholic Epistles. His translations testify to his effort to adapt to his later time several earlier Christian writings with their statements on scriptural books that are often less clear than what Rufinus’ audience knew. Rufinus himself, while very learned, was not a great theologian or scholar, like Augustine or Jerome; he wanted to transmit tradition, thus making him a value witness to the doctrine he thought would be generally recognized as orthodox in his day. This paper will show that Rufinus advocated a "traditional" approach to canonical issues even as he recognized that the situation in his day differed at times significantly from what prevailed only a few decades earlier. By focusing on his treatment of the books on the fringe of the canon, the antilegomena of the OT and NT, this paper highlights the varying fortunes of these books throughout the fourth century.

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The scope of this paper is concerned with the proclamation of YHWH's kingship in imagery relating to his storm theophany. Undoubtedly, there are technical terms and militaristic imagery associated with YHWH's manifestation in Ps 99. Other symbolic features representing different modes of YHWH's presence in the midst of his people are highlighted in an overview of this psalm in relation to storm theophanic imagery in Deut 33:2, 26 and relevant passages from 1 Samuel. Although the connection of the first part of the psalm (vv. 1-5) and the latter (vv. 6-9) is not immediately apparent, the link is forged by use of different symbols representing YHWH's presence, as the king and judge in Israel's Heilsgeschichte. This is marked by the cherubim (v. 1), Zion (v. 2) and the footstool (= ark, v. 5; cf. Ps 132:7), all traditionally associated with the Zion tradition. The idea of YHWH seated on the cherubim alludes to the ark. Yet, also, in consequence, the idea of nations trembling and the earth shaking in awe of the presence of YHWH, seated on his cherubim, points to the effects of his storm theophany. Then, there is also the idea of YHWH's revelation mediated through the intercessory role of Moses, Aaron and Samuel, as presented in the latter part of the psalm. In relating to the priestly/ prophetic narratives on Moses, Aaron and Samuel and the tradition on YHWH's presence in the "pillar of cloud," this psalm indicates that YHWH's appearance is effected in much more than the "pillar of cloud". Moses (along with Aaron) and Samuel as advocates of the covenantal relationship, called on YHWH and he appeared in storm phenomena (Exod 19:16-18; 20:18, 20 & 1 Sam 12:14-18, respectively). Therefore, in light of these related traditions, and in view of the idea of storm theophany supported by the terminology common to theophany traditions in Ps 99:1, this storm theophanic mode of self- disclosure is involved in this psalm in declaration of YHWH as the sovereign king.

My remarks will engage aspects of Messianic Jewish beliefs and practices and related issues involving Jewish rabbinic tradition and Christian Gentiles,

Care for the poor is one of the most significant concepts in the biblical tradition. Charity, in particular, is a central commandment in late-antique rabbinic literature and the rabbis instruct that almsgiving is best performed in a communal and collective way. “Just as in a coat of mail every small scale joins with the others to form one piece of armor,” the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 9b) posits, “so every little sum given to charity combines with the rest to form a large sum.” Given these ideals, how did the rabbis envision that communal charity would work? In this paper, I will examine the earliest rabbinic discussions of collective almsgiving, particularly texts from the Mishnah and Tosefta – legal compilations from third-century Roman Palestine that form the foundations of the Talmud and all subsequent Jewish law. As I will show, the rabbis lay out a system in which everyone in a community either contributes to – or is eligible to receive alms from – local charitable institutions. While the rabbinic instructions draw upon certain biblical ideals, the institutions that they discuss constitute marked innovations in poverty relief. I find that these institutions are shaped by Greco-Roman political culture, as the rabbis envision them as standing alongside other institutions in the landscape of the Roman city. They provided alternatives to individual and direct almsgiving, as bringing an end to begging would serve the common good – benefitting the rich and poor alike. It is this vision of organized charity that would be carried forward by the Talmud, where it would become a hallmark of Jewish approaches to poverty relief, charity and, more broadly, Jewish life and thought.

This year 2014 see the publication of Coptic Documentary Texts from Kellis 2 (= P. Kellis VII, ed. I. Gardner, A. Alcock, W.-P. Funk, Oxbow Press 2014), a volume that completes the editing of the major archive of Coptic papyri found at Ismant el-Kharab by archaeological excavations in the Dakhleh Oasis during the early 1990s. It also marks the 20-year anniversary of the first paper to the SBL (Chicago 1994) where this discovery was announced to a North American audience. The occasion is suitable for an evaluation of the entire archive, now finally edited in full and available to scholars. In this paper I will outline the principal themes and discoveries as regards the changing nature and varieties of Christian belief and practice in a fourth-century Egyptian village. Although it should not be suggested that the world revealed by the Coptic texts from ancient Kellis stands as a paradigm for all of Egypt or indeed Christianity during the fourth-century, this material has cast light on a number of vital and remarkable features such as literacy and bilingualism, the role of women, travel and trade, and of course alternative churches such as Manichaeism in the fabric of domestic life during this transformative period.

This paper will outline sociological research on difficult reputations.

A discussion of this critical word group, theme, and theological motif in Paul, with particular reference to the data in Romans.

This paper follows up on a presentation made in Munnich, August 2013 and seeks to analyse afresh the contribution made by the colophons in the Syro-Hexapla to the early history of Origen's Hexapla. This is an area of the evidence largely unexplored.

Prophetic representations of otherness are not restricted to discursive statements. Identifying and knowing an Other—such as by gender, spatial practices, ethnicity, or ritual practices—assumes and enacts the authority of a particular social role, including that of prophet. Whether Moses or Jeremiah, prophets are recognized experts with the authority to define both what is other to Israel and the truth about Israel’s own subjectivity. This role is the result of a larger network of social relations. Using Moses as its focus, this paper analyzes how Moses’ expertise is produced in Deuteronomy. Authority is an important concern in Deuteronomy, and Moses’ status as expert is produced by a particular technology of authority. Like other prophets of ancient Judah and Israel, Moses speaks for YHWH, articulating the divine Torah in both speech and text. Having spoken with YHWH face to face, he repeats the divine speech to the people. In Deut 34:10, he also is designated a prophet without equal in Israel, whether past, present, or future. Laid to rest in an umarked grave, his authority and expertise live through the text of Deuteronomy. Yet the technology of authority that produces Moses in Deuteronomy is itself part of a larger apparatus of suzerainty. Israel and Moses are the subjugated Other to the suzerain, YHWH. Moses’ authority to define the truth about Israel and the other is itself produced within the context of being other. Recognition of the interplay between these regimes of power forces a reconsideration of Moses’ expertise. Given that many other prophets in the Hebrew Bible work within the context of suzerain relationships, the analysis of Moses’ authority is suggestive for the interpretation of those texts and how otherness is represented in them.

One perennial philosophical concern through the ages has involved asking the question “Why?” with reference to some or other aspect of reality. In the Hebrew Bible "Why?"-questions (WQ's) of the philosophical sort are also attested in some contexts. One context is of the theological type and involves, inter alia, perplexity as to why Yhwh/God acts in certain ways. In this paper a philosophical clarification of some of these theological WQ's is ventured from a descriptive metaphysical perspective invoking the so-called Principle of Sufficient Reason. Based on the pros and cons of such a reading it suggested that some very sophisticated albeit covert philosophical theologies are implicit in the Hebrew Bible's WQ's. The evidence for this claim is provided by looking at what several examples of theological WQ's in the Hebrew Bible assumed with reference to divine motivation, the divine attributes, divine relations and concerning the nature of reality itself.

Artistic depictions of biblical scenes appear rarely in synagogues built and used during the Roman and Byzantines periods. It is, therefore, remarkable that depictions of the akedah (the story of the binding of Isaac told in Genesis 22) can be found in three extant synagogues from Late Antiquity. (Dura, Sepphoris, Beth Alpha). In each instance the depiction of the akedah occupies a central area of the synagogue’s interior. Many scholars have suggested possible interpretations of this image, but without general agreement. Most studies, however, have failed to notice or take seriously the fact that all three representations appear in conjunction with depictions of Temple objects (e.g., menorah, ark). This study begins with the understanding that the association between the biblical story and the cult center is not accidental, and that there exists a direct connection between the Temple objects and the akedah. After reviewing possible interpretations, this study argues that the visual presence of the akedah in combination with the Temple objects seeks to evoke at least two major associations: God’s persistence presence with and promise to Israel; and Israel’s perduring attachment to the city of Jerusalem, the site, according to contemporary Jewish tradition, of the akedah. This study then concludes that these images should be viewed together as part of a competitive exchange between Jews and Christians, in which both sides seek recognition for their respective, but contested, understandings of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.

The purpose of this paper is to use the theoretical frameworks of historiography and collective memory to help us read the text of Samuel better as an historical source, according to its own conventions of literary invention and representation. Comparison between the accounts of the capture of Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 5 and 1 Chronicles 11 suggests that the Samuel version deliberately omitted Joab’s involvement in the victory. Although scholarship is not unanimous, this paper will briefly review text- and literary-critical evidence pointing to this conclusion. Whilst the two versions do not contradict each other directly, this major omission of information points to a conception of historical representation very different from the modern day. By employing the theoretical frameworks of historiography and collective memory, this paper will investigate what this omission can tell us about the text’s function and characteristics as an historical representation. From the point of view of historiography, the omission points to the type of selectivity exercised in retelling the past, and some of the specific ways that language creates a bias. From the point of view of collective memory, we suggest that the omission helps to cast the story in a familiar narrative template and so it contributes to shaping the ideology of the audience. When we examine the story in conjunction with Joab at Rabbah in 2 Samuel 12, which possibly references his involvement in capturing Jerusalem, it points to the presence of competing memories within a single text. In conclusion, this paper will reflect on the utility of both historiography and collective memory for understanding the dynamics of the text, in particular its ideology and function in its ancient context. The relationship between these two terms will also be examined, suggesting they are complementary, and that there is a place for examining the text of Samuel according to both theoretical frameworks.

This paper argues that the imagery of procreation in 1 Peter 1 is a necessary and complementary step in Peter’s construction of a new ethnic identity for believers in 1 Peter 2. It is precisely through being begotten with the imperishable seed of the word of God that believers can become the chosen race, royal priesthood and holy nation of 1 Pet 2:9. First, this paper will briefly define “ethnicity” and outline several significant features of ethnicity for group identity, such as the perception of descent from a common ancestor. Second, this paper will focus on how divine begetting relates to this central ethnic category. By engaging in this language, 1 Peter is participating in a small, but identifiable Jewish tradition which described the God of Israel as one who begets or gives birth. This language is admittedly rare in the Scriptures, though was becoming more common in Second Temple Literature, such as Philo, Pseudo-Philo and Josephus. This paper will argue that the language of begetting and seed in 1 Peter is part of this Jewish tradition of ethnic, genealogical reasoning. In 1 Peter, this language is used to establish a spiritual family tree as the genealogical foundation for Peter’s construction of a new, Christian ethnicity. Specifically, regeneration in 1 Peter is connected with two things: the resurrection of Christ from the dead and the preaching of the word of God. Both of these things, the resurrection and the preaching of the word, relate in different ways to spiritual begetting, but both incorporate believers into the spiritual family of God.

Étienne Balibar has traced the fictive ethnicity of modern (Christian and post-Christian) nationalism to the theological anti-Judaism of the Christian tradition (*Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities,* Verso, 1991). In relation to the foil of the Jews, Euro-American Christian powers constructed pure, national identities by which populations were policed and consolidated into discrete, national "peoples." Those not counted among the empowered populations of reference (i.e., among the White "people") were thus (further) politicized as not belonging to "the people," that is, as variously suspect, exploitable, alien, impure, etc., even if in some cases they have been granted a formal status of citizenship. This colonialist force of politicization was at once a matter of Christian piety and biblical interpretation and coincided with the rise of biblical higher criticism. In *The Enlightenment BIble: Translation, Scholarship, Culture,* Jonathan Sheehan shows how the Bible of this period became a book of culture, with scholarship that sought to unearth the pure origins of its authority and a popularization that made its content the cultural inheritance of the dominant, Euro-American population (thereby eclipsing biblical narrative, according to Hans Frei, according to the distinction between the text and die Sache of the text). My paper brings Balibar's and Sheehan's accounts together to highlight two hermeneutical tendencies that characterized the colonialist Bible outlined above: 1) a separatist and purifying usurpation of the narrative of Israel and 2) a totalized frame of reference policed by the conquering "culture." Together these two tendencies have constituted a powerful rhetoric of purity, operative at both elitist and populist registers, one that has functioned both politically and culturally to sustain White privilege and enfranchise others only at the price of conformity and subordination. My paper closes with some gestures of hermeneutical reform made possible by articulating the two highlighted tendencies of the colonialist Bible.

In this paper I argue that the sages of Proverbs construct competing gustatory regimes based on the dichotomy sweet/bitter. Onto their opponents the sages project a regime which promotes the consumption of bitter foods; such an eating pattern leads a person to become foolish, and he becomes marked as such by the foods he eats. Counter to this regime, the sages promote a regime in which the naïve young man eats the sweet food of wisdom in order to become wise. In Prov 24.13-14, for example, the sages prescribe the consumption of honey—the paradigmatic sweet food in Proverbs—and compare the effects of consuming wisdom on the young man’s appetite (nephesh). Once wise, a person must continue to consume sweet foods, both to maintain his wisdom and to mark himself as wise. In the paper, I illustrate the sages’ construction of competing gustatory regimes through an analysis of passages that counterpose Woman Wisdom/One's Own Wife with the Foolish Woman/Strange Woman. I show that eating and drinking the fare of Woman Wisdom/One's Own Wife serves as an antidote to the poisonous fare offered by the Foolish Woman/Strange Woman. In devising these competing regimes, the sages develop their own system of gastrosemantics, i.e., the use of food to symbolize and transmit cultural meaning. This research points to the significance in Proverbs of the mouth as a gateway between the body's interior and exterior. In the metaphorical world constructed by the sages, the mouth functions both as a portal through which a person consumes wisdom and incorporates it into his body and as a gate which governs whether previously ingested words are retained in the body or released to the outside. At this key breach in the boundary of the self sits the sense of taste. As arbiter of sweet and bitter, wise and foolish, the sense of taste serves a crucial evaluative role. As an organ of judgment, the tongue determines what enters and exits the body, controlling the flux across the boundary of the body and thereby playing a central role in determining what kind of self the person becomes. My investigation of the way sages inculcate wisdom through educating the sense of taste, therefore, points to the embodied, not merely cognitive, nature of wisdom in Proverbs.

Biblical scholars do not pay much attention to “?a? µ??? ?? µ?????” in 1 Cor. 12:27 (?µe?? d? ?ste s?µa ???st?? ?a? µ??? ?? µ?????). Most translations render it as believers individually or each person constitutes the body of Christ. Joseph Fitzmyer even finds the Vulgate “strangely reads the second clause as: et membra de membro.” While Anthony Thiselton finds the “syntax of the verse fittingly combines singular and plural,” he does not elaborate further. Most recently, in arguing for an “organic part-whole connective ethic” in Paul’s political-soteriological notion of t? s?µf????, Kei Eun Chang does not address this clause either. This paper makes three arguments. First, ?a? is more than a conjunction. It explains the “body of Christ” in terms of µ??? ?? µ?????. Secondly, as the preposition ?? can signify a “beyond,” an “outside,” a “de-parting,” a “means,” or a “spacing,” it highlights the connection and separation in the touching and spacing of the body parts. It thus averts a fixed source of the origin and a totality, as it reveals and conceals simultaneously the interface of µ??? and µ?????. This dynamic relation between one and many is evident in 1 Cor. 12-14 as Paul stresses how singularity and plurality implicate one another. Thirdly, µ??? ?? µ????? shows that a body member is more than a member. It has many parts. It is a member precisely because it is also a member in touch with other members. So a hand is a hand-foot-eye-ear-etc. This is why the members are of and beyond a member. The hyphens are indispensable. They signify a connecting and a separating at the limit. The body of Christ cannot be objectified into any system. In the language of Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, and Giorgio Agamben, it is always already a dynamic and strange “division of division.”

The introduction to the Dictionary included the announcement that it was more interested in common words than in unusual and difficult ones. In writing a commentary on Isaiah 40—55 I found it especially useful in this connection, and I remember emailing David Clines after the first volume or two had come out to say so – which I suspect is why I was asked to give this paper. In the course of writing the commentary and using the Dictionary, especially in connection with common words, I came to the conclusion that translations evidence a kind of myopia and lethargy in translating words such as hesed, ’aheb, sane’, yare’, darash, biqqesh, nasa’, mishpat, and tsedaqah (many common words are also difficult words). At the same time, ironically, recent translations have moved away from word-for-word translation towards dynamic equivalence, and thus obscured the significances of way recurrences of individual common words in a book are significant. The paper will consider examples.

In this essay I describe two contrasting strands of interpretation in text, art and music in order to ask how the encounter between Mary and Jesus in the garden generates and sustains both readings of ban (in the command “Do Not Touch Me”) and blessing (in a meeting between a woman and the beloved she sought beyond death).

A number of surface features of the Psalms of Solomon suggest their potentially high value for understanding the world of thought from which Paul emerged and with which he engaged: they are among the few documents known to have been written, edited and translated in or around Jerusalem less than a century before the time of Paul; they offer rich theological reflection on several ideas that were central to the Judaism with which Paul engaged (deuteronomic theology; the covenant; divine justice; sin; messianic renewal); and, though not necessarily a Pharisaic composition, they are about "as close as we are likely to come to a specifically Pharisaic text" (Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 127). In spite of this confluence of important Pauline touch-points, the Pss Sol have received limited treatment within Pauline studies since the now almost two-decades-old study by Michael Winninge (Sinners and the Righteous). This state of affairs is all the more surprising given the renewed interest in viewing Paul as someone who saw himself remaining closely connected to his Jewish heritage (as recent book titles like "Paul and Judaism Revisited" suggest). This paper briefly reviews the treatment of Pss Sol in several recent major monographs (including those of N. T. Wright and Douglas Campbell), for an indication of how the Pss Sol are being employed in Pauline scholarship today. Noting the limited ways in which these psalms have been utilized, this paper points to an additional area in which further study of Pss Sol could illuminate Pauline studies: namely, in the recognition of the extent to which Pss Sol provides a unique instance of a kind of scribal resistance to the Roman imperial messianic narratives that were being embraced and promoted by Herod the Great (cf. Horsley; Schalit). Reading Pss Sol within the historical context of Herodian propaganda that associates the fulfillment of the covenant promises with the rise of Augustus allows for a greater appreciation of the subtlety and complexity of Jewish resistance to imperial ideology in the form of the otherwise seemingly innocuous genre of biblically-styled psalmody. Attention to this dynamic within Pss Sol allows a new dimension of Paul's implicit anti-imperial narrative to come into view, particularly in a passage like Phil 2:5-11 with its complex web of biblical allusions. Though Paul writes in the context of a different set of imperial pressures, nevertheless, by comparing the method and the mode of resistance in Paul and Pss Sol we gain a greater understanding of the message of Paul, as well as a path to considering other ways that the Pss Sol might be employed to illuminate Paul's writings.

Among the details on the temple’s everyday operations in the closing utopian vision of the book of Ezekiel (chs. 40–48) are rates for what the book presents as the standard temple tax and calls terumah (“offering,” 45:13–15). While the Masoretic Text (MT) gives relatively low rates for the tax—at 1.6% for grains, 1% for oil, and 0.5% for animals of the flock—the earliest Greek witness (Papyrus 967) indicates the much higher rate of 16.7% for grains and 10% for oil and animals. I argue that, contrary to prevailing opinion, the Greek reflects the more contextually sensible and thus more original version. The numbers given in MT, on the other hand, are probably the result of Judean scribal intervention in the late Second Temple period. By then terumah had become one in a broad range of sacred and secular taxes paid to the local authorities in Judea; early rabbinic tradition has it collected on staple products at a voluntary rate of 1.6–2.5% (m. Terumot 4:3), quite similar to that given in MT. The Judean scribes behind the change proposed here may have been concerned that the prophet’s vision was being used by members of the priesthood to claim higher collection rates for terumah. Since the scribes’ intervention works to the priesthood’s disadvantage and would seem to support the status quo, a political alignment with the royal aristocracy or even Pharisaic sages seems likely. Other potentially problematic features of the temple vision that scribal activity resolved through deft textual adjustments include a sacred pasture around the temple (45:4) and discrete cities consisting entirely of Levites (45:5), neither of which were present in Judea’s sacred economy in the late Second Temple period. These scribal changes in MT anticipate exegetical solutions by the rabbis to other issues presented by the prophet’s vision.

While the gospel of John possesses only a small number of healing narratives, the gospel does include two significant healing accounts featuring people with physical and sensory disability: the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda and the healing of the man born blind. While the healing narratives described in the synoptic gospels generally feature only a physical cure, these two accounts recall not only the healing proper, but also the healed person’s response to it. These two accounts also feature a significant parallelism: both accounts portray men with long-term, non-urgent impairments and both are revealed to be recipients of Jesus’ healing ministry on the Sabbath, at the instigation of Jesus himself. In many respects, it appears Craig Keener’s assessment of these healing accounts is correct in stating that together they demonstrate both a positive and negative paradigm of initial discipleship. And yet, the writer of the Fourth Gospel does more than this. In keeping with the imagery of dualism represented throughout the Fourth Gospel (e.g. light/dark, flesh/spirit, above/below, etc), the gospel writer uses these two accounts to represent an additional contrast: what it means to be included/excluded. While the gospel writer depicts the two men as socially marginalised as a result of their impairments, he also highlights that marginalisation does not result only from a physical/sensory deficit but can also occur as a result of one’s response to the gospel. While the healed man in John 5 is depicted as being restored to the temple and its cultic community, the formerly blind man, in contrast, is shown to be not only excluded but indeed ‘excommunicated’ from the synagogue and its community. In this respect, these two healing accounts offer an additional representation of dualism in the Fourth Gospel that has previously gone unnoticed. Assessing these accounts in terms of the dichotomy of included/excluded rather than disabled/able-bodied assists with liberating these stories from the traditional view that spiritual wholeness (holiness?) is the natural bi-product of physical wholeness in the canonical gospels.

In For Self-Examination (1851) and the posthumously published Judge for Yourself!, Kierkegaard employs the passion narratives in often unexpected ways to illuminate his understanding of a hermeneutics aimed at “inward deepening.” Beginning For Self-Examination with the famous account of reading Scripture “with true blessing” as a mirror and a love letter, Kierkegaard then moves to the narratives of Ascension Day and Pentecost in Acts 1 and 2. Ironically, however, Kierkegaard approaches each of these two New Testament narratives by relating them inter-textually to the passion narratives. In the discourse on the Ascension Day in Acts 1, Kierkegaard offers an apparent digression: a presentation of the passion narrative under the title “Christ Is the Way.” But Kierkegaard thereby shows how, contrary to the reader’s expectation, it is the passion narrative of Good Friday that answers doubts about the Ascension. So too the passion narrative shapes Kierkegaard’s next discourse on Pentecost in Acts 2, where the Spirit’s life-giving gifts of faith, hope, and love may only be appropriated in relation to the follower’s “dying to.” Looking back to the book’s opening theme of Scripture as mirror and love letter, it becomes clear that it is only as the passion narratives illuminate the Ascension and Pentecost texts that the latter may indeed function as both mirror and love letter. Similar patterns appear in Judge for Yourself!, where the passion narrative is again strategically recounted in detail, now under the theme of “Christ as Prototype,” with the cross as the culmination of Christ’s fulfillment of his own teaching that “no one can serve two masters.” It is this ideality of Christ’s work as Prototype that sets the standard for judging Christendom. Yet grace sounds too in Judge for Yourself!, reminding the reader that it is Christ the Redeemer, who has made satisfaction for everyone, who raises up the striver. In both books, the passion narratives profoundly shape Kierkegaard’s hermeneutics, his understanding of Christ as Prototype for imitation, and his increasingly stringent social critique of Christian triumphalism. But as with his other presentations of the passion narratives, Kierkegaard in these books too is careful to place this striving of imitation within the context of the follower’s continual return to the forgiveness and atonement given by Christ as Redeemer and by a reliance on the Spirit’s gifts. Merely describing a hermeneutics of discipleship does not exhaust Kierkegaard’s interest in the passion narratives. Neither is he content with inter-textual readings of New Testament narratives for their own sake. He aims rather to present exemplary readings that foster “inward deepening.” Kierkegaard uses the passion narratives as a central vehicle to elicit the capacities essential to discipleship: seeing oneself as imitator on “the narrow way,” but also as recipient of the Redeemer’s forgiveness and the Spirit’s life-giving gifts, enabling a discipleship grounded in gift, jest, and “a striving born of gratitude.”

According to modern studies of the psychology of anthropomorphism, anthropomorphisms tend to highlight both a deity's likenesses to, and also its differences from that which is not divine. In this way, the deity remains relatable to the devotee but is also elevated as markedly other and worthy of reverence. Biblical descriptions of Yhwh's body tend to accord with this research. While some passages speak of or imply Yhwh's anthropoid form, these same verses portray Yhwh's body as mysterious and transcendent. One of the elements of this transcendence is Yhwh’s substance of embodiment, particularly his corporeal manifestation in fire. In this paper, we consider how fire functions as a material representation of a typically non-corporealized deity. Specifically, we observe the ways in which Yhwh's corporeality in fire is both like and unlike human physicality. On the one hand, a number of poetic passages associate Yhwh's body – particularly his breath, mouth and tongue – with fire (e.g. Lev 9:24; Deut 32:22; 2 Sam 22:10; 1 Kgs 18:38; Isa 30:27). Similarly, though not as explicitly anthropomorphic, a number of passages from a diversity of narrative texts portray Yhwh using fire to execute tasks that humans perform with their bodies; these include breathing, eating, carrying, traveling and seeing (Exodus 19; Deuteronomy 4-5; Judg 6:21-22; 13:20-21). On the other hand, the human body is composed of flesh and blood and is comprised of many of parts, each which has a distinct function. By contrast, Yhwh's physicality is manifest as radiant fire which serves a variety of functions – fire functions as Yhwh’s eyes, lips and limbs. Thus, while Yhwh's "body" is like the human one in that it affords him the capacity to interact with corporeal elements, it is also unlike the human one in its radiant multi-functionality.

In the Hebrew prophetic literature, masculinity is largely negotiated between men (including, at points, a male God). And yet within this masculine economy of prophecy, traces of the female body persist. Metaphors of childbirth and of the womb recur across the prophets, reaching a particular intensity in Second Isaiah. This maternal and bodily imagery is sometimes taken as a sign of a feminine voice, presence, or counternarrative in Isaiah or in the Prophets more generally. I will argue, however, that the womb and uterine imagery is central to the negotiation of prophetic masculinity, and for masculinity’s entanglement with forms of otherness. The womb haunts the masculine economy of prophecy, but without resolving into a feminine counternarrative or rival presence. Bringing together masculinity, alterity, and gendered bodyspaces, I will map the consequences of the womb (as metaphor, event, and space) for prophetic embodiment, the performance of masculinity, and the articulation of otherness.

In this presentation I shall examine metaphors representing illness and wellness in the Book of Job, using a method informed by cognitive linguistics. Wellness in Job is often related to wholeness, and illness to deterioration. The conceptualization of illness as the deterioration or diminution of the whole is not peculiar to Job. However, in Job we find a parallel decimation of Job’s family and estate, which gives special poignancy to the imagery of illness. Even more poignant is the contrast in the book between Job’s experiences of affliction, represented as the degradation of a whole, and his absolute commitment to integrity (tummah—wholeness).

This paper engages with two aspects of François Bovon's many contributions to our understanding of early Christianity and the way in which early Christian texts were used: (1) his concept of books that were considered 'useful' for the soul, and (2) the way in which different authors, whose writings were later regarded variously as orthodox or apocryphal, made use of the Gospel according to Luke. In so doing it follows Bovon's lead in problematising the way in which distinctions are often drawn between canonical and non-canonical texts and between orthodox and non-orthodox Christian voices.

In the past three decades, Genesis 34 has frequently served as a test-case for literary methods applied to the Hebrew Bible. The story of Dinah and Shechem is fraught with ambiguity: who is the villain and who are the heroes? Does the story have a moral message? This paper proposes a different method for reading Genesis 34. By attending to the representation of time, or what Gary Saul Morson calls tempics, we will find that this narrative is written in “open time,” such that the narrative never achieves closure and questions remain unanswered. To borrow Morson’s terminology, most of Genesis unfolds in closed time. A narrative arc rarely begins that is not later closed off so that the next arc can begin anew, all within the broader sweep of the Priestly framework that assures Genesis will resolve into the rest of Israel’s historical self-representation. By contrast, the story of Dinah and Shechem operates with an open sense of time. It highlights the contingency of the “events” narrated, suggesting that the sack of Shechem might not have been a foregone conclusion. Likewise, no future event in Genesis – not even Jacob’s blessings in Gen. 49:5-7 – completely determines the significance of what transpires between Dinah, Shechem, and their respective clans. In other words, Genesis 34 resists typological readings (e.g., the story is “really about” the city of Shechem’s becoming an Israelite cult center) due to its open-ended narration. I will therefore explain Morson’s theory in greater detail to show how it can be fruitfully applied to biblical narrative and open up the much worked-over text of Genesis 34 to new readings. This study will then close by briefly comparing my own reading inspired by Morson’s work with other literary approaches to Genesis 34, especially those of Meir Sternberg, Danna Fewell and David Gunn.

Recalling a passage in Narsai of Nisibis’ (d. 503 CE) Syriac Mêmrâ, ‘On the Revelations to Abraham’ alongside a verse in surah 87 al-A?la 18-19, in this presentation the purpose is to call attention to and to explore the significance of the parallels to be seen between the Qur’an’s typology for God’s messengers and prophets, and the typological prophetology of Late Antique Syriac, popular biblical commentary.

This paper considers the figure of Susanna in the Greek version of Daniel in relation to prophetic pictures of Israel/Judah/Jerusalem as a disgraced woman. As the later tale responds to the ‘ancient shame’ of the Babylonian Exile, it provides a focus for methodological questions about the use of female figures in conceptualizing Exile, about metaphor and sight, and about scriptural interpretation in early Jewish and Christian communities.

According to a common interpretation, Paul’s reference to the lack of God’s glory in Rom 3:23 alludes to the story of Adam and his loss of God’s image. This identification is problematic, however, as most of the evidence that can be cited in its favor is later than Paul. To arrive at a better interpretation, this paper pays close attention to the development of doxa-terminology in Romans as well as to Paul’s use of Israel’s Scriptures. In the Septuagint, doxa refers to the tangible presence of God, a usage that also is able to explain Paul’s terminology very well. The 16 occurrences of doxa in Romans are rich in Septuagintal undertones, both in the form of Septuagintal terminology and in the form of more or less clear allusions to the Scriptures of Israel. Against this background, I argue that there is an underlying story that inspires Paul’s use of doxa-language in Romans. That is the story of the revelatory presence of God in Israel, a presence that was rejected, but is renewed in Jesus Christ.

In 1965, Herbert Petschow published his classic study of the Neo-Babylonian dialogue document (aka Zwiegesprächsurkunden). While he acknowledged the parallels between this document format and Abraham's land-sale negotiations in Genesis 23, he published his study in part to reject the suggestion that these parallels were due to the dialogue document having been brought to Babylonia by Judean exiles. He, in fact, suggested that the direction of influence likely had run the other direction. Since the publication of Petschow's study, our knowledge of West Semitic legal tradition has been enhanced by the greater availability of various legal corpora including many more Aramaic texts as well as the materials from Emar. This study will thus reconsider the question raised by Petschow about what the Zwiegesprächsurkunden can tell us about the direction of influence of ancient Near Eastern legal traditions.

In books like Persuasions of the Witch's Craft (1989) and When God Talks Back (2012), psychological anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann explores the cultivation of a religious mindset through disciplines of imagination and imaginative practice. Meditation, prayer, directed visualizations, and other forms of mental cultivation contribute to a state of mind in which practitioners actually see and hear—in physical, material ways—images and sounds that are not available to others around them. In the Dead Sea Scrolls we find evidence for mental cultivation practices including song, prayer, “searching” the scriptures, and night-time study sessions. To what extent do the sectarian rule scrolls provide evidence for intensive disciplinary practices such as those that Luhrmann documents? Do the evidence of the liturgical and wisdom texts provide additional information? In what way, if at all, does Luhrmann’s approach provide tools for considering notions of prophecy, revealed knowledge, or the presence of angels in the texts from Qumran?

The various interpretations and analyses of the ritual prescribed in Numbers 5.11-31 have most often focused on the issues surrounding the treatment of adultery and purity in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the classification of this ritual as an “ordeal” within a broader Ancient Near Eastern context. Primary concern in past scholarship has dealt with the function and potency of various ritual components, such as the “waters of bitterness” and the purgatory-oath. However, this paper will seek to evaluate the ritual from a different perspective, emphasizing not the curse or the oath, but the role of jealousy within the ritual and how it serves to frame the passage. This paper will argue that this procedure functions as a rite of affliction in which the “spirit of jealousy” troubles the husband, who has no other recourse but to seek divine mediation. By applying S.J. Tambiah’s performative theory to magical ritual and analyzing the semantic and pragmatic frames of the ritual, the function of the “spirit of jealousy” and the “jealousy offering” will be addressed.

This paper, in keeping with the 2014 Biblical Ethics subject matter, will examine the themes of “law” and “love” in 1 Thessalonians with special attention to the leitmotif of pistis in this early Pauline epistle. Too often the meaning of pistis is assumed by modern readers, rather than examined. More problematically, there is a trend in some strands of scholarship to refer to Pauline pistis as a “passive” concept. However, this paper will argue that pistis is a polyvalent term for Paul and one distinct use (especially common in 1 Thessalonians) approximates Jewish language used of covenantal loyalty. If one looks at Paul’s “faith/faithfulness” language in this light, pistis has the capacity to situate obedience and love within a relational framework. It will be argued, therefore, that Paul’s pistis language drives his moral vision for this afflicted church and promotes steadfast endurance and holy obedience in the battle against sin and darkness.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul frames his relationship to the community in generational language: father and children, his maturity versus their immaturity. This rhetoric not only concretizes and naturalizes the power dynamic; it furthermore associates maturity with an apocalyptic temporality, as Paul’s communal ethics are oriented toward the “present crisis” (7:26). Childishness obstructs the fulfillment of time; thus Paul urges the Corinthians to “put away childish things” in preparation of the end times (13:11). In this paper I argue that a hermeneutic of queer resistance to Paul’s rhetoric may instead interpret the Corinthians’ immaturity as a virtue and a counter-cultural performance in defiance of re/productive ethics (a term I use to gesture to the relation of familial reproduction to economic production). Queer time defuses the apocalypse – and furthermore, it defuses the compulsory timeline of re/production and maturity as teleological success. In this frame, the Corinthian failure is a queer failure of normative intelligibility: from speaking in tongues to Paul’s reprimands that they should ‘just grow up already.’ These gestures, when read resistantly, may be interpreted as a necessary component of queer utopia as process: a reversed dialectic of constructive disruption of the status quo, producing a paradoxical present-future of imaginative alternatives. Using the queer theory of Judith Halberstam, Lee Edelman, and José Esteban Muñoz, I will explore how a queerly resistant reading deconstructs Paul’s “straight time” apocalyptic logic, instead suggesting a utopian and non-teleological relation of time to ethics.

The question why Paul emphasizes his use of "large letters" at the conclusion of his epistle to the Galatians (Gal 6:11) has been answered in divergent ways, some of which are more fanciful than others. Reviewing earlier proposals, I will argue in this paper that Paul's remark has nothing to do either with his physical limitations nor with a wish to verify the authenticity of the letter. Rather, as argued by Chris Keith in an important article (2008), the remark should be interpreted within the context of Hellenistic primary educational practices. Unlike Keith, who sees in the remark a reference to Paul's own grapho-literacy, I will suggest that Paul here assumes the persona of a teacher who chides his addressees for their lack of progress in learning by alluding to the didactic practice of _praescriptum_, known to us from various ancient literary and documentary sources. This understanding fits Paul's argument in Galatians well. Furthermore, I propose that it may throw light on another debated passage in Galatians, that is, Gal 3:1. Here as well, an allusion to the _praescriptum_ can be detected. The results, beside offering a reading of the passages that is coherent with the overall argument of Galatians, have implications for our understanding of the social location of the implied addressees of the letter.

One of the implications of globalization is that it has the ability to destabilize organizational hierarchies and powers. Oftentimes as this occurs new openings are forged, new ideas formed, and new paths and approaches taken. As globalization penetrates the realm of education, teachers must not only be ready to take on old subjects in new ways but also prepared to engage the twenty-first century student—whose realities and goals differ from previous generations of students—in meaningful and innovative ways. This is especially true of educators within the realm of biblical studies and theology, that is, those who believe that the subjects they’re teaching are of eternal worth. In this paper, I investigate the significance of teaching Koine Greek communicatively in a real-time online setting with students from across the globe and what such a course might suggest about where education is heading and what scholars and institutions alike might do to stand at the forefront of educational and technological advances. I will consider the question—as posited in the first portion of this paper’s title—of whether or not a “new school” or new type of school is on the horizon. If so, might this “new school” resemble something close to or analogous with the Conversational Koine class previously mentioned? In addition, several implications of this for education, ministry, and missions in the educational landscapes of the 21st century and beyond will be explored.

The purpose of the Gentile Mission, animated by Paul’s call as an “apostle to the nations” (Lopez), is to create solidarity among Jews and other nations together “in Christ.” Through this “unity in difference,” in which both Jews and other nations are made equally righteous before God through their trust in Jesus Christ, a collective body is (in)corporated—namely, the body of Christ. This “body politic” (Ando), in which Jews and other nations join in solidarity and mutuality with one another “from below,” stands in stark contrast to the body politic of the Roman empire. Within the imperial collective body Jews and other nations are divided from, and forced to compete with, one another as the conquered—and yet are united by their common enslavement as nations to Rome (Lavan). This paper will argue that Paul’s collection, the bodily practice of gathering money for the “poor among the saints” in Jerusalem, is one concrete application—with theological, political and economic dimensions—of the Gentile Mission. The flow of money as “grace” toward Jerusalem is a circulatory system that animates the Body of Christ; it is the embodiment of a theological program that has significant political implications within the Roman imperial context in which it operates (Kahl). The collection will be framed as counter to, and resistant of, the money that circulates ultimately toward Rome. The transfer of money through exploitative economic relations, including taxation and indebtedness, functions as a circulatory system for the imperial body politic. The collection will be explored as an anti-poverty program in response to an imperial political economy that impoverishes and oppresses. It will be demonstrated that Paul’s method of incorporating the collective body of Christ mimics, yet deconstructs and transforms, the incorporation of the imperial body politic.

The presentation will focus on the use and function of language related terminology in the Thunder: Perfect Mind from the Nag Hammadi collection. In especially three passages, the female revealer of this text presents herself in a language related vocabulary: she is silence, thought, sound, voice, word etc. I argue that this specific vocabulary has roots in a language philosophical discussion appearing in Platonic and Stoic dialectics, and that the linguistic passages in the Thunder: Perfect Mind are fruitfully understood against this background. So when the female revealer in the Thunder reveals herself in linguistic terms beginning in silence and ending in word (logos) I will interpret this as reflecting the manner in which the Stoics described a verbal expression – an utterance. Likewise, I will argue that the Platonic discussion on the correctness of names, found in the Cratylus, and the Stoic notion of “sound words” clarify the pondering upon the name of the female revealer who proclaims to be the utterance, knowledge and voice of her own name. Finally, to approach the difficult saying: “It is I who am …the manifestation of the division”, found towards the end of the Thunder, I call attention to the Platonic notion of “definition by division” (diairesis) as an illustration of the entire manifestation of the female revealer, and as an explanation of her paradoxical self-presentations. Understood against the background of ancient philosophy of language I argue that the three linguistic passages occupy key positions to the overall interpretation of the Thunder: Perfect Mind. The outcome of such an interpretation is a renewed focus on the fundamental interest formulated in Platonic and Stoic dialectics: the relation between language and reality. This interest, I argue, lies at the core of the Thunder: Perfect Mind. It makes its readers reflect upon language.

While hypocrisy is usually associated with ancient Greek theater, Jesus in the NT, and modern politicians, this paper examines the concept with attention to the HB and Qohelet in particular. Carol Newsom’s current research on moral agency in the Hebrew Bible, outlined in her 2011 SBL presidential address, offers a starting point. Drawing on cross-cultural anthropological studies, Newsom presents two vectors that map different constructions of human agency: the vector of control indicates the extent to which the self is conceived as “in control” or “under the control” of someone or something else, and the vector of location indicates the extent to which the substance of one’s moral capacities are conceptualized as internal or external to the self. Hypocrisy is an ancient concept with dynamic and contested meanings and evaluations. Yet it supplies an enlightening frame for investigating constructions of moral agency because, across hypocrisy’s variations, it always involves moral judgments about a human subject that is both internally divided and externally conditioned. Hypocrisy is not a matter of what one does, but rather of how one’s actions relate to one’s convictions and expressed intentions, and of what motivates the acting. Moral agency in Qohelet is deeply intertwined with dynamics typically associated with hypocrisy. For Qohelet there is something essentially crooked, divided, and conflicted about human beings (7:29), and this conviction seems the basis of various teachings about human behaviors typically associated with hypocrisy. Human action is not seen as an arena for self-actualization, but rather stems from far more ignominious motives, such as one person’s envy of another (4:4-6). He condemns the wise who claim to know what cannot be known (8:16-17). Yet some of his own teachings seem susceptible to charges of hypocrisy if not outright prescriptions for a minimally hypocritical life, as in his counsel that one should not be too righteous or too wicked but should instead grasp both (7:16-17).

This presentation reports on the phase of the Jubilees Palimpsest Project dedicated to the integration of spectral imaging technology and reflectance transformation imaging technology (RTI). In 2013–2014 the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Digital Humanities funded a collaboration of scientists and scholars of early Jewish literature to develop a method for integrating two previously successful technologies. The combination is greater than the sum of the sum of the parts because the data is fully registered, meaning each pixel represents the same location on the object across the data set. As the data set grows the possibilities for processing grow exponentially. The two technologies integrated capitalize on two features of erased manuscripts (palimpsests) that offer hope for recovery of textual information. First, the erasure of ink is typically not complete. The difficulty is more often in distinguishing the erased ink from the similar shades of brown surrounding it. Spectral imaging uses nine or more discrete wavelengths of light, both outside and more precisely within the color resolution of the human eye. This significant quantity of data can be processed and mapped to false-colors within the human range of color perception. The second area of hope for recovery of textual information from erased manuscripts results from the effect of acidic ink on the texture of parchment. Even if the ink has been entirely washed away it may be nevertheless be possible to distinguish where ink had been because of the rougher texture. RTI uses light reflected from many angles to identify the orientation of any one pixel, such that the texture of an imaged object can be visualized and enhanced in an interactive viewer. The integration of these technologies means that a scholar can see both the chrominance and texture features of an object at the same time.

Scriptural commentary is, in essence, the practice of explaining the authoritative scriptural text in light of something other than itself, something putatively more familiar to some intended readership. In the process, the authority of the commentated text is reinforced, by virtue of being rendered newly applicable. This seems obvious in the case of modern commentaries, including marginal notes in study bibles, which seem intended either to make an opaque text accessible, or to create the false impression that the text is less opaque than it really is. Where this involves the claim that Scripture is sui ipsius interpres, the additional irony is that external commentary is required in order to show that Scripture is, in fact, its own interpreter. But how, in ancient Judaism, did scriptural commentary get started? While we now work with a single category of “commentary,” the origins of this genre are multiple, and depend on different negotiations of group identity in relation to an emerging authoritative text within the various milieux in which Jewish communities found themselves in the late Second Temple period. In this period, the pluriform biblical text evolved — in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek — alongside various parabiblical genres, including rewritten Bible, and other genres parasitic upon a pre-existing authoritative text, such as the various forms of pesher at Qumran. This paper illustrates, with reference to the Qumran pesharim and three works of Philo (Alleg. Interp.; QE; QG), how different forms of scriptural commentary emerged independently within different socio-cultural frameworks, with rather different assumptions about the text whose nature and authority they each helped to create and reinforce. In the process, not only is serious doubt cast on the viability of the term “commentary” as a useful descriptor, but the very notion of “scripture” as a unitary phenomenon is also called into question.

My paper analyzes Paul’s reception among British missionaries during the imperial period in relation to three main discourses: Christianity vs. heathenism, Christian paternalism, and missionaries’ identification of themselves as heirs to Paul and his mission. These discourses are (briefly) compared with similar discourses at work in the wider imperial context. During Britain’s imperial age, intellectual forces in British society identified Britain as heir to Rome, facing down barbarism abroad in the colonies and at home in Ireland, and spreading “civilization” to benighted peoples as a benevolent empire. The missionaries’ Christianized echoes of these discourses frequently turn on their understanding of Paul as a masthead for Christian mission. Just as scholars in Classics have interrogated their field’s uncritical reception of inherited colonial values in evaluations of the Roman Empire and the “civilization” it spread, this paper joins the chorus calling for similar self-reflection among biblical scholars. Its goal is to highlight the effect of discourses we may have uncritically absorbed from the imperial past and now take forward into a neo-colonial future. This paper ultimately questions whether Paul’s role among the missionaries has vestiges in his new incarnation as a postcolonial hero. This branch of postcolonial biblical interpretation is viewed as a new form of apologetic: one co-opting a political mode of dissent to re-instate and re-enshrine a neo-colonial icon as a “good” for all the world, as set forth by the Western academy.

This study takes as its focus Patrick McNamara’s chapter, “Self-Transformation as a Key Function of Performance of Religious Practices” in his book, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. According to McNamara, a crucial part of the religious experience is the decentering process which is a loss of agency that ultimately can result in the transformation of the religious practitioner toward some ‘ideal self’ (153-54). The general cognitive processes related to decentering and transformation resemble “the experience of problem solving and sudden insight and creativity concerning the solution to the problem after a period of impasse” (18); the individual begins with intense concentration, with no results, discouraged, the individual abandons the project. From this sensation of defeat (loss of agency), the individual experiences a surge of creativity and resolves the problem (18). This paper will explore the way in which practices of mourning found in penitential prayers play a key role in the cognitive and affective processes associated with transformation that ultimately produce a more complex Executive Self who, in this case, is capable of scripture interpretation. This study will examine how the ritual acts of mourning (fasting, wearing sackcloth and ashes) performed by Daniel in the penitential prayer found in Dan 9 can generate vivid sensations of grief that can then be understood to play an instrumental role in Daniel’s experience of scripture interpretation. Some studies of grief and the post-traumatic growth that sometimes follows grief have noted the role of rumination in grieving individuals, noting that there is a correlation between this process of rumination and the experience of transformation (Bray 2013). The cognitive process of ruminating can have both an intrusive and intentional frequency. According to Martin and Tesser (1996), rumination “refers to several varieties of recurrent [event related] thinking, including making sense, problem solving, reminiscence, and anticipation.” In Dan 9:2, Daniel studies Jeremiah’s prophecy that the exile will go on for seventy years, then he performs mourning practices and prays a penitential prayer in which he confesses sins and guilt (9:4-19)—these are the acts that create a loss of agency in Daniel. After doing this, Daniel gains access to a new interpretation of Jeremiah’s prophecy. This paper proposes that the rites of mourning and confession of sins are instrumental in generating the experience of grieving which, in turn, initiates a loss of agency; these cognitive and religious experiences of transformation that follow may be what allows Daniel to access a new understanding of Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years. The dynamic process of prayer and scripture interpretation in Daniel 9 can be said to fit the cognitive processes of decentering and transformation that is proposed by McNamara.

Though less well known than his work on the Book of Mormon, particularly outside Latter-day Saint circles, Joseph Smith spent significant time and effort on another unique translation project—a revision of the King James Version of the Bible. While some may not consider this a translation in the truest sense, his alterations of more than 3000 Bible verses reveal another aspect of Smith’s highly original, speculative, and creative theological work. And though it is unique in many ways, there is a fascinating historical analogue for Smith’s Bible translation. The 14th century German Dominican preacher Meister Eckhart is also known for original, speculative, and creative work, chiefly through the large body of sermons he composed in his native Middle High German. In each of these vernacular sermons, Eckhart quotes at least one verse from the Bible, in many cases stating that he is translating from the Latin into German. Much of the originality and creativity of his ideas can be traced to the way Eckhart translates almost 1000 of these verses, often rendering the same verse differently from sermon to sermon. Despite their remove in time and space, a careful comparison of the way Joseph Smith and Meister Eckhart translate Bible verses reveals striking parallels between the American prophet and the German mystic. The purpose of this paper is to briefly examine Smith’s and Eckhart’s apparent translation methods, the way each uses translation to extract meaning from the Bible text, and what these processes and products reveal about their respective hermeneutics. Such a study not only serves to illuminate another aspect of Joseph Smith’s originality and how it sets him apart from his contemporaries, it also reveals an alternative mode of understanding some of his most important doctrinal themes.

This paper explores how 1 Corinthians 5 utilizes an animalized logic to minoritize others through gender, sexuality, and racial-ethnic means in order to define the identity of the ekklesia over and against the kosmos. I first bring Christ's sacrifice as paschal lamb in 5:7b into conversation with Jacques Derrida's neologism carnophallogocentricism (1989), arguing that Paul's use of the metaphor of Christ as sacrificial animal produces a particular type of subjectivity that remains always under threat of erasure. If Christ's sacrifice gifts the ekklesia with a “humanity” born out of divine animalization, then it is a benefit that can be removed from any who disorder the ekklesia or support such people. I then elaborate on how Paul uses the ekklesia's obligation to honor Christ's sacrifice as a means to promote a normative ethic based in exclusion. If we accept that the construct of the human-animal divide intersects with various forms of discrimination to establish “insider-outsider” boundaries, then 1 Corinthians 5 uses this logic to determine what is and is not porneia concerning gender and sexuality, as well as who is and is not among the ethne in racial-ethnic terms. Through this lens, I am asserting that one can read Paul as arguing that the Corinthian ekklesia must be more “human” than both their Greco-Roman context (the ethne) and their own interpretations of the Pauline message (what is and is not porneia). At its core, this theoretical and exegetical approach opens up the question to what extent do biblical texts facilitate the construction of normative subjectivity based in a logic of championing the human over and against the animalized other, a point which has profound implications for relations today.

I propose a contrapuntal reading of Hindu stories about the young mischievous Lord Krishna stealing milk and butter from the neighbors, with one of Michelangelo’s fresco at the Sistine chapel (based on Gen 3) in which Adam picks from the fruits of the tree and Eve picks from Adam’s fruit, and the Polynesian legend of Maui tricking his ancestors in order to bring fire (for cooking) from Pulotu to earth. These texts circle around food, but they come from different regions (Asia, Mediterranean, Pasifika) and canons (Hindu scriptures, Hebrew Bible via ceiling of the Sistine chapel, Pasifika legends). This presentation will cross cultural and religious boundaries as well as scripturalize non-traditional canons (artwork, folktale). The juxtaposition of these texts will interweave food and eating with mouth (Gen 3), sex (Michelangelo) and deception (Krishna, Maui). “Sacred bites” is when such interweaving takes place.

Throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, food was prepared and sacred meals were consumed in the vicinity of sanctuaries and their associated altars. The faunal remains from the Iron Age I site on Mt. Ebal, which represent one of the largest samples ever studied in Israel, suggest that a narrow range of activities took place at this site. These activities clearly included the consumption of both food and water. This paper will examine the faunal remains from the Ebal site and explore the question of whether they should be associated with meals, sacrifice, or both.

Within the literary construct of the book of Job, the speeches between Job and his companions respond to one another at least in the sense that they take turns speaking. However, whether or not they advance their own arguments by countering the opponent’s point of view is not obvious. This paper seeks to propose a way forward for understanding the nature of the Joban discourse by assessing the interlocutors’ use of metaphor. When speakers express and hearers interpret metaphor, they demonstrate a level of shared knowledge and belief about the way the world functions. The acts of metaphor production and interpretation are fundamentally grounded in interlocutors sharing common human experience; however, in the book of Job, Job’s new experience of unjust suffering causes cognitive dissonance and sparks disagreement between Job and his companions. The interlocutors’ use of metaphor potentially highlights the key areas of agreement and disagreement throughout the discourse. This paper seeks to lay the theoretical groundwork for assessing the expansive discourse of Job through a conceptual model of metaphor by discussing a particular lexical expression, Job 13:12a (zikronêkem mišlê ?eper “your reminders are proverbs of ashes”), in its discourse context. The context of Job 13:12a goes far beyond the parallel line in 13:12b or even the immediate speech that Job is giving. The hearer/reader must also consider broader levels of discourse, including the other speeches of Job, the character of the friends’ speeches, and the narrative setting for the dialogue (“among the ashes” Job 2:8). These contextual factors influence the selection and employment of particular metaphors within discourse. After briefly defining important terms and explaining the systems of the conceptual theory of metaphor, I comment on the study of metaphor in discourse in general and propose a few criteria for perceiving coherent or competing metaphors in the book of Job. These criteria take into account the conceptual levels (generic, basic, and specific) at which multiple metaphors demonstrate commonality, the textual space between metaphorical expressions, and the conventionality of the various metaphors.

The natural human response to announcement of imminent disaster is to attempt to alleviate or avert the calamity. In Joel 2:12–17, the priests use in their complaint the polysemic possibilities of mashal as part of a two-tiered strategy to ensure YHWH’s intercession. This poetic unit unfolds an argument for why YHWH should have pity on Judah that begins with repentance but then reinforces this incentive by combining the description of YHWH’s character in the call to repentance with the imagined derision of that character by the nations. In an ancient Near Eastern context that often correlated deities’ power with the welfare of their worshippers, the key that enhances the complaint’s persuasive force resides in a pivot device playing upon the two mashal roots (mashal I “to be like”; mashal II “to rule”). The threat to God is not merely that Judah will become the object of mockery; it is that the nations will understand Judah’s situation to be analogous to YHWH’s status and character. This polysemic verb has the capacity to communicate complex, shame-related notions of defeat and humiliation. Ultimately, the complaint song of Joel 2:12–17 utilizes a strategy of extortion wherein the priests present YHWH with a threat to the divine character, which the polysemic use of mashal enhances, as a means of incentivizing YHWH to reverse Judah’s fortunes.

The creation account in Genesis 1 appears to describe two things that existed prior to the creation of heaven and earth: the primeval waters and ruah elohim--a spirit or wind of God. The paper examines the possibility that this duality of water and wind may have been understood as providing a metaphysical basis for the rest of creation, with Gods wind imposing a tendency and form on the chaotic waters. Parallel texts in Genesis, Psalms and elsewhere are explored to flesh out this conjecture.

Over the last few years, the “inverted” (Lage, Platt, and Treglia, 2000) or “flipped” (Bergmann and Sams, 2012) classroom model has gained considerable popularity and attention. In a flipped classroom, relatively passive information-transfer activities (particularly lectures) take place outside of class, making room for more active learning experiences inside of class. A Faculty Innovation in Teaching and Learning grant from Pepperdine University enabled me to incorporate elements of the flipped classroom model into my two-semester Elementary Biblical Hebrew course. In this presentation, I will demonstrate and reflect upon both online and in-class components of the model, with assessment of the difference that flipping the Hebrew classroom has made for student learning.

The new paradigm that the SBL Seminar “Meals in the Greco-Roman World” presented among other results challenges the exegesis of John. Both the question of “eucharistic overtones” of selected passages in the Gospel of John as well as the assumption of a cultic meal on the level of the community has become disput-able. In my paper, I will argue that the bread of life discourse is to be analyzed as a textual phenomenon that makes use of an imagery of eating and drinking, but does not refer to a specific meal practice on the ritual level. For heuristic reasons one should argue, that the conceptual metaphor EATING/DRINKING IS ADOPTING TEACHING – widely used in the ancient world – is the conceptual basis on which the complex metaphor network in the bread of life discourse is formed. The sources show hat the drastic intensification of the metaphoric language of adopting teaching in the sense of eating flesh or similar like in John 6:53–58 is has several parallels in antiquity. Moreover, the drastic metaphoric language in John 6:53–58 is part of a conscious provocation of the recipients at the level of the narrated world, and part of a typical Johannine misunderstanding scene. In the narrative strategy of John 6, the crucial moment of using the drastic metaphors is their function in the narratively enacted separation of the believing from the unbelieving disciples. However, the motif of drinking the blood of Jesus in John 6:53–58 is not a metonymic description of drinking wine. Analyzing the reception of this motif of drinking the blood of Jesus in the Ancient Church, it becomes evident that this motif first infiltrated the discourse on meals. Only in a second step, the motif of drinking the blood of Jesus became part of ritual semantics itself. This observation corresponds to the highly dynamic and complex historical development on the ritual level, which M. Klinghardt, A. McGowan, and M. Wallraff amongst others have described. In sum: In its reception, the text of the Gospel of John influenced the development of ritual, but not did the ritual influenced the text.

Drawing on representative examples from the psalms, this paper will highlight four common exegetical fallacies: (1) references to other (similar) verses to settle ambiguities; (2) the use of parallelism to discern the precise meaning of obscure words (lexicography); (3) the use of parallelism to prompt and justify textual emendations and conjectures (textual criticism); (4) the use of the notion of "better parallelism" to justify exegetical decisions. We will then consider insights, values, virtues, skills, and techniques that help to overcome common challenges to the interpretation of biblical poetry. These include new insights into the nature of poetry, leading to the employ of diligence, imagination, courage, flexibility, and wisdom in interpretive processes.

This study seeks to broadly identify exegetical methods adopted and theological themes developed in the Ethiopic Canticles and then explores whether there are identifiable contributions that the Canticles made to the development of Christological ideas in Ethiopia.

Trauma theorists working in “somatic experiencing” such as Babette Rothschild and Peter Levine argue that processing trauma is not possible in treatment until people are capable of enjoyable experience in their bodies. Before memories of trauma are addressed, the capacity for pleasurable experience is built up through mindfulness, breathing, and relaxation in order to increase clients’ capacity for self-regulation during the return of traumatic memories. The book of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) ponders questions of intractable meaninglessness, of life not adding up, but, as Eunny Lee suggests, Qoheleth maintains that experiences of shared pleasure help orient human life and are thus a gift from God. According to Qoheleth the gift of enjoyment consists of shared activities such as eating and drinking that take shape through shared ritualized activity and thus orient the body of the participant. In this way, Qoheleth recommends a process of restoring meaning through pleasurable engagement in communities. Qoheleth’s injunctions to pleasure should not be interpreted as a “diversion” but rather as a way of orienting the “heart” and “eyes,” thus connecting desire and pleasure in life’s broader meaning. The fact that Semitic languages conceptualize cognitive faculties in bodily terms lends credence to the notion that bodily experience can be a distinctive source of meaning-making in the face of trauma. Additionally, this treatment will address the role of misogyny in Qoheleth’s discussion of women, particularly the expectation in the “royal” monologue of the use of others for one’s pleasure. Following Lee, it will argue that the primary emphasis in Qoheleth is on shared meaning-making through ritual experiences of pleasure, which are similar to body-oriented trauma therapies that begin by addressing the capacity for ordinary pleasure before returning to address traumatic memory.

The modern doctrine of biblical inerrancy that emerged in the late 16th and 17th centuries was, in part, a response to text-critical controversies. The problem of textual variants in the MT, the LXX, and the Samaritan Pentateuch became incendiary in Protestant-Catholic controversy, particularly after the Council of Trent elevated the status of the Vulgate. The orthodox Protestant position on textual variants crystallized into the doctrine of inerrancy in creeds of the late 17th century. This little-known chapter of textual-theological dispute has implications for contemporary biblical scholarship.

The notion that persuasive transformative arguments are available for “finding” or “discovery” (heuresis; inventio) in conceptual-verbal-social “places” (topos; loci) must surely rank among the most productive and fateful analogies ever articulated. It is all the more intriguing that the concept “place” and the heuristic method that arose with/inspired it have never required a fully coherent definition in order to function in rhetorical practice. The essential point is that Greek and Latin speakers and their audiences found it helpful to imagine persuasion happening in social spaces demarcated by words. I am not sure –and I don’t think that users need to decide-- how far “topos” is a metaphor and how far it corresponds with some real relationship between social cognitive perception of persuasion and cognition of space, location and movement. In the present essay I will be interested rather in the local-rhetorical sense both as a crossing between antiquity and modernity and as an ambiguous frontier zone of decision, of intentional fence-building within any discourse. For this purpose I will continue to represent topoi as marked pairs of contrasting value-terms (less-more; new-old; etc.). An essential project for topos-research in biblical studies would thus be the systematic identification of such marked value-pairs and their modulations in discourse inside or discourse about the Bible. Thus, in the SBL setting, Bruce Malina and the Context Group have been massively influential in their claim that understanding the topos of “honour-shame” in all its ambiguities is vital for an appreciation of Greco-Roman and early Christian thought worlds. Among scholars, however, the explanatory power of the “honour-shame” topos depends in turn on topoi of “antiquity-modernity” or, even more problematically, of “Mediterranean-Northern.” In particular, topoi, thought of this way as locations of social knowledge, have an especially close relationship with patterns of embodied knowledge including “embodiments of forward-backward, high-low, curved-straight, back-front, in-our, right- and left-handedness, pleasure, pain, pride, shame, guilt, and many more.” (Gabriel Ignatow, “Theories of Embodied Knowledge: New Directions for Cultural and Cognitive Sociology?” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37 2007) 115-135, 129) The more seriously we take the analogy between argumentation and “place-finding,” the more topos-analysis can help us think about the relationship between social and individual cognition and the embodied persuasive affect of the gospel.

This paper will examine the history of interpretation of the traditions of post-mortem salvation that read 1Peter 3 (albeit incorrectly) as a salvific event in which Christ "harrows hell." We will begin with the text of 1Peter 3 itself, and its circulation in Asia Minor, as a late first century text that inspires the readings of the second century. Next, this paper will survey the patristic readings of this text in the second century, demonstrating that there were diverse reading practices at play surrounding the theological conception of Christ as Savior in the Netherworld. Finally we will compare the patristic readings of that text with the apocalyptic tradition of the Apocalypse of Peter. Our analysis will be attentive to the distinctive readings, counter-readings, and re-readings of the incipient "descent of the redeemer" tradition, and to the soteriological claims that are at stake in each interpretation of the tradition.

Teaching biblical Hebrew to congregational leaders can be challenging to instructors because of the amount of material that must be covered to bring students to an adequate level of proficiency in the language. Teachers must often decide what and how much material to present to achieve a working knowledge of the language. This paper will explore the goal(s) of our instruction under such restraints, the content that should be considered essential to achieve a working knowledge, and the means of achieving and maintaining a working knowledge for ministry purposes.

Map tests are an integral part of introductory courses to the Christian Bible. Although learning the geography of Israel during different eras is a valuable learning outcome, the means to do so need to undergo creative rethinking. Although map tests force surface learning through memorization, such memorization is not “sticky.” This paper will argue that using interactive maps better promotes deep learning. It will do so by applying the criteria in Teaching that Sticks by Chip and Dan Heath to a map of Israel created with RPG Maker VX Ace. Chip and Dan Heath identify six components to sticky learning: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotion, and story. I will argue that an interactive map is better at promoting deep learning according to these six criteria than a paper map. By “interactive map” I mean a map like those in classic RPG games such as Final Fantasy, The Secret of Mana, or The Legend of Zelda. These maps allow for the representation of a large piece of land on an “overworld” map in addition to submaps that could correspond to cities or smaller areas of land. Characters with dialogue, scripted events triggered by an action, and enemies to battle can be added to these maps if desired. The challenges of using an interactive map in this manner are quite significant. First are the technical challenges. RPG Maker VX Ace is not a free program, it is challenging to learn, and it exports maps to an .exe file that will only run on Microsoft Windows. Second, there is the social factor of students being unwilling to participate in a teaching medium that is associated with “geeks” or “nerds.” Although this social stigma is lessening, it still could have negative effects on students’ willingness to participate. The third challenge is creating a map with enough content to engage students while not being a time sink. Many students work jobs and participate in extracurricular activities, causing them to be unwilling to spend the time to run the program, create a character, and explore the map. They will instead prefer to have the familiar paper map and learn the material through rote memorization. Fourth is the challenge of the teacher’s time investment. Learning the program, designing a map, creating the proper stories, and writing the syllabus section will time intensive. This problem could be alleviated by sharing maps among departments or schools; however, there will still have to be a willingness to spend time above handing out paper maps. Despite these challenges, I am arguing that interactive maps serve as better learning tools for students willing to engage with them. A well-designed map that walks students through important locations by setting up an interesting story can be a powerful teaching tool.

By all accounts, the only part of the Greek text that has changed in NA28 is the Catholic Epistles—the product of Münster’s ongoing work on the Editio Critica Maior. It would be a mistake, however, to overlook changes to the apparatus that equally appear to signal a new day for the NT’s textual history. One such change pertains to the identification of Codex Sinaiticus’s correctors. The revisions that have been proposed have direct implications for our understanding the Apocalypse’s textual history. Corrections once understood as belonging to the fourth-century are now placed circa the seventh. Unbeknownst to many, however, part of the evidence for the existence of a fourth-century Andreas text-type (an important aspect of the current understanding of the Apocalypse's textual history) hinges upon the fourth-century corrections of the manuscript. That is now in question. Further, in the history of textual research, Codex Sinaiticus’s corrections have been tied claims of “recensional” activity in the Apocalypse, as well as to the manuscript’s status as a “mixed text.” This paper will therefore explore the implications of the recent changes for the Apocalypse’s textual history. The paper will further disclose textual variants in Codex Sinaiticus that have been left out of the apparatus (either because they have been considered spelling errors or insignificant) and argue for their inclusion as witnesses to Sinaiticus’s “mixed” text in the Apocalypse.

Among the Jewish literature that emerged after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, 4Baruch develops a surprising vision of the future of the people by retelling the story of the Babylonian exile. Jeremiah as the prophet of doom does not end up in Egypt as in the book of Jeremiah, but he accompanies his people to Babylon and after the exile back to Jerusalem. 4Baruch thus highlights Jeremiah’s priestly function. In this new story the author also connects certain theological features from different sources, merging the hopes for the people as a whole with individual expectations of salvation. In the paper I will contextualize this visionary concept as a substantial contribution to the contemporary debate about the identity and the future of the Jewish people without the Temple as well as about the relation between Jerusalem and the Diaspora.

This paper offers a synchronic reading of the Garden of Eden story (Gen 3:1-24) and the Binding of Isaac story (Gen 22:1-19) which compares and contrasts the figures of Eve (and to a lesser extent Adam) and Abraham in these texts and highlights ethical and theological considerations in their portrayals. The warrant for such a reading is found in the literary and thematic similarities that exist between these texts. For example, both characters receive or are aware of divine commands/instructions and both are tested by outside figures (the serpent, God) in some way. Beyond that, both texts develop the themes of life and death, acquisition and use of ethical knowledge, and obedience and disobedience. Several other less important literary and thematic similarities and contrasts are also noted as well. This leads to a conclusion in which each figure’s ethical knowledge and behavior is contrasted with each one’s role as a type or anti-type for faithful behavior in Genesis. On the one hand, Eve pursues the knowledge of good and evil (i.e., ethical knowledge) and is upbraided for doing so. Abraham, on the other hand, arguably displays a lack of ethical knowledge, but is, remarkably, commended. The reading of these two texts offered in this paper is one in which a theological tension is highlighted between, on the one hand, unquestioning obedience to the divine and, on the other, independently acquired human ethical knowledge and judgment. These texts are traditionally regarded as originating in different sources (J and E, respectively), so some attention is devoted in the paper to assessing the literary critical issues raised by assigning them to different sources. However, their combined presence in the Book of Genesis creates the opportunity to ask questions about each one’s meaning in the canonical form of Genesis, both individually and collectively. Though innumerable studies have taken up each of these texts in isolation, I know of no detailed analysis of the two that examines them comparatively.

The book of Deuteronomy, as it appears in the canonical form, clearly reflects upon, if not outright adapts, prior cultural thinking and traditions. While its composite nature is not widely debated, the exact breakdown of sections and units is not settled among most commentators. This paper proposes a historical placement of subunits of text, seeking to discern how the ideology and legal structure of Deuteronomy was developed over its history of reception and transmission. The Sitz im Leben of the core of Deuteronomy require a stronger and more centralized monarchy than is existent in the times of the later Judean monarchy. So this paper will explore how the strong monarchial tone of certain sections has been adapted by the later scribes of the period of a weak monarchy, which was guided by the cultic center and its priesthood. The interplay between the power centers of palace and temple will be explored, with attention to how economics and cultic practices are conceptualized in the verses of the canonical form. Though Deuteronomy is the result of various redactions, its core however relies on a centralizing principle which narrates both cultic and secular practices. Such a strong hand cannot occur during the decline of the Israelite state, as the traditional dating assumes. Thus, as the layers of textual composition are discerned, the conclusion of an earlier core is supported by what evidence remains in the final product found in Scripture.

Student outcomes assessment data from our religion program suggests that religion majors have a very difficult time understanding East Asian sacred traditions. This teaching tactic uses Tai Chi to help students experience concepts related to Dao, yin and yang, and chi, ideas central to understanding the religious traditions found in East Asia.

Proponents of Open Educational Resources (OER) have articulated that OER can broaden learners’ access to educational materials. The promise of OER is that access can be increased while driving down costs for learners without compromising quality. The purpose of this presentation is to provide empirical data that support these claims drawn from a wide variety of studies and to illustrate implications that these findings have for fields related to biblical studies. For example, studies regarding MIT’s OpenCourseWare have showed large numbers of international learners accessing materials that were previously available only to students physically present in Cambridge, MA, thus establishing increased access. I have recently been involved in an initiative across eight community colleges to utilize OER in a variety of courses. These efforts have resulted in students saving several million dollars in textbook costs, illustrating the significant cost savings that can take place as a result of OER. Ultimately the key question is the extent to which OER can be considered to be of the same quality as proprietary learning materials. I will synthesize research studies done by myself and others that indicate that the vast majority of both professors and students who have utilized OER perceive them to be of the same quality as traditional resources. Moreover, a series of studies have found that students enrolled in courses that utilize OER achieve the same learning outcomes as those utilizing more costly learning materials. I will also connect this research with the possibilities and promises of religious studies fields more fully utilizing OER. For example, much of the most complete teacher and student OER currently available are for very high-enrolling courses, such as “College Algebra” or “Introduction to Psychology.” I will discuss currently-available OER in fields related to biblical studies and also describe processes that could take place in order to create more complete OER in frequently-taught religious studies courses, such as “World Religions.”

The first part of this paper discusses how Jesus is presented as a leader in the call narratives in the Gospel of Matthew (4.18–22). By making use of a biographical-narrative reading of Matthew, which takes the biographical genre seriously and pays attention to the narrative development of the story, and modern understanding of leadership, mainly by making use of transformational leadership theories, it is possible to shed light on the presentation of Jesus as a good leader in this passage. The calling narratives clearly emphasize the leadership role of Jesus. Contrary to the view of many scholars these narratives do not emphasize the authority of Jesus, but his attraction as leader. Jesus is unmistakably presented as a role model for his followers, who are to imitate him. The author also portrays Jesus as an empowering leader who develops his followers into leaders. In the second part of the paper the relevance of the findings from the Gospel of Matthew for pastoral leadership today is outlined. The portrait of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew as the good leader and the model for his disciples also encourages us to see Jesus as a model for leadership. The calling narratives in Matthew thus help pastors today to see essential characteristics in pastoral leadership. Today’s pastors are surrounded by a multitude of opinions about how they should lead and what it means to be a Christian leader. Matthew’s portrait of Jesus suggests that two aspects are central in pastoral leadership. The pastor is supposed to lead the people by being a model and thus showing with his life how a Christian life is to be lived. Pastoral leadership also needs to be empowering leadership and the leader has to focus on developing followers to become leaders themselves.

This paper takes as its starting point the work of scholars such as James Averill and Catherine Lutz who assert that emotions are socially constructed and culturally defined. Their position has to call into question any assumption that modern western readers will immediately understand the emotions present in ancient texts in the same way that the first audience did. Yet, this seems to be so often the approach concerning emotion: an approach which ignores the historical, cultural and social context out of which these emotion terms and their related conceptual fields have come. This paper will seek to address this problem with regard to the emotion of joy in 1 Peter. With help from both contemporary Greco-Roman philosophical discussion, particularly Stoicism, and from Jewish ideas revealed in the LXX, it will situate words such as chara, chairo and agalliao in the emotional landscape of the time in order to discover their particular nuances and the range of emotional experience they can cover. In doing so, specific qualities of these emotion terms will be highlighted, such as their common objects, assumed temporal qualities, inherent value judgements and associated psychological states. These findings will help to add to the debate about detailed grammatical ambiguities in 1 Peter and will also shed light on larger scale issues such as cosmic ordering and the making of meaning. This will finally enable us to approach the difficult paradox found in 1 Peter of how, in light of the Christ event, an author can advocate or even expect joy in suffering, something that would have been impossible for his Stoic contemporaries; and whether a modern western audience, because of its own cultural understanding of emotion, has misread this expectation. A more culturally sensitive reading will show how this emotional paradox can be an emotional possibility.

Nearly every occurrence of musar in Proverbs is translated with paideia or an etymologically related term in the Septuagint. At least for the Septuagint translator of Proverbs, therefore, the two terms were functionally equivalent. The first section of this paper examines the concept of musar in Proverbs and paideia in LXX Proverbs to interrogate this equivalency. The second section looks at the handful of occurrences of musar in Qumran wisdom texts to determine how close their usage of the term is to that of Proverbs. Finally, the paper turns to Philo’s understanding of paideia, especially in De Congressu Eruditionis Gratia, to determine whether it has anything in common with the understanding of musar at Qumran. It concludes with some reflections on the relative importance of Proverbs to the authors of the Qumran wisdom texts and to Philo.

Roman farmers in late Republican and early Imperial Italy needed many goods and services that they either could not make for themselves or could produce only with great difficulty. This paper examines these necessities which are divided into three categories: ‘start-up’ supplies (i.e., materials and expertise necessary to establish a farm such as building supplies, iron tools, and processing equipment), seasonal supplies (e.g., storage containers and additional labor), and maintenance supplies (e.g., the services of a blacksmith or doctor). While farmers would have to resort to markets for many of these goods and services, they could acquire some of them through loans, in kind exchanges, and partnerships.

Over the last twenty years, a renewed topic of scholarly attention in 1 Peter has been the transformative influence of the community’s good deeds and conduct upon those living around them. As a “hinge” between the Christians’ responsibility to declare God’s “mighty acts” and the ensuing paraenesis, 1 Peter 2:11-12 is key for understanding this critical function of the readers’ behavior and lifestyle. One of the interpretive debates surrounding 1 Peter 2:11-12 revolves around whether “glorify God on the day of visitation” by the Christians’ accusers signifies the vindication of the believers at a time of judgment or the conversion of their accusers. Contrary to those who argue that this phrase only refers to the vindication of the readers (e.g., Balch), this paper argues that “glorify God on the day of visitation” refers to the conversion of Gentile accusers as a result of observing the Christians’ good works and conduct. To support the thesis, this study will address a lacuna in the literature by presenting the findings of a comprehensive survey of “glorify God” and related terms in the LXX and Second Temple Jewish writings that might inform the usage in 1 Peter. Overwhelmingly, Gentiles who “glorify God” are either already aligned with God and his people or they are in the process of converting. Similar usage in New Testament writings (Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Revelation) further confirms this interpretation. An important implication of these findings is that 1 Peter 2:11-12 serves as an interpretive lens for appraising other instances of the prominent motif of good works for the purpose of witness (e.g., 1 Pet 3:1-2, 15-16).

This paper outlines how the perspective of De Sublimitate concerning the effect of great literature resembles ancient and modern notions of religious experience. To demonstrate this similarity, the paper draws on McNamara's concept of the decentering process in religious experience. This concept of the decentering process serves as a framework for understanding how an encounter with writing that the author deems to be hupsos ("sublime" or "elevated") has similar decentering effects. The paper engages, but also moves slightly beyond, McNamara's understanding of the role of language in the decentering process. The first part of the paper provides an overview of McNamara's concept of decentering. In particular, it highlights four aspects of the decentering process: (1) the loss of agency; (2) the experience of ecstasy; (3) the role of the emotions; (4) and the cognitive changes that occur during and after the process. The second part of the paper demonstrates the presence of similar ideas in De Sublimitate's discussion of the effects of encountering literature that is characterized as hupsos. The concluding section considers how this reading of De Sublimitate aids in an understanding of the relationship between religious texts and religious experience, drawing a connection with Celia Deutsch's concept of "text work" as religious experience.

The papers collected in this volume were presented at a conference on trauma studies and biblical literature that took place in Denmark at Aarhus University in June, 2012. Two of the editors of the volume will discuss methodological issues taken up in the volume.

For Augustine of Hippo, the ecclesiology of his Donatist opponents was absurd. The heretical movement (in Augustine’s portrayal) claimed that the true church was defined by its pure observance of the divine commandments rather than its worldwide communion, that congregations could be dragged into ecclesiastical impurity merely by maintaining ties with traditor bishops, that anyone who came out of such deficient communions and joined the true church needed to be “rebaptized” – Trinitarian or not, their original sacrament was invalid. It has long been demonstrated that the bishop of Hippo overstates his case by a considerable margin. In spite of himself, Augustine has done modern researchers a favor by transmitting snippets of Donatist writings that tell a different story, an ecclesiology more nuanced than Augustine would like to admit. We know, for instance, that Donatists did not simplistically view congregational contamination as a mechanistic corollary of a fallen hierarchy: when Petilian angrily accuses Augustine of omitting the word “knowingly” from the Donatist leader’s phrase “He who has knowingly received faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt” (C. Litt. Petil. 3.22.26), he is not being pedantic. In this presentation, I would like to extend the existing conversation by contextualizing Donatist perceptions of ritual contamination within the broader ecclesiastical milieu in which they are set. I will argue that in many ways, Donatist ecclesiology represents more an intensification of existing ecclesial presuppositions than a rejection of them. Augustine is certainly not alone in his doctrine of the church – but his is not the only theology in play. Donatist beliefs about the essential nature of the church, the possibility of ritual contamination, and, perhaps unexpectedly, even the necessity of rebaptism are mirrored to a certain extent within the transmarine provinces the dissident communion allegedly defied.

Since the inception of their religion in 1830 under Joseph Smith, Latter-day Saints have had a unique approach to the critical study of the Bible. The Book of Mormon proclaimed that the Bible had been affected by the hands of editors, and Smith consistently echoed this view, declaring in the church’s Eight Article of Faith that “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated [i.e. transmitted] correctly.” With this foundational view of the Bible, LDS have not been beholden to the viewpoints of biblical inerrancy that have impacted many strands of conservative Christianity. They openly regard the possibility of numerous textual emendations and the types of changes caused by a Deuteronomistic editing. LDS have often used this view of the Bible in a positivist manner to pursue strands of thought that are hinted at in the Bible as supporting their own unique Christian theology. This includes evidence that at one point Israelite religion may have included a view of deity with multiple divine figures, a grand council or pantheon in heaven, a female deity, and a father and son figure, all of which were carefully removed or altered by the Deuteronomist. Some LDS have delighted in books by such biblical scholars as Margaret Barker and William Dever. This strand of thought is balanced by a conservative strand of LDS biblical thought. Although Joseph Smith believed the Bible had been altered by many hands over the centuries, he also believed that the basic presentation of the Bible message – Genesis through Revelation – was correct. The Book of Mormon and his Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible worked to restore the lost message of a divine council, of an early understanding of a father and son deity, but also saw God as working consistently throughout time to proclaim the gospel message in all ages. Thus the antediluvian prophets were seen as real figures who knew more about a future Messiah than the Bible portrays, who spoke with God, who wrote their messages in books likely recorded during their own lifetimes (such as Moses’s recording of Genesis) and who at least in some form experienced such things as a fall, a flood, and an exodus. This paper will analyze these two foundational strands of LDS thought to show how Mormons have interacted over time with the view of a Deutereronomistic history, and will propose that this tension in LDS thought creates a fertile ground for both religious faith and intellectual discovery. Thought by church leaders and biblical scholars such as Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, and Robert J. Matthews (tending to the conservative side) will be presented, as will thought by John Widtsoe, J. Reuben Clark, B. H. Roberts, Philip Barlow, and Jeffrey Bradshaw who take into account such biblical scholarship as the Deuteronomistic History. Barlow’s scholarship on Mormons and the Bible will serve as a foundation for this paper.

The recognition and detailed exploration of parallel structures between thematically shared subsets of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic texts continues to be a promising and productive area of scholarship on interactions between the three monotheistic religions in late antique Arabia and Syria. This paper contributes to the study of the polemical and competitive dimensions of interactions between these religious traditions with one another. These are revealed through a comparative approach to variant interpretations of lists of Jesus’ miracles in the religious literatures on sacred texts in the late antique Aramaic-, Syriac-, and Arabic-speaking Near East. To achieve this goal, the paper pursues two dimensions. It studies closely the level of density with which thematic and structural parallels in accounts of Jesus’ miracles across religious borders speak to the likelihood of shared narrative traditions circulating in oral or written forms in and out of these three respective communities. On the other hand, the paper argues that the recognition of parallel structures that do not bespeak full identity is a powerful tool for discovering and appreciating the distinct differences in the interpretation, appropriation, and self-representation which the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions reveal in their respective approaches to Jesus’ miracles.

This paper, as part of the joint Bible Translation and Nida Institute session on Performance, Translation and Identity, will introduce the topic of Performance Criticism as a hermeneutical lens in Biblical studies, while touching on issues regarding identity of people groups in the ancient world. Performance of texts and the writing of texts for performance by the community and for the community clearly contributes to identity issues like authorship, community hermeneutics, pseudo-epigraphy, the presence of multiple traditions, and other matters relating to the collective identity, as well as the role of writing and the seminal role of orality in the forging of the identity of the larger illiterate people groups and the position of the literate elite.

The Unity of the Twelve After Twenty-five Years: Retrospect and Prospect

In studying the dance of the daughter of Herodias, F. Scott Spencer has asked, is it “a tap dance or lap dance? Shirley Temple or Charo?” (Dancing Girls, Loose Ladies, and Women of the Cloth: The Women in Jesus’ Life [New York: Continuum, 2004], 56). This paper answers Spencer’s question by considering the role of dance in first-century banquets in which viewing a dance for entertainment was not uncommon (e.g., Athenaeus, Deip. 4.129d, 4.130a; Lucian, Dial. Meret. 15). The study of this context serves as a backdrop for the role of the dance in Mark 6:14-29. My thesis is that the girl’s dance functions not simply as entertainment, but as a means of persuasion. The daughter of Herodias communicates not only through the use of verbal rhetorical devices (6:24-25), but also through the use of her body (6:22). The paper closes with autobiographical reflections on the use of dance in interpreting not only Mark 6:14-29, but also other passages in Mark where discipleship itself develops “on the way” (8:27; 9:33; 10:32; 10:52) and in other biblical texts where the movement of bodies figures centrally. I consider the use of movement and dance as pedagogical tools for teaching biblical studies, aiding students in the translation of texts into modern contexts. The paper concludes by suggesting that just as the speech of Herodias’s daughter supplemented her dance, the enterprise of biblical criticism can also be complemented by the bodily translation of texts.

The role of the prophet in the Old Testament is often seen as a spokesperson for God to the people. The Hebrew, nabi, finds its in meaning in "one who calls." A modern day image of the prophet as prognosticator is inappropriate for the prophets of the Old Testament. While the prophetic word can be seen as important for today, it must first be understood in its historical context. The prophet is an observer of the culture and seeks to bring a word from God for the given situation. It is then better to say that the prophets spoke a timely message with a timeless meaning. While the prophets speak a message from God, they also speak directly to God. A cursory review of the Old Testament provides several examples: The questioning of one’s call; voicing laments; and offering intercession. These interchanges between the prophets and God provide the listener/reader with an example of dialogue. Dialogue occurs when at least two carry on a conversation. Most notable of the dialogues in scriptures are those found in the book of Job between God and Hasatan, Job and his friends, and Job and God As the Book of Job teaches us, conversations may open the path to understanding but they do not guarantee understanding. Seeking the divine will is often the reason for the dialogues between the prophets and God. The purpose of the paper is to provide an overview of these prophetic/divine dialogues and their implications for preaching today. Moses is used as the paradigm prophet, but other prophets are included in the discussion.

As part of the first project of this program unit, the current paper investigates the daily life of ancient farm workers in the Greco-Roman world. The purpose is to plot the position of these farm workers on the socio-economic hierarchy of the ancient world. In the process, farm workers are distinguished from peasants, on the one hand, and slaves, on the other. Attention is specifically paid to aspects that influence socio-economic status, such as job security, typical duties, duration of "employment", forms of sustenance, patron-client relations, and methods of "remuneration". Care is taken to distinguish within the class of farm workers between day-labourers and more permanent workers.

Arabic inscriptions from the early Islamic period draw upon or allude to the Qur'an in a number of different ways. This is most obvious in their choice of vocabulary; for example, the most common wishes of these texts are to ask for forgiveness (ghfr), seek compassion (rhm), to make a declaration of faith ('mn), to bear witness (shhd), to enter paradise (jnn) and to be spared punishment ('dhb), each of these a prominent theme a nd root in the Qur'an. From the 70s AH onwards the use of the Qur'an in inscriptions becomes more inventive, beginning with the famous Dome of the Rock text (72/691), which subtly adapts the Qur'anic text. Much has been made of these adaptations of / deviations from the standard wording of the Qur'an, often regarded as confirmation that the latter had not yet stabilized. But though it cannot be excluded that that it reflects the fact that different versions of the Qur'an circulated in early times, there are many other possible, and arguably more plausible, explanations for such divergences, such as a need for clarification and slight lapses / intrusions from other forms of Arabic (such as the spoken, the administrative, the literary, etc) by those who were working from memory. As regards graffiti, where we often find a collage of phrases assembled from different verses of the Qur'an, it is evident that creative citation and handling of the Qur'an was acceptable. This paper will explore and elucidate this point and will also pay attention to the question of what purposes were served by citing the Qur'an in inscriptions (statement of identity/allegiance, public demonstration of status and piety, etc.), especially in the case of graffiti, which sometimes consisted of nothing more than a verse of the Qur'an and the name of the writer or commissioner of the text.

The oft-discussed story of the Israelite judge Jephthah, recounted in Judges 11, ends by mentioning a practice carried out every year by the young women of Israel in remembrance of Jephthah’s daughter, sacrificed by her father in fulfillment of his vow to Yahweh. The text does not otherwise elaborate on the nature of the practice, which has led to considerable speculation among scholars as to what the practice constituted; suggestions have included lamentation rites, coming-of-age or life cycle rituals, or ceremonies to prepare young girls for marriage. This essay proposes an alternative interpretation: that the practice described in Judges 11 is a funerary rite carried out for Jephthah’s daughter. Guided by Hanan Brichto’s synthesis of the practices of Israelite burials and the ideologies of family continuity reflected in the biblical text, I examine biblical and archaeological evidence for ancient Israelite offerings to the dead, especially food and drink offerings made by family members to ancestors. I further argue that the text of Judges 11:29–40 uses the term _betulah_ to emphasize the childlessness of Jephthah’s daughter, rather than, as is commonly argued, her virginity _per se_. Taking all of this into account, Judges 11:40 can be understood as referring to a funerary rite in which the Israelite women remember and make offerings for Jephthah’s daughter--functioning, in effect, in the place of the children she was never able to have. This paper is intended for session (1), the “open session.” Please note that although this is not my first SBL paper presentation, the essay is complete, and I am happy to forward it to the selection committee at their request.

In the Priestly History, Sabbath is punished by the death penalty. This paper will explore the symbolism and meaning of punishment in P, tying it to the maintenance of divine repose. It will treat punishment in Priestly narratives like the flood, Nadab and Abihu, and the punishment of Moses and Aaron and will compare the logic of these punishments with that of the sacrificial system, particularly the ???? and ??? sacrifices. Other instances of the death penalty in the Priestly law code, all relating to the tabernacle and its accoutrements, will serve as the final piece of P’s construction of punishment. In the end, it will be seen that the Priestly literature attempts to define divine time along the lines of divine space; for P, the Sabbath is a sanctum like the tabernacle, in constant need of protection to avoid disrupting the divine repose—and the divine wrath that accompanies such disruption.

With revolutionary theology one anticipates revolutionary concepts of sacred space. This expectation is realized in the sun temples built under Akhenaten (ca. 1348-1331 BCE) and in the concept and design of early Israel's portable shrine, the tent/tabernacle, supposedly dating back to the 13th century. The basic concepts for these constructions are quite different, and the contrast with the standard sacred architecture of the latter part of the Second Millennium BCE is quite striking. What is similar is the attempt to give architectural expression to the revolutionary theologies in question. For the architecture of Akhenaten, there is considerable archaeological evidence, but for the Israelite tent/tabernacle there is only chronologically and conceptually elusive information in the Biblical tradition, with but a few textual parallels. A key statement is Nathan's response to David (2 Sam 7:5-7), "Thus says the Lord: 'Is it you who would build a house for me as my residence? I have not resided in a house since the time I brought up the Bene-Yisrael from Egypt until the present. I have been going about in a tent and a tabernacle.'" God adds a comment about never having requested of any of those to whom he had entrusted the shepherding of his people, Israel, "Why have you all not built me a cedar house?" And the "Short Hymn to the Aten," as an example, affirms of the Aten, "Your rays light up all faces, your bright hue gives life to hearts, when you fill the Two Lands with your love . . . When you dawn their eyes observe you, As your rays light the whole earth; Every heart acclaims your sight." Israel's tent/tabernacle and Akhenaten's temples in Akhet-Aten reflect these respective theologies, departing from contemporary standards for religious architecture. With changes in theology, Akhenaten's temples soon emptied and Israel's tent became a "cedar house."

This paper considers the role of the Spirit within early Christian writers’ use of prosopological exegesis, which seeks to identify various persons (prosopa) as the “true” speakers or addressees of a Scriptural text in which they are otherwise not in view. While scholars are increasingly recognizing that, for some early Christian writers, the Spirit could himself be a speaking agent, there remains no systematic analysis of the texts in which the Spirit speaks from his own prosopon. After making just such an analysis, focusing on key texts in the writings of Tertullian and Justin Martyr, this paper concludes that the need for divine testimony concerning both the Father and the Son was the central motivating factor for assigning OT quotations to the prosopon of the Spirit. In particular, this paper argues that this emphasis on the Spirit’s role as one who testifies is a direct outgrowth of the portrayal of the Spirit in the Johannine corpus. By making this connection, we have a new window by which to glimpse the theological dynamics at work in the pre-Nicene period that would contribute to the development of a distinctively Trinitarian, and not merely binitarian, view of God.

How should the Son of God sound? In what ways ought the voice and speech of an incarnate deity set him apart from mere mortals? Already in the second century, the critic Celsus pointed out that if a divine spirit lodged in a human body, it would sound quite unlike normal people. Some early Christian texts reflect this very assumption, and claim that Christ sometimes spoke with "a different kind of sound than our physical mouth produces." Yet Christians also wrestled with the occasional scriptural clue that suggested Jesus' speech had been as unprepossessing as his appearance ("his voice was not heard in the street" [Matt 12:19; Isa 42:2]). This paper explores early Christian reflection on the sound of Jesus' voice and the nature of his speech. Special attention will be given to Origen's remarkable claim that Jesus' voice had a quasi-magical charm that cast a sort of spell on those who heard it--indeed, a quality so captivating that even women, despite their "feminine weakness and the dictates of outward propriety," were drawn to follow him into the wilderness.

In some Latin versions of John, and certainly in the Latin Vulgate, after Jesus comes out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate presents him to the crowd with the words ecce homo, a word-for-word translation of the Greek, idou o anthropos. What do these words mean on the lips of Pilate, and what might John mean by reporting this event? This paper will provide an analysis that begins with the use of the Latin language in the army, the law, and commerce, in Palestine, Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus, locations linked to the composition of John’s Gospel. It will then examine praetorium as a loan-word or possibly a code-switch that brings the Latin encyclopedia to salience in the Johannine trial scene. Finally, since Vergil’s Aeneid had become popular by the second century C.E. not only in Latin but also in Greek translation, this paper will ultimately argue for the possibility of Aeneid 6.791, the presentation of Augustus, as the literary allusion made in John 19:5. It will further suggest that this allusion functions in the passage to clarify for auditors familiar with a Roman encyclopedia that Jesus, as basileus, was imperator, not rex.

Even though many scholars have embraced the bridal chamber in the Gospel of Philip as a reference to a type of ritual, there has been little research regarding the material nature or physicality of this ritual. Nevertheless, although a discussion of materiality has largely been absent from scholarship regarding the bridal chamber ritual, the question of materiality is not entirely out of our reach. On the contrary, the text’s reference to a “mirrored” bridal chamber suggests that a mirror or mirrors played a role in the bridal chamber ritual. Previous scholarship has treated the author’s usage of the term mirrored as a simple metaphorical description of the bridal chamber. However, the question regarding the realness of the mirror in the mirrored bridal chamber has never been legitimately explored as a historical possibility, and the research presented in this presentation attempts to rectify that situation. By comparing the textual context and purpose of the mirrored bridal chamber in the Gospel of Philip with other rituals in Greco-Roman society which utilized the mirror as a power-filled ritual tool, including its use in marriage ceremonies, we discover that there is historical precedence to suggest that the mirror was used as a powerful ritual tool in the mirrored bridal chamber. The findings of my research suggest that the community of the Gospel of Philip would likely have been drawn to the mirror due to the mirror’s ability to act as a gateway to the gods, affect transformation, evoke light, dispel evil spirits, and enable a process of unification between God and initiate, or in the case of the Gospel of Philip, between husband and wife.

P.Oxy. 10.1228 (Gregory-Aland P22; van Haelst 459) is a papyrus fragment, apparently a portion of a roll, a lines of the Gospel of John written on the vertical-fibre side, the horizontal-fibre side blank, the manuscript dated palaeographically 3rd century CE. It is one of only a few instances of a NT text written on a portion of a roll. Skeat (Birth of the Codex, 39-40) described it as "an eccentric production," and Kurt Aland (Studien zur Ueberlieferung des NT) proposed that the copyist re-used a roll, attaching extra sheets at the end, thus explaining the blank "recto". Based on my own autopsy inspection of the item (to my knowledge the first in many decades), I will make a fresh attempt to answer questions about the nature and likely original use of this noteworthy copy of GJohn.

Recent studies in the text history of 1-2 Samuel show evidence that all three main witnesses (Massoretic Text; 4QSama, LXX) have been revised for theological reasons. In each witness certain tendencies can be observed. The proposed paper will discuss exemplary examples for the three texts. In 4QSama and LXX (Hebrew Vorlage) the reckoned changes consist in the harmonization with specific Pentateuchal prescriptions and their language. In the MT several presumed corrections concern the concept of YHWH and his cult on the one hand and the image of King David on the other. The presentation of these cases is followed by a consideration on the genetic relationship between the three texts MT, 4QSama and the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint.

This paper interprets Thecla’s silence and speech in the Acts of Paul and Thecla (ATh) against the background of social conventions for women’s speech and silence in the Greco-Roman period. I argue that both Thecla’s silence and speech before the governors of Iconium and Antioch embody the virtue sophrosune, modesty or self-control. Because women’s modesty is often associated with silence, I address the complexity of sophrosune as a virtue, especially as it relates to the speech of women. Against this background, I argue that the author of the ATh uses both Thecla’s silence and speech to characterize Thecla as sophrosune.

The main restrictions in Biblical Studies research at present lies in limited access to ancient texts. Although virtually all Greek, Hebrew and Latin texts can be read online, these texts cannot be downloaded en-mass to be analysed as a corpus. In contrast, the scientific community regards free access to data as normal, and this has resulted in huge strides forward. The legality of such restrictions have yet to be tested, but in the mean time there are ways to move forward. This paper will reveal results of an experimental site at www.RabbinicTraditions.com which stretches of the law of Fair Use to overcome legal restrictions. The Nov.2013 court ruling for Google now makes this legally safer. This opens up numerous novel ways to interrogate large corpuses of material to serve up enhanced results from existing datasets. These results could be much more useful than the thousands of hits from word searches.

This paper will explore the attempts of the author of the Tripartite Tractate to deal with apostasy in a community that had modified its initial Valentinian myth under the pressure of heresiological critics. It will first advance the hypothesis according to which the community to which the author of the Tripartite Tractate belonged altered its religious discourse, by incorporating some of the heresiological critics similar to those raised by Irenaeus and Tertullian, and by eliminating those Valentinian ideas and concepts difficult to hold in the late third century. As a result of this drastic change, rifts occurred within the community behind the Tripartite Tractate. The paper will next proposed that prayer, baptismal practices, and confirmation represent some of the strategies suggested by the author of the Tripartite Tractate to convince this community to commit itself, through the practice of remembrance, to an ideal of “unity,” “harmony,” and “joyous willingness.” Redemption is the purpose of this ideal, materialized through the knowledge of how to regain the initial unity of Pleroma. This paper will finally suggest to regard the Tripartite Tractate as an attempt to keep its community together with the help of the Origenian conception of restoration, through rituals of reintegration.

Argued elsewhere by Mark Biddle, Joshua is portrayed as a mirroring character to Moses, with much of the conquest narrative having a parallel in the exodus narrative. Similarly, the narrative of Rahab and her two Israelite “visitors” (Josh 2) contains numerous allusions to the exodus events, as well as reference to deuteronomic theology. Rahab’s “visitors” hold varying roles in a developing tradition. Joshua 6.17 describes the men as “messengers”, a tradition reflective of the stipulations of Deuteronomy 20, in which a city is to be offered peace before any attack is mounted. Joshua 2 portrays the men as being sent to “explore secretly”, an assignment for spies. Joshua 6.25 knows both traditions, conflating the two roles of “messenger” and “spy”. Focusing on Joshua 2, another role emerges for the two men – stooge – as Rahab takes control of events, and the two spies recede, important only insofar as they aid Rahab’s cause. Joshua 2 contains numerous allusions (and one direct reference, v. 10) to the book of Exodus. These allusions connect the saving of Rahab to the saving of the firstborn and the figure of Rahab to the figure of Miriam. First, Joshua 2 recalls images of the final plague and passover (Exod 12-13) through use of the number three (v. 16), a red thread to mark the spared household (vv. 18, 21), instruction not to go outside the house (v. 19), and reference to blood (v. 19). Second, Joshua 2 contains allusions to Moses’ infancy (Exod 2) and the song of Exodus 15, including the motifs of “hiding” and an outsmarted king, proclamation of enemies’ “melting” in “terror” (vv. 9, 24), and enemies’ being “pursued” and “overtaken” (v. 5). These allusions taken together connect Joshua 2 to Exodus and cast Rahab as a subversive Miriam-esque figure, who saves herself.

The narratives in the Megilloth depict gendered identity that both challenges and reinforces patterns and expectations of cultural systems. Identity and social location are intertwined in each society and culture such that narratives typically exhibit signals to their presence in the world inside the text particularly regarding the characters’ roles and choices. This paper proposes a reading of the narratives looking at depicted behaviors as indicators of efforts to maintain the cultural systems. It is proposed that gendered identity is a necessary vehicle for preserving the cultural systems depicted in the text. First, this paper looks at the books of Ruth and Esther in light of their depiction of gender roles and identity. In particular the paper examines the expectations associated with female gender roles. Second, the paper examines ways that the narratives filter the ‘otherness’ of these gendered roles through individual and corporate identity and expected behaviors.

My paper explores the fluid nature or function of persona (voice), audience, Sitz-im-Leben, and genre in the so called dual-psalms. Hossfeld and Zenger (Psalms 2, 186) characterize this fluidity in terms of the “biblical double traditions,” that is, poetic material that has been preserved in two different streams, and which is evidence of redaction history in the Psalter. Broadly speaking, the basic approach to the question of the dual-psalms has been to focus on such ideas as two variants of an ur-psalm (which can be reconstructed through comparative deconstruction), faulty scribal transmission (which can be assessed to reveal the genuine original of the psalm), and deliberate alteration (which is due to a re-appropriation of the poetic material for a new setting). My goal is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the psalms via side-by-side reading. Each pair of psalm-voices will be heard together, comparatively, with an eye not for finding the “original” poem, but to evaluating the fluid nature (and function) of persona (voice), audience, Sitz-im-Leben, and genre in these dueling psalms. I will focus on each of the pairings in the Psalter, Pss 14 and 50; 40:14-18 and 70; 57:8-12/60:7-14 and 108; as well as the composite psalm found in 1 Chr 16:8-37, which is made up of Pss 105:1-15, 96:1-13, and 106 1, 47-48.

This paper will argue that both the zodiacal calendar element of 4Q318 (the unit, 4QZodiac Calendar) and the Synchronistic Calendar of 4Q208-4Q209 (4QAstronomical Enoch a-b) are part of similar astronomical schemes. Both are zodiac calendars but the latter has been misunderstood in recent scholarship. It will be proposed that there has been confusion in this subject area as a result of the work of Otto Neugebauer in the 1960s to the early 1980s who wrongly argued that the “gates” in Ethiopic Astronomical Book of Enoch did not refer to the zodiac signs, as had been --- correctly--- understood by Laurence and the 19th century scholars after him such as Hoffman, Dillman and Martin through to Charles in the early 20th century. Neugebauer said, rightly, that the “gates” of the sun in 1 Enoch 72 represent arcs on the horizon where the sun rises and sets throughout the year. But, as shall be shown, this does not contradict the theory that the “gates” also represent the signs of the zodiac. Furthermore the zones on the horizon cannot be used to determine the rising and setting places of the moon. Neugebauer’s misleading theory has been inappropriately applied to the Aramaic Synchronistic Calendar of 4Q208-4Q209 with the result that since Milik’s critical edition on the Aramaic fragments of the Book of Enoch, this text has not been accurately analysed in Qumran scholarship. Furthermore, modern scholars have incorrectly isolated 4Q318, which I shall argue, is part of the same corpus as the Synchronistic Calendar of 4Q208-4Q209.

In spite of Philo's frequent critiques of the theater and other Roman spectacles he is well-versed in their dialogical dynamics and knows how to appropriate, critique, and subvert the semantics normally governing the shows in order to push back against the injustices of Roman overlords. This is evident in Philo's Flaccus, where Philo responds to the violence against Jews during the pogrom of 38, which culminates in the theater during the festivals celebrating Gaius's birthday, when Flaccus marches Jewish elders into the theater and has them stripped and whipped so severely that some die, while others remain long incapacitated. Philo understands that this spectacle, with its penal dimension, functions both to humiliate the elders and satisfy the Alexandrians' felt need for retribution. Philo himself then pursues the very strategy employed by his opponents. He interprets the demise and sufferings of Flaccus as penalties for his injustices against the Jews exacted by the retributive work of personified "Justice." Like the Jews Flaccus earlier marched into the theater, Flaccus's punishment takes a theatrical turn, when he who has staged spectacles becomes a spectacle himself, for Philo transforms Flaccus's deportation to exile on the Aegean island of Andros into a "spectacle" and thus creates textually a spectacle to counter those that recently have victimized the Jews. He thereby shows himself as inventive in spectacle-creation as the Alexandrian audiences and Flaccus are, even if Philo's primary medium is literary ekphrasis rather than live participation. But even as Philo issues his combative textual spectacle in the Flaccus, he shares and accepts the same rationale for theatricalizing punishment as his opponents. Namely, punitive spectacle discharges the just punishment of offenders and offers redress to victims, whose retributive satisfaction is maximized by the very dimension of exhibition. Evoking spectacle and other theatrical elements thus provides for Philo a means by which he can create textually (via ekphrasis) a spectacle that both deters Roman overlords from treating Jews as Flaccus has and offers retributive redress for Jewish victims. Philo thus exemplifies how it is possible to participate in the life and culture of the theater and spectacles in a way that offers considerable leverage to speak back to and compete with leading power holders and culture brokers.

Though uniformly acknowledged as a product of the late second century, the Epistle to Diognetus offers a curious mix of biblical references, focused largely on materials drawn from the letters of Paul and Johannine tradition. At the same time, limited attention is given to teachings from Matthew, albeit in a seemingly unsystematic way. This paper gives focus to the work’s use of gospel traditions, keying on evidence both of Matthean teaching and Johannine tradition. It is postulated here that Diognetus as scholars now know it represents the juncture of two different developing traditions: an earlier work that employed but did not focus on Matthean trajectories, and a later editorial layer predominantly influenced by Johannine teachings (if not necessarily by the text of the Fourth Gospel itself). The paper will seek to analyze how these divergent approaches to different gospel traditions may help scholars to distinguish between the perspective of the original author and that of the later editor.

Depictions of banqueters seated at semi-circular tables are common to both Christian and Greco-Roman art. These are sometimes found in domestic contexts but most frequently in funerary settings. Although most scholars interpret these scenes as alluding to the funerary banquets held in honor of the deceased or perhaps referring to post-death picnics in a paradisiacal setting, the suggestion that they depict actual sacred ritual meals lingers (e.g., a Christian eucharist or agape meal). This paper will explore the components of these images in some detail. It will examine surviving scenes of dining from secular or non-funerary contexts, noting the visual representations of certain dining customs that appear to be most emphasized thereon. It will then compare the Christian with non-Christian parallels, particularly in funerary art, and explore the ways that Christians may have reinterpreted a conventional Greco-Roman funerary motif as pointing to explicitly Christian expectations for the afterlife. As context for these images, this paper will consider related material evidence, particularly decorated funerary tables (mensae) from both pagan and Christian settings, either those often attached to stele or elaborated with mosaic designs that were found, mainly, in cemetery churches. In some instances these objects depict the particular foods or types of dishes employed for these banquets. Others present iconography or epigraphic indications of the significance of the meal in Christian as well as non-Christian funerary rituals.

In this paper, I wish to develop a heuristic approach that enables us to better explore the phenomenology of biblical religion in general, and the personhood of the biblical deity in particular. In modern scholarship, monotheism, like any other religion, is regarded, more often than not, as a symbolic system, through which biblical writers conceived and expressed the operation and meaning of the world and the self, a cultural matrix through which they sought to communicate with members of their community. This approach—with all its profundity and appealing sophistication—seems inadequate if one seeks to understand this religion from within. For this approach reduces the biblical God into (just) one such symbol or an idea, while the lived experience as reflected in biblical literature is clearly premised on the realness of this deity—not as a static concept or symbol, but rather as a real living person with a will and character that interacts with humans in all his fullness. I will use works of such scholars as Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Heschel, and Yochanan Muffs to develop an alternative approach to the phenomenology of biblical religion.

A unique feature of the Book of Jeremiah is God’s thrice repeated ban on intercession (7:16, 11:14 and 14:11). These commands can seem purposeless and vindictive, the divine version of covering one’s ears while singing loudly. In this paper, I will explore how the ban on intercession connects with the Jeremian themes of falsehood (???) and shalom (?????), and Jeremiah’s role as God’s prophet. In the first section of the paper, I will look closely at the passages in which God commands Jeremiah not to pray. In the second section I investigate what makes intercession problematic in the Book of Jeremiah by considering verses 4:7 and 29:7-12. I will argue that what is at stake in Jeremiah’s intercession is the prophet’s ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood, that is, the prophet’s ability to correctly interpret God’s actions in the fall of Jerusalem. Though Jeremiah clearly empathizes with the suffering of the people, it is imperative that he does not empathize too closely with their understanding of why they suffer. To pray for the welfare of the people is problematic, because it clings to the notion that perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem can be avoided. But the welfare of the people cannot be restored until the people learn the source of their welfare and discontinue religious and social practices contrary to God’s will. Thus praying for welfare independently of a radical change in the people fundamentally misunderstands the origin and shape of ????? as it relates to God’s covenant with the people. Verse 4:7 makes clear that Jeremiah’s understanding of the siege and fall of Jerusalem is in question in the book. In this verse, Jeremiah accuses God of deceiving the people. Jeremiah’s complaint raises the possibility that God, rather than the people itself, is the source of deceit. This possibility is emphatically rejected, and when the people (note: not Jeremiah!) are finally command to pray for Babylon in 27:9, the call to intercession serves as a practical lesson. In Babylon, the people must learn to distinguish between the false words of the prophets and the good that God promises in exile, and to pray accordingly. While intercession in the mouth of Jeremiah threatens to undo his vision of God’s purpose behind the destruction of Jerusalem, intercession in the mouth of the exiles teaches them what they did not previously understand, that the Lord, and no other gods, is the source of their welfare, their future and their hope. In conclusion, God’s ban on intercession, however harsh, forms a necessary part of Jeremiah’s prophetic office. As God’s mouth, Jeremiah must understand God’s point of view, and must commit to God’s interpretation of events over against that of people.

Philosophical theology has been accused of moving down a slippery slope to nothing more than onto-theology in recent decades. It is claimed that reducing biblical complexities to well-argued “primitive” propositions can end narrowly in a discussion of the ontological nature and status of God himself. However, this claim might distract from the problem directly confronting readers of the Hebrew Bible: these ancient texts contain diverse stories where biblical authors certainly presume metaphysical relations yet leave them entirely unexplored. What, then, is the role of metaphysics in understanding these stories in the Hebrew Bible itself? The reader is begged to imagine ontological relationships directly beneath the logic of the story that than allow the story itself to make sense (e.g., the passing of blessing by the laying on of hands, the movement of sin from the High Priest to the goat on Yom Kippur, and even the presence of YHWH himself in discrete spatial locations). If the relations go unexplained in the text and are indiscernible when analyzed in their aggregate, do all metaphysical claims (e.g., sin as substance) ultimately resolve to metaphysical mysterionism in the bible? In this paper, I would like to explore two paradigms where metaphysical presumptions—movement and presence—figure into the logic of biblical narratives. I then consider what method can parse such a reticence to fill in the metaphysical gaps without falling back into etic notions of perfection theology concerning the divine being of the Hebrew Bible?

Greek and Roman novels flourished in the world of ancient popular literature, along with a host of other less easily classifiable fictions. Recent research has increasingly suggested that ancient fictions arose partially in response to the impact of imperial rule (Swain 1996, Whitmarsh 2001, Goldhill 2001), and not only that of the Roman empire, but the Persian Empire and Hellenistic kingdoms before it (e.g. Tatum 1989, Wills 1995, Berlin 2001). Outside the ancient Mediterranean context, a fully developed pre-modern novel also appeared in Japan, the Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari). In Japan as in the Mediterranean world, the novel appeared at a time when historical fictions of various kinds flourished. In this paper, I will offer a very preliminary sketch of a few similarities between the production of fictions in the eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period, and the production of fictions at the imperial court in Heian era Japan (794-1185 CE). Some of the similarities are striking enough to be remarkable. Drawing on only one Japanese example, the Great Mirror (Ookagami, ca. 1100 CE), a quasi-fictional account of the Fujiwara ministers at the Heian court, we find apparently deliberate chronological distortions left both as a signal to the reader of “fictionality” and at the same time as an ideological support for the writer’s own claims (parallels abound in the books of Esther and Judith); solemn truth-claims and appeals to written evidence (in a text widely acknowledged since its inception as more fictional than historical) which precisely mirror the language used by the author of the Letter of Aristeas; and tales of elite maneuvering at court (cp. Josephus’ Tales of the Tobiads) that suggest that members of marginal elites faced much the same challenges in different cultures, even when the moral of the tale is rooted in a very different set of social mores. I tentatively suggest that female literati at the Heian court occupied a position not unlike that of the Greek-educated Jewish elite under Hellenistic rule – a precarious balance of marginal elite status, language polarities, and relations with the loci of power at the imperial center (cf. Adolphson 2007).

Samson is a liminal and transgressive figure in the book of Judges. A highly mobile character, Samson (an Israelite) spends most of his narrative life among the Philistines. He is endowed with super-human capacities, but has the impulsiveness of an animal. The hyper-masculine hero is duped by a woman. Samson straddles, crosses, and transgresses geographic, social, and bodily boundaries. This paper will perform a social and spatial analysis of Samson’s character with particular attention to the way in which Samson’s many and varied border crossings construct, ridicule, and challenge the identity and leadership of post-exilic Israel. I will engage the work of sociologist Tim Cresswell, particularly his definition of transgression as “out-of-place phenomena” that leads people to question what they otherwise assume to be appropriate and “normal,” or “common sense” for a particular setting. Mobility, therefore, is a form of “super-deviance” because movement disrupts the ability to predictably organize spaces, in turn threatening the order of society. Narrative places, spaces, and personalities become tools for producing and reproducing dominant ideology(ies) that determine (a) which spaces are inhabitable and by whom; (b) which behaviors and interactions are acceptable, justified, and “normal”; and (c) which gendered personalities are best capable of shaping cultural, ethnic, and political identity in a narrative world. If mobility is a form of “super-deviance,” then Samson is particularly aberrant. Samson’s movement between Israel and Philistia is part of the pulse of the narrative. As he travels between Dan in the Shephelah region and Philistia in the coastal plains, Samson crosses not only topographic boundaries, but also economic, cultural, and ethnic boundaries. With each move, Samson’s animalistic tendencies are increasingly unwelcome in civilized society. He is pushed to the fringes of society until his hyper-masculine body is permanently mutilated and feminized so that his “wild-man” qualities are satisfactorily tamed (or are they?). Placed in a post-exilic context, Samson’s character is a thinly veiled reference to those upper class returnees (such as priests, political leaders, and temple staff) whose power and authority depended on the support of Persian officials. Samson descends from the Danites (the tribe known for migrating from the southern part of Israel to the far north) who are analogous to the returning exilic community. The Philistines, both a foreign imperial threat and a highly mobile military people, are a cipher for other colonizing forces (the Persians, perhaps) whose sheer power and mobility threaten the established order of Israelite space. The geographic and social transgressions of Samson’s character spoof the leadership of the returning exilic community. His (failed) nazirite status is a way of comically exaggerating the role of the priest. His love-hate relationship with the Philistines is a carnivalesque rendering of the dance between the colonizer and the leadership of the colonized. Read in this way, Samson’s geographic, social, and bodily transgressions challenge the communal identity and leadership provided by exilic returnees, and demonstrates the dangers of (literally) sleeping with the colonizer.

Beginning with an exposition of how the early congregation came to designate Jesus as Lord, a search ensues for other early Aramaic terminology of the primitive Aramaic-speaking congregation in Jerusalem. Central rituals and institutions of this congregation will be used as guides for the exploration.

Over the past years some big claims have been made regarding the benefits of the newly developed CBGM. However, now that the honeymoon is over, it is time to start talking about the limitations of the method. As a discipline we should start asking questions like, What does the CBGM actually tell us? Within the method, is ‘genealogical coherence’ more than just an abstraction with little to say about actual history or is ‘genealogical coherence’, in terms of textual history, a ‘real’ concept? Is the method perhaps unnecessary complicated? Could the same be achieved with simpler, more accessible and more flexible methods? In this paper it will be argued that so far, the CBGM has only been used to provide materials for a visual analysis of the distribution of the evidence. Besides, the contribution of the CBGM as an analytical tool has not been distinguished sufficiently from the particular way of doing textual criticism by the editorial team in Münster. On the other hand, the CBGM is raising an important issue within our discipline, namely by questioning the value of ‘earlier is more important’. But is the method correct in suggesting that the actual age of a document may be of much less importance than often assumed?

The DCH is a monument to the ability of David Clines and his team to get things done. It will be used by linguists and exegetes for years to come. But of course, it is not the last word. The completion of the Dictionary is a good moment to revisit its guiding principles and to evaluate the way they affect the information it offers. In the present paper, this will be done from a philological point of view, taking into account in particular two fundamental decisions, namely: a) to eschew etymological data ; b) to approach "Classical Hebrew" as if it were a synchronic whole.

My research is part of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament Project (THEOT), whose work has included a study on the Ethiopic book of Obadiah. Based on a study of 33 manuscripts of Obadiah, we have identified and analyzed the following families: Oldest Attested Text (traditionally referred to as “Old Ethiopic,” but this title is problematic), Transitional Texts, Standardized Texts, The Modern Textus Receptus Text, and Non-Indigenous Text. This presentation expands this analysis by comparing the families identified for Obadiah to those identified for other books of The Book of the Twelve, such as Habakkuk and Jonah. For the study of individual books, procedures were developed by the THEOT team, and I wrote computer scripts to 1) calculate percentages of agreement between each manuscript and each other manuscript, 2) color code ranges of percentages, 3) generate a dendrogram (a statistical tool based on hierarchical clustering) to identify the families, 4) determine which readings are best able to identify a manuscript’s family, 5) determine the “family profile” for each manuscript, and 6) identify which manuscript best represents each family. For the comparison of families within Obadiah to those within other books of The Book of the Twelve, the methodology was adapted and expanded to include analysis between books. Then, additional computer scripts were written to perform these analyses. This presentation will explain the statistical and linguistic characteristics of the families in Obadiah, compared and contrasted to those of the other books of the Book of the Twelve. This study moves us in the direction of a more general understanding of the larger textual history of the Ethiopic Book of the Twelve.

Although the storytelling techniques of gospel parables have been widely discussed, little work has been done on visual depictions of the parables in art. Picking up on the theme of ‘labour and migration’, this paper will explore artistic representations of labour as found in the parables in Mark’s gospel. Focusing primarily on the parable of the sower, I will examine why this parable was frequently depicted in art, in contrast to other parable narratives that are ignored. On the other hand, I will suggest (developing here the work of Paolo Berdini) that despite superficial appearances, the sower is frequently shown as incompetent, indicating that the images are not intended to show the actual practice of sowing. This is in contrast to the suggestion that, in portraying the sower, artists ‘attempted to elevate peasant work to the level of a symbol, signifying eternal glorification of human work on earth’ (Jure Mikuž). From coins to canvas, stained glass windows to sacred book illuminations, images of 'The Sower' have served a variety of functions. I will bring the well-known images of Van Gogh (1888) and Millais (1864) into dialogue with other less frequently discussed representations, such as Oscar Roty’s 'The Sower' (1887), before concluding with some reflections on the impact of reading the Markan text through the visual images.

In an earlier study, I established that the "founder of Arabic literary prose," 'Abd al-Hamid al-Katib (d. 132/750) used the Qur'an extensively in his letters and explored in detail the various techniques he used in his borrowing from the Qur'an. In this study I wish to study how 'Abd al-Hamid used Qur'anic materials specifically in his theological, legal, and historical letters, addressing such issues as how selective he was in this use; how he mixed it with administrative terminology; how he accommodated alongside it the materials representing the Prophet Muhammad's authority, namely his mission and statements; and how he rephrased the Qur'an to highlight his political and ideological commitments.

The image of the incurable wound, found throughout the Bible’s prophetic books, is prominent in the book of Jeremiah (Jer 8:22; 14:17; 15:18; 30:12-15; 46:11; 51:8-9). Often viewed as a convention of ancient Near Eastern curses, this paper argues that the incurable wound is a vital part of prophetic corporeal discourse, which articulates a dynamic inherent in the divine-human relationship, and reveals a distinction in the biblical depiction of male and female bodies. I begin by considering the image of the wound within the context of ancient Near Eastern ideas of disease and healing. I then present a close reading of several passages in Jeremiah that depict the wound, addressing questions of rhetorical purpose, and identifying common features that characterize the image. Finally, I consider the image within in the context of the idea of the perfectible body as considered by Kenneth R. Dutton. For Dutton, the perfectible body is an ideal body that depicts the body not as it is, but as it “could or should be.” In Greek art and culture, the perfectible body is exemplified by the image of the athlete. In contemporary culture, it is the image of the body builder or the physically enhanced celebrity. In the Bible, I argue, the perfectible body is the circumcised body—the male body rendered ideal through a genital wound. In contrast, the wounded body, as portrayed by Jeremiah, is an imperfect body. It is a source of impurity, which often is gendered female.

This paper argues that Psalms 110 and 111 are intentionally juxtaposed from analyzing the lexical, genre/structural, and thematic connections and from the editor’s strategy using the juxtaposition of the royal and wisdom psalms as in Psalms 1 and 2. It has been generally considered that Psalms 110 and 111 belong to the different blocks; Psalms 107-110, and Psalms 111-118. However, from the connection between Psalms 110 and 111, the fact that Psalms 110 and 111 are purposefully arranged will be observed and the meaning of their juxtaposition will be discussed.

Our paper is about a Biblical approach to politics. For the Bible, government is a means to improve human life, to give a maximum of opportunity for people to grow and develop in faith, individuality and creativity. We contrast the Biblical view with ancient Graeco-Roman views, and we will draw implications for modern political life and society regarding three areas of important contrast: 1) differentiation/individuation versus uniformity/ conformity, 2) organic morality versus abstract equilibrium, and 3) hope versus fear regarding the future. First, Plato elevates being over becoming in the sense of preferring the abstract Idea of something rather than the real, singular thing in itself. Individual differences themselves are suspect, despite pretensions to the opposite. The ideal form for Plato provides the glue that holds life together. Thus, the idea of humankind is superior to the real person. The biblical view, in contrast, views each separate person as created uniquely in God’s image rather than demanding uniformity and conformity. Indeed the book of Genesis can serve as a political primer allowing differentiations: day from night; earth from water from sky; mammals from birds from fish; man from woman; the six days of the week from the Sabbath. Second, the biblical view of society and politics emphasizes an organic sense of morality rather than fixate on an abstract philosophical equilibrium. For Aeschylus, the land is almost an animate force demanding its due. The murder of Agamemnon has caused pollution in the land, and chthonic deities as well as the spirit of the slain cry for vengeance in the blood of the murderer. Without this the land cannot avoid the curses of its pollution. The Biblical view is very different. A person is not an abstract unit but a living being but a precious creation made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 2:7). Human life is the most precious entity, and it is preserving life itself that is important, not satisfying a mythical effect of a crime.. A soul is not an abstraction but a living human being. The biblical political view addresses concrete human actions. Crimes must be addressed to preserve justice, not to preserve an abstract equilibrium Third, the biblical sense of faith in the future is contrasted with the Greek fear of the future. The Greek fear is expressed in the story of Oedipus, whose father Laius fears that he will be overcome by his son and he attempts to kill him. The outcome is tragic, leading to incest between Oedipus and his mother, which though not intentional, becomes a pollutant in Thebes. The Biblical view is very different, embracing the future and preserving and fostering the continuity of a family and of a society. This is true even when such continuity is occasioned by an action which ordinarily would not be condoned, such as purposeful incest of Lot’s daughters with him, with the goal of preserving the human species.

Although characterized as bodies or things, enslaved persons seem to play several important roles in the social fabric of the ancient Mediterranean world. Slaves position at the bottom of the ranking system, - at times outside all human classifications, - gave them access to news and information that privileged persons needed to survive. Recent theories of intersectionality insisting that gender, sexuality, social class, ethnicity, and age mutually construct each other may help interpreters to read New Testament texts on slaves dealing with storytelling, information management and gossip in new ways.

The Animal Apocalypse (1En 85-90), an interesting piece of 1Enoch, has been the occasion of various scholarly discussions. Among others, the following questions are very much debated: In which socio-historical context was the Animal Apocalypse written? What was the purpose of writing the Animal apocalypse? Which community was responsible for the text? The aim of this paper is however not to deal with these legitimate and important issues. The focus would rather be on the reception of this text in an Ethiopian context. Based on Ge'ez and Amharic commentaries, this paper will deal with the way that the Animal Apocalypse is read and interpreted in Ethiopia.

Despite the Roman Empire’s official policies tolerating the observance of “ancestral rites” by those within its territories, there was no shortage of polemics launched against the Jews and their Sabbath, much of it preserved in Greek and Latin literary and satirical sources and later Christian texts. Agatharchides of Cnidus, Apion, Seneca, Persius, Tacitus, Juvenal, Martial, Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Frontinus, Rutilius Namatianus, Pseudo-Ignatius, and the fifth-century author of the Brevis Expositio in Vergilii Georgica, all mock the Sabbath or express skepticism about its observance. Given the widespread polemics against the Sabbath found in Greek and Roman texts, one might ask: are there rabbinic sources that betray awareness of these polemical ideas, and that attempt to argue against such views? I have identified several instances in which rabbinic narratives about the Sabbath gain new meaning when understood as responses to specific polemical ideas popular in Greek and Roman literature of the period. Genesis Rabbah 11 and Bavli Shabbat 119a-b, both of which preserve extended narratives about the Sabbath, contain stories about the deliciousness of Sabbath food and drink, the pleasant aroma of the Sabbath, the strategic benefit of Sabbath observance in military contexts, and the unwitting observance of the Sabbath by a Roman elite (none other than the father of Jerusalem’s governor, Tinneus Rufus, as he resides in the afterworld!). These stories – which are typically told in the form of a dialogue between a rabbi and a Roman official – are best understood as responses to accusations that Sabbath food was cold and tasteless, that Sabbath observers omitted unpleasant odors, that the Jews owed their many military defeats to their senseless idleness on the Sabbath, and warnings to fellow Romans not to join the Jews in the celebration of the Sabbath. These rabbinic passages are not addressed at the rabbis’ Greco-Roman interlocutors, however. They are directed, instead, at other Jews, encouraging them to remain (or become) pious Sabbath observers despite critiques from outsiders. The passages identified, then, are instances of internal rabbinic engagement with others: counter-polemics formed in the context of external polemics against Jewish practice but directed inward to encourage more vigilant observance by Jews.

In this lecture, I shall compare the parallel accounts of Solomon at Gibeon in 1 Kings 3:4-15 and 2 Chronicles 1:2-13 in order to identify the source that lay before the Chronicler. I start by presenting the prevalent scholarly view arguing that Chronicles constitutes a reworking of Samuel-Kings, and the divergences between the narratives in these two sets of texts directly reflect the Chronicler’s agenda. Chronicles is therefore regarded as secondary version of the Deuteronomistic History's narratives. I then discuss the story of Solomon at Gibeon as a test case for an alternative understanding of the relationship between Chronicles and Kings. The general structure of the story is similar in the two versions. A thorough analysis of several of the disparities suggests that the text that lay before the Chronicler differed from the text of Kings known to us today. In the case of Solomon at Gibeon, Chronicles is based on an earlier edition of the book of Kings. I proceed to considering the various layers of the story in the extant version of Kings, identifying three strata: a) an ancient story composed at the beginning of the monarchy; b) a Deuteronomistic editing of this source, dated to the end of the First Temple period; and c) the final reworking of the story by a scribe in the spirit of the Deuteronomist school during the Babylonian exile. My assumption is that the Solomon in Gibeon story known to the Chronicler consisted only of the first two strata. In conclusion I present a broader offer, according to which in some cases Chronicles preserves an edition of the Book Kings different from the one known to us today. At least one more literary stage in the development of Kings took place between these two editions- a layer containing additions and changes characteristic of the Deutronomistic School was added.

Although Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010) did not claim to reconstruct a historical figure it caused quite some stir when it appeared. Two conspicuous traits of Pullman’s novel are his blending of sources and his use of extra-canonical and legendary material. Interestingly, similar tendencies have been found in historical Jesus research. When source material is limited scholars as well as authors of fiction seek to extend their database. This paper points out some similarities and differences between Pullman and historical Jesus scholarship.

Just as the title of William Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom! alludes to David’s cry over his son in 2 Samuel 18:33, so also the characters in the book parallel those in the Succession Narrative of 2 Samuel 9-20. These similarities between the biblical text and Faulkner’s novel have been noted often and are patently obvious to any reader of Faulkner who has even basic familiarity with 2 Samuel. Literary critics, however, have made surprisingly few attempts to explore the dynamics of the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the novel. Some investigations, such as Ralph Behrens’s influential study from 1974, have cogently argued that Faulkner uses the biblical story to comment on Southern society. This line of criticism views the downfall of the Davidic kingdom (more specifically the “Beth David”) as a precursor to the crumbling of the Old South and its various social structures. Most treatments of the novel, however, either ignore the biblical connections or see them as a skeletal framework on which Faulkner built his narrative. My paper will explore only one of the many intertextual connections between Absalom, Absalom! and the Succession Narrative—namely the characterizations of David and Thomas Sutpen as flawed patriarchs. I am not interested in simply drawing parallels between the two, but rather I wish to argue that Faulkner’s portrayal of Sutpen evidences a complex reading of the Davidic narrative and that, conversely, the Succession Narrative proleptically “reads” Thomas Sutpen with a similar complexity. As a side note, drawing on the work of Robert Alter, I will devote a small portion of my paper (separately or interspersed with my main argument) to a comparison of Faulkner’s interpretation of Samuel with those of biblical critics and literary critics. Part of my argument is that Faulkner’s nuanced view of the character of David overlaps strikingly with biblical literary criticism (late 20th century in particular). Furthermore, the lack of attention to the biblical echoes in Absalom, Absalom! stems from literary critics’ lack of familiarity with biblical criticism.

Since Gerald Wilson published his groundbreaking dissertation in 1980, Psalms scholarship has focused much of its attention upon questions of the significance of the final shape of the Psalter, both for Second Temple readers and for contemporary readers. Nevertheless, as this paper will argue, Psalm 144 has not received due attention corresponding to the pivotal role it plays as a) part of the frame of the book of Psalms and b) part of the conclusion of the body of the Psalter. The paper begins with a brief survey of the history of scholarship, highlighting ways in which Psalm 144 has been overlooked at times as a key psalm in the final form of the Psalter. From there, I highlight several ways in which Psalm 144 plays a key strategic role in closing out the book of Psalms: 1) As the final Davidic psalm and 2) as the final royal psalm, it represents the last words of the Psalter addressing questions concerning the status of the literary figure of David and the status of the Davidic royal line. 3) As a quasi-catena that adapts and draws upon material from several other psalms that precede it in the Psalter (Pss 8, 18, 33), it rounds out the end of the Psalter by revisiting themes from early in the Psalter. 3) In light of the frequent juxta-position of royal and wisdom psalms at the “seams” of the Psalter elsewhere, it may be read in connection with Psalm 145, a wisdom psalm, as part of a final “seam” that brings the body of the book to a close and paves the way for the concluding Hillel (Pss 146-150). It will be argued that, by overlooking the key role Psalm 144 plays in the macro-structure of the Psalter, Wilson (and others) have subtly misconstrued the final form of the Psalter as “muting” the royal frame and downplaying the (presumably failed) Davidic covenant. A proper appreciation of the role of Psalm 144 shows how the final form of the Psalter strategically brings the body of the book of Psalms to a close by allowing David to speak one last time, reminding the reader that the Davidic covenant is not defunct, despite evidence to the contrary.

This paper will argue that John 20:30–31 and 21:25 attest a competitive textualization of the oral Johannine gospel tradition, whereby the author of the Fourth Gospel intentionally moves the tradition into the manuscript medium in order to rival extant textualized versions of the Jesus story. By building critically upon the prior work of Thatcher, and also by giving attention to elements within the narrative of the Fourth Gospel, I will argue that John 20:30–31 and 21:25 constitute underappreciated indications of the Fourth Gospel’s knowledge of the Synoptic Gospels, which are the only certain prior Jesus books.

This paper discusses early Christian traditions and the beginnings of the Jesus movement in the context of ancient communications media. The first part focuses on the material and technical aspects of the verbal arts in antiquity. Among the features explored are oral and scribal word processing, scribal activism, the performative, recitational function of chirographs, the behavior of the early papyrological tradition, and more. The second part explains how media technologies mobilize the human sensorium and cognitive faculties. Among the features to be explored are the emotive powers of speech and acoustic apperception, interior visualization, and a range of mechanisms generated by the ars memoriae. The third part seeks to develop the oral-scribal-memorial-performative paradigm in distinction from the classic historical, documentary model which is perceived to be entrenched in typographic modes of thinking.

Signs are arbitrary, or so modern linguistics teaches us. What difference does it make if we frame the discussion of literary influence in terms of "intertextuality," "inner-biblical exegesis," "echoes," or "allusions"? A discipline by any other name—it is all the same, right? A survey of the trends in works loosely associated with one another through this complex web of terminology suggests otherwise. I draw attention to the theoretical distinctions between these various modes of scholarly discussion while assessing the value of this work within our discipline and how it promises to contribute to (or distract from) larger, interdisciplinary interests. Despite the linguistic realities we have learned from the modern study of the linguistic sign, I argue that our language has a practical impact on the nature of our discussion inasmuch as it motivates or discourages our attention to important critical questions. I propose that we can unite our common interests around one particular model that would provide cross-disciplinary theory and terminology for the general interest in literary influence within biblical studies.

All explorations of Hebrews’ view of the “atonement” begin with an answer to this question: does the sacrificial imagery in Hebrews depict a literal process that begins with (but quickly moves on from) Jesus’ death on the cross, or does it entail a metaphorical unpacking of the cross itself? In other words: did Jesus offer himself literally on the cross and metaphorically in the heavenly sanctuary, or did the sacrificial sequence begin on the cross but climax with a literal offering in heaven? This paper explores two facets of the history of this question. First, it offers a brief history of the debate in four stages: 1) Faustus Socinus’s De Jesu Christo Servatore (1578) provides the earliest explicit affirmation of the “literal process” view; 2) the Reformed tradition strongly opposed Socinus on both exegetical and theological grounds (e.g., Turretin, Owen, Bavinck); 3) from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century, both “literal process” and “metaphorical” views enjoyed significant scholarly support, with the former holding a slight edge; 4) recent decades witnessed the near disappearance of the “literal process” view, up until its recent resurgence thanks to the work of David Moffitt. Second, I explore the relationship between this issue in Hebrews’ atonement theology and three other issues: penal substitution, the ascension, and the humanity/deity of Jesus in Hebrews. First, I note that no proponent of the “literal process” view finds room for penal substitution in Hebrews—certainly Jesus did not enter the heavenly sanctuary in our place, but rather quite the opposite: he did so in order that others could follow in his steps. Second, I suggest that while one rarely finds mention of Jesus’ ascension in atonement literature, and certainly the “metaphorical” reading of Hebrews eliminates such a possibility, the “literal process” view offers a way of bringing ascension and atonement together. Third, in keeping with Socinus’s anti-Trinitarian stance, I have yet to find a scholar who sees in the divinity of Jesus—however defined—a significant element of “literal process” atonement theology in Hebrews.

Rewilding is a movement within ecology that attempts to integrate conservation biology with wildlands and wildlife conservation. Rewilding efforts across the globe create large swaths of connected ecosystems, where all flora and fauna, especially megafauna, are free to live and interact in the way that natural selection has caused them to evolve symbiotically across the eons. There are several biblical texts that interface with the idea of rewilding in interesting ways. In Amos 2, for instance, God pronounces that the work of humanity will return to wildness; cultivated places will become a “forest” and the wild animals will return. In a different way, the Wisdom of Solomon, in its opening chapters, presumes the inherent good of the created order: “the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them” (1:14 NRSV). In the next chapter, the author subverts the idea of exploiting the created order because anything that is weak is useless (2:11). Scripturally speaking, both from God’s point of view (as represented by the text) and from the perspective of the ethical demands on humanity, there is inherent worth in letting creation alone, to “let it do its thing” without human intervention, which is the very ideological underpinning of the rewilding movement. These connections will be explored and evaluated exegetically, historically, and theologically.

This paper investigates the reception history of the book of Habakkuk in Korean Christianity and analyzes how the first text, Habakkuk’s original message, has changed into a quite different text in the Korean religious culture. This project sets forth with the problem that the use of the book of Habakkuk in the Korean church has been highly selective. Various forms of reception of Habakkuk, including sermons, devotional and Bible study materials, and popular Christian songs, are exclusively based on two small portions (Habakkuk 2:4b and 3:17-19) of the whole corpus. Habakkuk’s anger and complaint, which are prominent in the book, have been excluded in a narrow focus on faith (2:4b) and joy (3:17-19). By utilizing insights from Reception History, this paper 1) examines how the Korean church has emphasized, modified, or omitted the message of Habakkuk; 2) demonstrates that the Korean Protestant Church has interpreted the book of Habakkuk at an individual and a generic level and has emphasized soteriological, Christological, and evangelical understanding of the text with particular attention to joy and thanksgiving; 3) discusses socio-political and cultural factors that stimulate the interpretation and the impact of the reception in Korean society. This investigation, consequently, argues authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the 1960s and the 1970s were significantly influential in the production and development of the abstract, individual, and evangelical reception of the book of Habakkuk in the Korean church, and this reception has eventually resulted in a passive social engagement of the Church in Korean society.

This paper attempts to delve into the artistic, poetic imagination displayed in a communal lament in Isaiah 63:7-64:12 in its literary and thematic association with a divine oracle in Isaiah 65:1-16. First of all, the structure and poetic devices used in the former are studied in depth, in order to explore on the way the poem, Isaiah 63:7-64:12, constitutes a communal identity of Israel. How the poetic skills help to define the relationship between the communal character of the poem and the listener YHWH should be paid special attention to. Linguistic, thematic, and structural analyses are pursued for this purpose. Second, then, the specific poetic skills employed in Isaiah 63:7-64:12 are once more considered in terms of how they contribute to the establishment of literary and thematic structure of Isaiah 65:1-16, in which a divine oracle is delivered in a form of negative response to the communal lament in Isaiah 63-64. In other words, the poetic elements in the communal lament make crucial contributions to the way the divine oracle gives an answer to the lament. In this regard, this paper argues that a particular manner of poetic imagination is operative in the two texts and is of important service to a more advanced understanding of Isaiah 63-66 as a literary whole.

This study analyzes interdisciplinary correlations between the fields of positive psychology and Hebrew Bible. Human well-being and flourishing will be critically examined through the literature of positive psychology, specifically the work of Daniel Gilbert, Christopher Peterson, Martin Seligman, and others, and through the following Hebrew Bible texts and concepts: Psalms 1, 23, 46, Ecclesiastes 1-3; shalom/wholeness/well-being; ashrei/happiness; and, beracha/blessing. The presentation interprets the challenges and potentials of this unique interdisciplinary approach for both fields and for the practice of ministry.

The present study starts from the question of how to more fully appreciate the given metaphor. Then, it recognizes the two presuppositions. First, metaphor is an expressive force (Bar-Efrat) to require both cognitive thought and the expressive medium within the given text (Eva Kittay). Second, metaphors soon extend their scope to other texts through the intertextual interactions by the users. The term ‘users’ refers to all possible agents of the text including blood-flesh authors, editors, compilers, transmitters, scribes, implied author, the narrator, characters, literary audience, implied audience, and later groups of the audience and readers throughout ages. As Claudia Bergann asserts, the awareness of these diverse users helps us modern readers appreciate both the original realm of the scope of the metaphor and the new ways of reality from which the metaphor has produced. The Dry Bone Vision in Ezekiel 37 as a case study of this examination is worthwhile: 1) a visionary setting as a good preparation of the metaphoric presentation; 2) various mediators in the disputative communication among YHWH, prophet, and the literary audience; 3) sharing perceptions of the exiles’ reality through the metaphor ‘dry bones’; 4) the radical solution for the exiles as resurrection; and 5) a tall order to fill the gap between the divine solution and the human condition. My agenda for this last task is to see the earlier generation of the exile (the literary/immediate audience of the text) as the human scapegoat and to see the later generation (one of the implied audience groups) as the ‘resurrection of the dried bones’ via YHWH’s adoption of the children of the dried bones. Once the users affirm the legitimacy of the metaphor, they begin to seek the proper logic to fulfill the prophecy within their context. The first context to examine is its intertextuality, which exists between the Ezekiel text and the legal text of the scapegoat in Leviticus. In terms of the componential semantics (Kittay and Andrea Weiss), four categories of the (human) scapegoat metaphor will be examined: 1) “bear the sins” of the whole community (??? ???) as reparation; 2) be “sent away” (???) alive into the wilderness (‘cut-off’ land, ??? ???); 3) be abandoned to “rot away” there (pine away, ???); and 4) never return (???). Furthermore, the narrative pattern of generational differences as the solution for the scapegoat metaphor is also evident in the cases of Joseph and his two sons in Genesis and the first and second generation in Numbers, which show the differing treatment of God regarding the later generation. With the help of the cognitive approach of the metaphor theory, intertextual theory, and the componential semantics study, we see that, once the metaphor is established, it works as the stepping stone of the new logic, i.e., the logic of the hope to come back to the Promised Land even in the face of the death of the literary audience.

Mastery learning differs from traditional learning approaches in that its goal is for students to master content rather than simply being exposed to it. Subjects are divided into small discrete sequenced units that can be easily learned. Students progress from unit to unit only by demonstrating mastery of the prior unit. This mastery approach is self-paced, allowing students to repeat learning and assessment activities until they demonstrate mastery. Thus, the learning process is very individualized. This session will describe an implementation of this approach in teaching Greek grammar both in the traditional classroom and online. Tools designed assist students in acquiring, understanding, and retaining basic vocabulary, morphology, and syntax will be demonstrated. These tools include video lectures, creative drill and practice, and motivational translations in the form of stories. Methods for assessing performance and tracking progress will be explained including how to automate quizzes and minimize manual grading. The role of the teacher as coach and motivator will be clarified as will the methods that can be used to provide motivational feedback and encouragement. Though face-to-face class time is minimized and computerized tools replace traditional instruction, the role of the teacher will be shown to be much more than that of a grader. Finally, the session will provide statistical results from a pilot program run in 2013 and will provide both positive and negative insights gained from the study. For instance, we will discuss how well a self-paced course fit into a fixed academic schedule, how well students adjusted to an open-ended process, and to what extent the results demonstrated improvement in student outcomes. We will provide recommendation for those who would consider implementing a mastery learning approach.

Comparison of Ap. John's two recensions reveals not only that the editors of the long version were well acquainted with the practical and ideological conventions of proto-canonical Christian literature, but also that they were engaged in the same conversations that shaped and reshaped the face of Christian religiosity in third- and fourth-century Egypt. Thus, I argue that the long version (NHC II,1 and NHC IV,1) of the Apocryphon of John represents a more recognizable and popular form of Christian religiosity than does the shorter form of the tractate (NHC III,1 and BG 8502,2). I demonstrate that the longer version is suffused with revisions and expansions that reframe the tractate in accordance with the scriptural and scribal practices of a specifically Christian literary culture and emphasize the Christological traditions that Ap. John shared with better known (and more accepted) examples of Christian literature—especially as one finds in the Gospel of John.

Examination of select literature from second and third century Egypt shows that Christian responses to the violence aimed against them offered a number of possibilities for the imagination of re-ordered social relations. Some, like Tertullian, involved reinscribing Roman violence in their fantasies of end times, as Kimberly Stratton has shown. Others, such as the Martyrdom of Perpetua, disembed believers from natal families and re-embed them in the family of God, an imaginary with significant implications for restructuring social relations. Yet others, however, seem to have attempted to devise more or less radical ways to think themselves outside the Roman script of torture, truth, and justice. Two such works are The Testimony of Truth and 1 Apocalypse of James. Clement of Alexandria’s notion of the gnostic martyr can be considered in this light as well. The paper will discuss the implications of this varied literature for the Christian invention of “martyrdom” and the re-imagination of social relations.

Analysis of synoptic source relationships in the framework of ancient compositional practices has relied mainly upon the literary practices of elite Greco-Roman circles for its comparative material. Though well-documented and illuminating, these are only part of the spectrum of expert writing practices in antiquity, and important aspects of the synoptic gospels and synoptic relationships resist explanation on the Greco-Roman authorial model. This paper widens the field to incorporate what, for lack of a better term, might be called ancient scribal practices, understood as including the activities of ancient grammarians and scholars in the cultivation and transmission—including source utilization—of cultural texts of various sorts. It draws upon Michael Haslam’s analysis of source utilization in Apollonius Sophista’s Homer Lexicon to illuminate the intractable problem (for the 2DH) of the ordering of the double tradition in Matthew, making additional reference, time permitting, to Diogenes Laertius’ use of Favorinus and to evidence from some ancient florilegia. Matthew’s ordering of Q material is shown to be completely intelligible and in accord with ancient practices. This neutralizes a key line of criticism of the 2DH.

The area of memory studies has attempted to introduce some important distinctions when speaking about memory of historical events and the way it operates especially when conveying national identity. This paper will suggest ways in which memory studies compliment folklore studies in the manner by which it describes oral transmission and the implications this has for biblical studies. The stunning arguments of the folklorist Ruth Bottigheimer are little known in the world of biblical studies where form critical arguments of oral composition and transmission once dominated the theoretical reconstructions of Biblical narratives. A prolific writer her latest book Fairy Tales: A New History, details the evidence for overturning some common assumptions about orality and written stories. But it is the assertions in her 2010 article entitle ‘A New History for Fairy Tales’ which is perhaps most helpful for our understanding of how ancient tales were transmitted. Specifically her evidence based assertions that European (i) literary texts preceded folkloric oral performances of tales, (ii) printed texts underlie oral performances. Finally with regards to transmission European tale history refutes every claim that a given fairy tale descended unchanged from an ancient past through repeated oral tellings in an imagined and invented history. These are significant findings and claims which do impinge on how we use folklore studies in understanding the biblical text. This paper focuses on the Jacob cycle of tales in Genesis.

As recently as 2008 scholarly investigations into the existence of demons in the Hebrew Bible have concluded that many if not all subordinate supernatural beings operated in opposition to Yahweh. Therefore, the inference that Israel embraced theology while Assyria and Babylon accommodated an elaborate world of demons has remained firmly intact. The present paper will address this issue through an examination of one, exemplar Akkadian ‘demon’, the rabi?u. Although this being is generally one member of a much larger collective of related creatures, an analysis of the Semitic root rb? reveals important characteristics indicative of such entities. Of these features the most significant are: 1) good and evil reflexes; 2) a high degree of mobility; 3) temporary periods of activity; 4) and oppositional stances directed toward human targets rather than governing deities. One of the principal phenomena that distinguish the rabi?us and its fellow supernatural entities is their association with wind. Not surprisingly, the Hebrew Bible is not without such comparative beings. The most obvious example is the rûa? yhwh/elohîm. The same may be said of the mal’akîm. Both have positive and negative designations and both are associated with wind generated by Yahweh. Like the rabi?u, the mal’ak has a corresponding human counterpart. Since the rabi?u and mal’ak are engaged by royal courts, it is likely they occupied the same position in the courts of the great deities. These correspondences demonstrate that the writers of the Hebrew Bible conceived and expressed the activities of Yahweh in much the same way as other ancient Near Eastern cultures. Therefore, the reputed theological gap between the behavior of Akkadian and Hebrew deities may not be as gaping as previously assumed.

Writing from two cities known for the interweaving of Christian and Jewish peoples and traditions, Origen of Alexandria, later of Caesarea, provides Jewish exegesis of the Exodus and Passover as both a model for and a stumbling block to the Christian development of a celebration of Jesus' death and resurrection. This paper examines the ways in which Origen is indebted to Jewish interpreters of Exodus, whether such debt was incurred in personal contacts with contemporary Jews, and his unique claim regarding the enduring value for Christians of liturgical rites in Exodus. It also attends to the polemic in which Peri Pascha, Origen's treatise on the Passover, was written, and whether there is evidence that Origen described or proposed specific Christian acts to counter popular Jewish festivities.

This paper presents two case studies of extended allusion in the book of Job in order to illustrate the profound and subtle ways in which this book engages with earlier textual traditions from ancient Israel. In the first case study, I examine a complex of allusions in Job to Ps 8:5. Although the reference to this text in Job 7:17–18 is well known, this is one of only several places in the book where Job and his friends allude to Ps 8:5 in order to carry out their debate concerning the nature of suffering and God’s treatment of the righteous and the wicked. By means of its extended allusion to Ps 8:5, the book of Job at times seems to affirm and at other times problematizes that text’s traditional conception of humankind and its relationship to the deity. My second case study examines the way in which Job and his interlocutors debate the veracity of a group of texts from Proverbs that use the image of the lamp of the wicked being snuffed out as a metaphor for the unjust’s being overtaken by divine retribution (Prov 13:9b; 20:20; 24:20). Bildad affirms this traditional doctrine through an allusion to the second half of Prov 13:9 (Job 18:5–6), and in response Job questions the retribution theology of Proverbs by punning on this statement by Bildad (Job 21:17). This sets the stage for a brilliant retort from Eliphaz (22:17–18), who rebuffs Job by punning on the first half of Prov 13:9 in order to declare that Job’s objection to Bildad is without merit. These two case studies highlight the kinds of rhetorical virtuosity that the book of Job employs as it interacts, sometimes rather subtly, with antecedent traditions from ancient Israel in order to produce its profound theological discourse.

I have two objectives with this paper. First, I will demonstrate that the Tel Dan Inscription displays certain features of a royal apology, a text composed to defend the legitimacy of a ruler who achieved the throne in some atypical fashion. But why should the Tel Dan Inscription, a victory inscription erected far from Damascus, be concerned with defending the Aramean king’s legitimacy? I suggest that although the text may not have been commissioned in order to justify his reign, it may have drawn from a “canon” of royal rhetoric employed by this king (presumably Hazael)—and, by virtue of his strange accession, this canon likely focused on legitimating his rule. In the second section I consider the ramifications of this idea for the development of the biblical narrative(s) about David. Although I am ultimately unconvinced that a royal apology (the so-called “History of David’s Rise”) underlies the David narrative in 1-2 Samuel—at least, not in such a way that it can be isolated through literary criticism—it is difficult to deny that a vast amount of material in Samuel has a defensive posture. I propose that the same phenomenon witnessed in the Tel Dan Inscription may, mutatis mutandis, have occurred during the growth of the biblical text. Traditions exonerating David of the many suspicious crimes committed during his rise doubtless circulated during his reign and became part of his standard rhetoric. The tradents of the biblical text, whether aware of the charges against David or not, then drew upon this standard rhetoric, leaving traces of the apology so frequently discussed in the secondary literature.

One is not surprised to find a patristic figure like Cyril of Alexandria calling the Bible "the logia of the Spirit"; indeed, he and many other early Christian thinkers held strong views of the Holy Spirit's role in the creation of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. However, individuals like Cyril did not merely assert this belief; they also assumed it, so that it emerged from their writings in sometimes surprising ways. This paper will demonstrate some of the ways that two important ancient Alexandrians -- Cyril of Alexandria and Didymus the Blind -- understood and expressed their beliefs about the Holy Spirit's work in inspiring the Bible, especially as it shapes their interpretations of the Bible itself. Some of these methods include explicit statements about that theological position, while others involve more indirect expressions that assume that position, like both writers’ somewhat unusual use of the term *pneumatophoros* to describe the writers of scriptural texts that point to Jesus. Further, the paper will show that the writers express their beliefs in different ways, including using literary devices, theological formulae, and scriptural citations. This paper will contribute to early Christian studies in at least three ways: by illuminating early Christian attitudes about the Spirit and the Bible, by building a fuller picture of the thought of two specific early Christian thinkers, and by strengthening scholarly understanding of Christian Alexandria and the beliefs about the Spirit found therein.

Scholars have conducted lengthy discussions over the banquet scenes depicted on the ivory plaques from Late Bronze Age Megiddo and Tell el-Far’ah (S). Among the studied subjects were the Egypto-Levantine style, the representations of the main images, and the archaeological context of the items. This paper will deal with a unique and unparalleled feature of the Levantine banquet scenes - the appearance of waterfowls, shown in the preparations for the feasts. The sole domesticated waterfowl in the Ancient Near East was the goose, which was bred and consumed in Egypt and was frequently depicted in Egyptian art. A re-examination of faunal assemblages from the Levant has revealed the previously unnoticed evidence for goose breeding in Canaanite sites during the Late Bronze Age. Thus, the historical and cultural background for the consumption of waterfowls in Canaan is explored, shedding new light over the Egyptianization of the Canaanite elite and its perception of the Egyptian culture. Moreover, the context of the goose keeping in Canaan, its consumption in the local banquets and its depiction in contemporary art is a unique meeting point of iconography, archaeology and historical-cultural theories.

God's response to problems of evil and injustice is an important theme in apocalyptic texts. Writers assume that a just God will not allow the perpetrators of sin and evil to continue indefinitely, but will hold them to account. Some scenarios envision a final judgment in which God judges the wicked and vindicates the righteous. Others anticipate the eschatological defeat of Satan, who is the principal agent of evil. Although John's gospel is known for its emphasis on judgment and salvation occurring in the ministry of Jesus, the writer retains the basic contours of apocalyptic thought. The categories of judgment against the sinful and the final defeat of Satan persist. And because injustice continues after Jesus' ministry has ended, the gospel relates judgment in the present to a future "last day."

The relationship between Ezek 40–48 and the priestly source (resp. the priestly texts of the Pentateuch) is still a matter of debate. While traditionally Ezek 40–48 is seen as a predecessor of P, recent studies assert that Ezek 40-48 presupposes P. The paper will present a diachronically differentiated view on the topic, and will focus on the question, how the 'Torah of the temple' (Ezek 43,12) worked as an counterpart to the Tora from Sinai in the Persian period.

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Abraham’s death and burial notice in Gen. 25:9 featuring the presence of his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, is traditionally understood as a scene of reconciliation between the brothers in the patriarch’s family. Source-critical approach in both older and more recent scholarship capitalizes on the presence of Ishmael in Gen. 25:9 and argues for an ‘ecumenical’, ‘universalist’ vision of the Priestly writer’s theology which presents Abraham as a ‘mixed ancestor, a patron who has been claimed and revered by different tribal, ethnic and religious groups.’ Against these readings this essay will attempt to show that the inclusion of Ismael’s appearance in Gen. 25:9 is not an attempt to represent long awaited harmony in the household of the pious and now deceased Abraham, but an attempt to deconstruct such monolithic representation and possibly point out the legal ramifications of his exogamous marriage to Hagar. Since ancient Israel and cognate cultures recognized the obligation of burying one’s deceased parents and providing them with post-mortem maintenance as legal expectations of an heir the deposition of Abraham’s remains to the grave by Isaac and Ishmael might signify that the issue of inheritance is revisited by the brothers. Ishmael is a first born by birth, and Isaac is a first born by Abraham’s (and divine) ordination and thus is Ishmael’s supplanter. With Abraham’s death Ishmael might just as well seek to seize the status of an oldest son and its benefits by administering the duty of an heir for his deceased father. What some envision as an idyllic burial scene might in fact be a ‘dispute over inheritance’ scene. This reading can emerge after considering the following: 1.) the compositional strategy in the Abraham narrative that consistently arranges Ishmael materials within the accounts of blessing and inheritance distribution (Gen. 17, 21, 25); 2.) the function of oracles annunciating the birth of a hero in the Hebrew Bible and their resolution at the end of the hero’s cycle (Gen. 16); 3.) the systematic representation of Ishmael as a decidedly disowned low status son before Gen. 25 ; 4.) the shifting of generations in Gen. 25 that records Ishmael’s own burial beyond the family tomb of Machpelah and the relegation of his descendants to the area beyond Abraham’s ancestral land-holding; 5.) biblical and extra-biblical practices that connect the deposition of ancestral bones to the ground with one’s exercise of hereditary claim to that land.

For NA28, it was decided to omit all explicit references to conjectural emendations from its apparatus. This paper discusses that decision in the light of several elements: the nature and development of the conjectures collection in previous Nestle editions; the role of conjectures in present-day NT textual criticism; current research into the history of (NT) conjectural emendation.

For the longest time, Joshua’s first farewell address reported in Josh 23 was held to be homogeneous and secondary, a literary unit inserted in the course of a Deuteronomistic reworking of the Deuteronomistic History (DH) and its original composition of the Joshua story. The recent analysis of Th. Römer, however, has called into question both assumptions. Römer is able to distinguish two layers within the chapter, the first of which belongs to the original composition of the DH. Subsequent analyses by E. Blum and others have confirmed the general observation: The scenario of a complete conquest of the land as presented by the first layer is contradicted by the caution against remaining peoples voiced by the second. But where does the book of the Torah, introduced so prominently in v. 6, belong? Despite other differences, current hypotheses of the formation of the DH almost unanimously agree that references to the book of the Torah, including Josh 23:6, must be regarded as secondary additions. Followed by many, R. Smend attributed these references to a reworking of the DH concerned with observation of the law (“DtrN”). More recently, A. Rofé proposed to explain them as “nomistic corrections” inserted by pious students from the late Persian or early Hellenistic period. Either way, the book of the Torah is considered a secondary element. Contrary to this opinio communis, I will argue the case for the book of the Torah as an integral component of the first layer to be found in Josh 23. In my view v. 6, just like most other references to the book of the Torah, is an indispensable element of the DH from its beginning. Without that book, the DH’s double aetiology?Israel winning and losing the land?is simply not comprehensible to its hearers or readers respectively. This argument requires us to analyze Josh 23 in the context of the DH (Deut 1–2Kgs 25), beginning with Josh 1:7–9.

Habakkuk confronts God with the prevalence of violence and injustice in the world. He complains that under these conditions every effort to restore justice is doomed to failure. God announces a Chaldean invasion in order to judge and punish the wrongdoers. However, the invaders turn out to be wicked themselves. Once again, the prophet complains about that. In his answer, God asserts that wrongdoers will in the long run have no success but will be punished by their victims or by God, whereas "the just shall live by his faith". In his final prayer, Habakkuk asks for a catastrophic theophany in which God tramples down the nations and saves his people. - In this particular manner the Book of Habakkuk discusses the problem of theodicy, which is a pivotal issue in wisdom texts like Job and Qoheleth. Habakkuk advances a solution which combines ideas that are characteristic for the prophetic stream of tradition with those that are typical of wisdom thinking. - In my paper I will try to locate the Book of Habakkuk more precisely in the development of prophetic and wisdom traditions in the Hebrew Bible.

This paper will examine the extent to which Luke’s parable of the merciful Samaritan can be interpreted as a narrative characterization of God that functions within Luke’s wider plotline to invite Luke’s hearers to share in practices central to God’s identity and life. The central argument of the paper is the claim that the parable of the merciful Samaritan gives climactic expression to Luke’s characterization of God in the first half of the Gospel. Analysis will begin with Jesus’ description of the Most High as one who is “merciful” and “kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6.35-36). These claims about the identity of the Most High clarify and develop Luke’s telling of God’s identity and character in earlier sections of Luke and their significance in the wider narrative is amplified by the fact that it is the mercy, enemy love and radical generosity of the Most High that forms the orienting clue for the practices of Jesus’ followers. We learn from Luke that followers of Jesus who practice mercy, enemy love and radical generosity can themselves be filially related to God as sons and daughters of the Most High, an identity for which Jesus, the Son of the Most High (Luke 1.32), is the prototype. This nexus of identity-related concerns – Luke’s deliberate characterization of the Most High, Jesus’ exemplary life as the Spirit-empowered Son of the Most High, and the potential that Jesus’ followers can be sons and daughters of the Most High – suggests that Luke thinks the primary human vocation is to be like God, sharing in God’s life of mercy, radical generosity, and enemy love. With this data in view, I will offer a reading of the parable of the merciful Samaritan through the lens of Luke’s characterization of God, arguing that by virtue of its narrative context and its emphasis on mercy, enemy love and radical generosity, the parable both reflects the life of the Most High and functions to invite hearers to share in the life of God through practices central to God’s identity. The narrative links between the parable of the merciful Samaritan and Luke’s characterization of God offer several promising leads for Luke’s broader vision of salvation. First, the presence within this parable of numerous themes central to Luke’s overall project (wealth and possessions, the proper place and interpretation of Torah, enemy love, and relations between Israelites and non-Israelites), suggests that discussions of Luke’s ethics must be grounded in Luke’s primarily theological vision of human life. Second, this reading suggests that Luke’s vision of salvation might be more aptly described by participatory notions of salvation wherein Jesus’ followers can share in Jesus’ exemplary sonship, resulting in both filial relation and human transformation. Finally, this reading hints that the free-wheeling allegorical interpretations of the parable offered by patristic commentators may, in light of a close narrative reading of Luke’s characterization of God, have greater exegetical validity (of a certain sort, at least) than is sometimes granted.

What do we mean by “primitivity” in Gospel tradition? As we study the Synoptics comparatively, we are soon pressed to postulate sources. Once we have done this, on the majority 2ST, we proceed on the assumption that Mark should be more "primitive" in every detail in the parallel accounts. In other words, if Mark is an earlier text, it cannot be that Matthew and/or Luke would ever admit of earlier, more primitive material in the triple tradition. Though without stating as much, this seems to be an implicit denial of the vitality of oral tradition in the late decades of the first century. Moreover, this itself has been one of the main arguments for Q. If Luke, as the Q theory argues, ever shows a more "primitive" account in material common to himself and Matthew, this tells against the Farrer theory and in favor of Q. If Luke ever seems to be earlier, despite if he is often demonstrably dependent upon and/or later than Matthew, this one example of “alternating primitivity” eliminates the possibility of Matthean dependence completely. Likewise, this same argument has been hugely influential in discussions of the Gospel of Thomas. It is often said that because Thomas appears to be more primitive in certain Synoptic material, he cannot have been dependent upon the Synoptic Gospels. Two basic assumptions are operative at this point. (1) If a text is demonstrably dependent upon another text in several places, it should never demonstrate earlier traditions elsewhere. (2) Primitivity is reflected in a poorer use of Greek, a shorter text, and/or the lack of scriptural proof texts. In my paper, both through comparing Thomas with certain synoptic passages and through comparing the Synoptics themselves, I will demonstrate that (1) is flatly inaccurate and methodologically flawed, while (2) is imprecise and misleading. I will argue that there is nothing problematic about a text being dependent at many points upon another text, thus establishing a source, while also possessing traditions which either seem to be or in actuality are older traditions. Moreover, I will give suggestions and examples as to what should and should not count as “primitivity”, so as to sharper our categories for using this helpful source-critical tool.

There is no doubt that homosexuality existed in pre-colonial Africa as also in the Bible world. However, the iconographic representation of homosexuality today as unafrican and unbiblical begs for a deeper investigations and analyses. Significantly, the antipathy against homosexuality in Sub-Saharan Africa is polemicized as bulwark of African cultural and biblical imperatives. This antipathy has crystallized into several legislations and incrimination acts in some countries, which in the Ugandan context was codenamed “Christmas Gift to Ugandans” by the national assembly speaker. My study situates homosexuality in the context of hybridity of African and biblical traditional values. Using cultural and biblical hermeneutics and sociological approaches, the study interrogates cultural nuggets of human sexuality in African and biblical contexts. The study explores the following questions: If homosexuality was in Africa, as also the Bible world, what is then ‘unafrican’ and ‘unbiblical’ about homosexuality? How should the African reader of the Bible to day respond to the reality of homosexuality and the concepts of inalienable rights in a globalised—African society?

Up to recent times, biblical scholars claiming the distinctive relationship between the book of Job and the book of Deutero-Isaiah have mainly focused on linguistic similarities. Using a set of the same subject-matters and terms, they have at least proposed the intentional or unintentional reference between texts as the appropriate way to explain these stylistic and thematic similarities. The claim is either that the final editor of the book of Job, who was much aware of the texts of Isaiah 40-55, utilized it in the context of Job, or that Deutero-Isaiah knew the work of Job and directly responded to it. However, the concept of the literary dependence between texts seems to have potentional problems and has not been appropriately examined. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate detailed cases supporting the literary relationship if this relationship is to be upheld. For this purpose, I apply some tests to types of resemblances and show that the supposed links between them do exist in some cases. If proposed resemblances imply either that the authors of Job knew Deutero-Isaiah or that Deutero-Isaiah knew the work of Job, how can it be proved? If it is possible to demonstrate that the types of resemblances between the two books are such that they have a distinctive literary dependence, we must show that there are real affinities between the two books in terms of identical ideas and that the verbal connections are using precise analogies in the terms, motifs, and themes. Furthermore, it should be demonstrated that the literary links are neither prevalent verbal expressions nor well-known subject-matter that any biblical texts are likely to contain.

When did the Wisdom category arise? Since categorization is a form of interpretation, understanding when and how the category arose will shed new light on the category’s effect on the interpretation of its contents. The origins of this classification of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes is a “grey area” in biblical scholarship, though there is a widespread view that “vestiges of early nomenclature of this material as ‘wisdom’ goes back to patristic times” (Dell 2013). These “vestiges,” to which scholars appeal for early evidence of the category, include Josephus’s mention of four books in the Hebrew canon that contain “hymns to God and instructions for people on life” (Contra Apionis 1.8), Origen’s comment that biblical wisdom expresses the “basic principles of true philosophy” (Comm. Cant. Prologue), and the Vulgate division libri didactici. On closer examination, however, if this evidence reflects an early Wisdom category, its contents and definition differ significantly from the current category. This draws the value of these references as proof texts for ancient conceptions of Wisdom into question. If, for example, Josephus is referring to Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, thereby omitting Job while including two books that are generally excluded from the modern Wisdom category, is it legitimate to find in his comment proof for the antiquity of that category? This raises questions for the category’s ancient pedigree. Might Wisdom instead be a modern invention, something that “first emerged in the scholarly world” (von Rad 1970; cf. Weeks 2010)? If so, an investigation of whether modern emphases (such as rationalism, empiricism, humanism, and universalism) may have influenced (and potentially distorted) the category’s development and subsequent interpretation is needed.

There are multiple stories, in both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, featuring a female slave belonging to Rabbi Yehudah haNasi (commonly known as Rebbe), the patriarch of the Palestinian Jewish community in the late 2nd-early 3rd century c.e. The slave is never named; rather, she is always and only identified in relation to the man who is her owner and master. What the character (or characters) does have however, in many though not all of the stories, is a voice and an opportunity to speak – something that is often not true in stories about (named) male slaves. On the other hand, the persons to whom she speaks are not her master, who never figures entirely directly in the narratives. Much, then, is intriguing about this recurring pairing, of a man of highest social standing and a character who ought to be doubly marginalized by gender and servitude. In this paper, I will argue that boundaries, literal and figurative – crossing them, maintaining them, helping or hindering others to move across them – are a common theme to these episodes. For example, an obvious mystery about this woman (or women) is that of her national origin. In a story that appears only once, in the Palestinian Talmud (yBer 3:4, 6c), she deflects a man's sexual advances by likening herself to an animal and thus a sexual encounter with her to bestiality. For the analogy to fulfill its rhetorical purpose, the woman must be identifying herself as non-Jewish and the man as Jewish, bound by Jewish law. Yet she is also capable of bolstering her case by quoting the Scriptural prescription of capital punishment for one who commits bestiality. The resulting image, then, is a woman who places herself at one and the same time as non-Jew (slave, beast) and Jew (familiar with Jewish Scriptures, seeking to observe Jewish norms of sexual behavior). Another intriguing trait attributed to this woman or women is knowledge of Hebrew linguistic terms that rabbis, the supposed masters of Scripture and the "Torah" in its broad sense, themselves are seeking to understand but do not. In both the Palestinian and Babylonian variants of this episode, she seemingly uses the terms casually, in the course of her ordinary speech; the rabbis do not directly present their question to her (or to Rebbe through her). How and why she is familiar with these terms is not explained. One theory is that the slave woman is positioned at a boundary between non-Jewish origins and affiliation with Jewish tradition and knowledge superior even to that of the rabbis. Through these examples and others, this paper will explore the paradox of a female character who is both outsider and at the center of Jewish Palestinian rabbinic society, subordinate and speaking subject, straddling boundaries both "literal" and figurative.

Beratinus 1 (GA Phi.043) and Beratinus 2 (GA 1143) are two famous luxury purple manuscripts currently housed by the Albanian National Archives (Tirana). Beratinus 1 is an uncial codex dated from the 6th c. and only contains parts of Matthew and Mark Gospels ; its text, classified as Byzantine by the Alands, was only known through Pierre Batiffol’s publication (1868). Beratinus 2 is a minuscule manuscript dated from the 9th c., and contains the four Gospels : its text was never studied or published despite its strong similarity with GA 565, a “Caesarean” text-type witness. At first these two manuscripts were briefly described by Anthimos Alexoudis during the last quarter of the 19th century but this survey was the first and the last as nobody, except Batiffol, carried on the research afterwards. Because Albania remained isolated for decades, the textual transmission of these manuscripts was never studied. During the 1970's Johannes Koder and Erich Trapp brought fresh overview on the Greek manuscripts housed in Tirana but without the purple codices which were then considered as lost. Recently, the publication of Roderic L. Mullen (2003) and Daniel B. Wallace's digital preservation campaign for Greek New Testament manuscripts (CSNTM) emphasized afresh these two highly valuable codices. This paper will focus on the textual transmission of Beratinus 1 and Beratinus 2, exploring their variant readings and textual features in the way to assess their peculiar text-type. Only based on autopsy of the documents, the survey offers fresh and new supplementary data over an unpublished textual transmission of the Greek New Testament.

Nehemiah 9 is one of the clearest and earliest examples of penitential prayers in the Hebrew Bible. Rodney Werline has shown penitential prayers build on Deuteronomistic theology: a broken covenant results in exile and only repentance can bring deliverance. In the aftermath of the exile penitential prayers became institutionalized as the proper means to express repentance. Mark Boda suggests the prayers were intended to bring an end to the devastating effects of the fall of the state: either to captivity, oppression, or the sorry condition of Palestine. Yet we might ask why, after the punishment of exile, penitence was embraced to facilitate this goal? What social and cultural conditions would lead the community to embrace self-criticism over past events as a means of seeking economic or political restoration? How did penitential logic come to resonate with post-exilic audiences? In this paper sociological and psychological studies are used to map the concepts of guilt, shame, and national trauma and to assess the role each plays in such prayers. Using the work of Pierre Bourdieu on ritual and symbolic language this paper then explores how the prayer and the community covenant with which its linked construct categories to redefine the social order and provide a framework for the social (re)construction of the community. It also evaluates who stands to benefit from the commitments made. In particular it considers how the text navigates the competing interests of the empire, the cultural producers responsible for this text, and its recipients.

This paper examines a moment of robust biblical interpretation but one which existed prior to commentary as a form, namely the genre of Rewritten Bible in the late Second Temple period. Many scholars seeing a widespread unanimity already in this period about the status of Scripture and seeking to ease the apparent divergence between this early form of biblical interpretation and later manifestations tend to treat Rewritten Bible as, more or less, a particular form of commentary. This paper will argue that the difference between Rewritten Bible and later forms of commentary is not formal alone. It relates to the very ideological construction of the status of Scripture and its uses. By looking at a moment before commentary, by denaturalizing commentary as the dominant form of biblical interpretation, this paper hopes to shed further light on the contingent practices by which the commentary form configures Scripture and what alternatives might have existed, even as it charts early developments that paved the way for that form. The focus will be on considering this series of questions in the context of the Book of Jubilees, but some attention will also be paid to Pesher Habbakuk and rabbinic midrash as points of comparison.

This paper will explore the intersection between ritual, physical media, and the conflict that arises in various Pauline communities. The ritual context of Pauline communities was diverse and each city provided a different set of images associated with rituals, whether those images were statuary, temples, reliefs, coins, etc. This study will construct a model of ritual and media and then apply it briefly to a select few contexts, particularly involving Corinth and Philippi, in order to demonstrate its usefulness for evoking new questions for the interpreter as well as providing intriguing answers surrounding intra-community and inter-community conflict.

This paper explores a novel hermeneutical approach to the Qur'anic text, which I have termed Muslima theology. Drawing resources from the approaches of Muslim women interpreters of the Qur'an and from the method of semantic analysis of Toshihiko Izutsu, Muslima theology aims to articulate and then employ a hermeneutical approach that focuses on exploring and explicating-rather than disentangling-the Qur?an's complex, relational web. This particular hermeneutical approach arises out of concern with the manner in which the Qur'an's provocative complexity and ambiguity has been reduced and silenced through other historical and contemporary interpretative approaches. In this paper, I also aim to draw attention to the intimate connection between hermeneutical strategies and underlying conceptual frameworks. Hermeneutical approaches do exist in a vacuum; they arise-whether implicitly or explicitly-from the manner in which we conceive of the subject of interpretation. This is particularly evident in interpretations related to topics of human difference, such as sexual and gender difference, and religious difference. Many hermeneutical approaches to these topics have been premised upon a particular view of human difference as being demarcated by clear-cut, static boundaries. This has led to methods that seek to inscribe such boundaries on the Qur'anic text and thereby result in 'readings' that perpetuate notions of inherent and absolute evaluative distinctions between groups of people. Such inherent and absolute distinctions have then, far too frequently, become the willing handmaidens of injustice.

Although most interpreters regard 2 Cor 6:11–13 as part of an appeal for mutual affection, numerous signals indicate that this passage concerns divine provisions that enable obedience in the midst of difficulty (cf. 2 Cor 1:3–11). In this paper, I will argue that this preoccupation begins already in 6:1 and continues unabated all the way through the exhortations in 6:14–7:1, demonstrating that this understanding of Paul’s concern is better able to account for the wording of 6:11–13. Specifically, I will argue that: (1) the expression to stoma hêmôn aneôgen pros hymas invokes the exemplary model that Paul and Timothy have provided by their willingness to speak boldly to the Corinthians despite the risk of causing offence; (2) the expression hê kardia hêmôn peplatyntai, like the similar expression in Ps 118:32 LXX, describes the divinely bestowed encouragement that has enabled Paul and Timothy's costly obedience; (3) the expression ou stenochôreisthe en hêmin refutes the claim that Paul and Timothy are unfairly restricting the conduct of the Corinthians; (4) the expression stenochôreisthe en tois splanchnois hymôn proposes instead that the Corinthians are being constrained by their anxieties (i.e. they are too timid to obey God’s commands); and (5) the phrase tên autên antimisthian does not mean ‘the same thing as a fair exchange’ but rather ‘the same fair exchange’ and it refers, not to mutual affection, but to an exchange involving human obedience and divine encouragement/salvation. With these points in place, 6:1–7:2 unfolds seamlessly as a scripturally-grounded appeal for separation from idolatry—a costly obedience which some of the Corinthians are strenuously resisting as an unfair restriction that will no doubt ruin them (7:2; cf. 1 Cor 8:1–11:1).

The semantic range of co-meronyms safah 'lip' and lashon 'tongue' developed throughout the history of Ancient Hebrew. Both words underwent semantic widening based on their physical and spatial properties (e.g. their line- or wedge-like shape) and on their shared function as articulators. From Biblical Hebrew (BH) to Mishnaic Hebrew (MH), safah primarily underwent semantic narrowing, whereas lashon underwent both narrowing and widening. In BH, safah may refer to a lip, to a language or speech, or to an edge. In Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) and MH, safah means 'lip' and 'edge'. In BH, lashon may refer to a tongue; to a language or nation; or to a bay of water, a bar of gold, or a flame. In LBH, lashon means 'tongue' and 'language'; in MH, lashon may refer to a tongue, a language, speech, and to tongue-shaped things (bodies of water and pieces of material). This paper argues that by the time of MH, safah had undergone semantic narrowing, losing its meanings related to the lip's association with talking, and so should not be translated 'speech' in ambiguous contexts (e.g. tTa'an 3:12). It further argues that the semantic widening of lashon to include the meaning 'speech' began to take place in BH in the context of words from the realm of deceit, in phrases such as lashon medabberet gedolot (Ps 12:4). The redundancy of collocating 'tongu'? ('the body part with which one speaks') with verbs of saying ('speaks') led to abridgment of phrases such as "lashon medabberet X" to "leshon X." The absence of verbs in phrases such as leshon shaqer (Pr 6:17); leshon tarmit (Zeph 3:13); and leshon mirmah (Ps 52:6) created an environment where lashon could be construed as 'tongue' or 'speech', and this ambiguity led to the semantic widening of 'tongue' to 'speech'. By the time of MH, lashon with the meaning 'speech, utterance, statement' had grown common. Finally, this paper demonstrates that the mapping of co-meronymns safah and lashon onto bodies of water is a productive phenomenon cross-linguistically, and suggests avenues for further research.

Psalm 93 has long been a battleground between those who think it represents the Chaoskampf and those who think that it is demythologized. In this paper I want to sidestep this discussion, with its roots in the theological assumption that the Hebrew Bible adopts and/or reacts against the polytheistic myths of its neighbours, to show how the mythological is transmuted in the poetic and ultimately mystical imagination. If, as Wendy Doniger shows, myths are foundational for any culture, and are valuable precisely because they may be repeated and interpreted in many different ways, then the poetic reconfiguration of myth gives us insight into how poets used and reused inherited materials. The deep past is relived in the present, and becomes the basis for an experience of transcendence. In Psalm 93, the voices of the rivers and sea may evoke a primeval rage against creation, but they are heard through the voice of the poet, as part of, or a metaphor for, his celebration of the divine enthronement. The poem describes a trajectory from the transcendent realm, apparently immune to the violence of the waters, to the immanence of God in the Temple and in his ‘edot, his “testimonies,” which may refer either to phenomena or to the text which testifies to God’s presence, injunctions, and deeds. I will proceed through a close literary analysis, paying attention to metaphors, alliterations, anaphoras. My object will not be just to show how the poetic world is created through these devices, but how they can suggest a supralinguistic realm and experience. For example, the aquatic noise of vv.3-4 gives way to the tranquillity of v.5. Similarly, the concatenated parallelisms and alliterations of v.1, with its assertion of divine power, are subsumed in the silence suggested by the extreme brevity of v.2.

Attested in several manuscripts in the Kairo Genizah and the Qumran caves, the Damascus Document (D) is one of the best preserved sectarian texts from Qumran. Its extensive employment of Jewish scriptures allows for unique insights into which text(s) of the biblical books the Qumran community employed. This presentation will ask in how far D employed one or more texts of the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and in how far it altered its quotations and allusions of these books textually.

The early Christian figure most intimately associated with Smyrna is Polycarp, the ?p?s??p?? of the local church (MPol 16.2). Polycarp participated in the burgeoning epistolary culture of the early Christian movement, evidence of which are the letter he received from Ignatius and the one he sent to the Philippians. He also famously died in Smyrna, an event immortalized in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (MPol). Remarkably, the sophistic and early Christian elements of late ancient Smyrnean society have rarely been brought into conversation. With the exception of a handful of scattered comments in the secondary literature, MPol, which is the focus of the present study, has not been examined in light of the Second Sophistic. This essay seeks to demonstrate the rich interpretive payoff of such an examination, and proceeds in particular through a comparison with Polycarp’s most illustrious Smyrnean contemporary, the famed sophist Polemo, who lived from c. 88-144 CE. We will argue that at a number of points the narrative depiction of Polycarp’s martyrdom is informed by the language and narrative patterns of biblical texts while simultaneously engaging in an idealized negotiation with the conventions, values, and expectations characteristic of the Second Sophistic. Exploring the presence of this studied negotiation of Christian fidelity vis-à-vis the various aspects of elite Smyrnean sophistic culture yields insights into the depiction of Polycarp hitherto unappreciated by scholarship on MPol.

Based on the idea that the production of commentaries is a community activity, as well as an individual one, this paper will examine the role of community and culture in shaping and influencing biblical commentaries. Commentaries are written for and on behalf of particular communities that have specific needs, agendas, and concerns. This paper, therefore, will explore how specific communities and their needs, agendas, and concerns influence the writing of commentaries, including the types of materials that are included and excluded, how they are analyzed, what portions of the biblical text are stressed, and how those texts are related to contemporary issues (social, political, theological, and so on). Commentaries can also function as mouthpieces for particular communities to engage and debate other communities. The commentary, therefore, can become more an expression of the community and its culture and less an explication of the biblical text. In other words, the commentary reflects the community just as much and even more than the biblical text. The influence of communities in shaping commentaries will be demonstrated by comparing (as time will permit) particular commentaries on Joshua from different time periods. For example, the appearance of archaeological and historical data in commentaries on Joshua, the manner in which this data has influenced these works, and how the needs and concerns of different communities have shaped this data will be addressed. Communities that may be considered include various academic (such as historical critics, archaeologists, literary critics, feminists, liberation scholars, etc.), religious (such as Jewish, Christian, denominational groups, ministers, laity, etc.), and economic (publishers, consumers, etc.) circles, as well as certain groups that have been excluded or have not participated in the production of commentaries (such as artists, Native American Christians, etc.).

The imagery of visitation, heavenly anatole, epiphany, and light in Zechariah’s Benedictus and Simeon’s speeches in Luke 1–2 have long stimulated scholarly debate. The common conclusion is that these texts are drawn from the Hebrew Bible and refer to a human Davidic messiah figure, nothing more. This paper proposes a different approach to reading these texts that positions them against both an OT-Jewish and a Greco-Roman background: namely, that of sun worship. First, the historical development and religious distinctives of sun worship will be traced from the ANE to the Greco-Roman era. Second, this paper will suggest a reading of Luke 1:78–79 and 2:30–35 that sees them as simultaneously borrowing concepts from the worship of Helios-Apollo while turning them against themselves, through applying such solar imagery to Jesus. Approaching these texts as an implicit polemic against Hellenistic sun worship brings coherence to otherwise puzzling features. It also echoes a similar polemical pattern seen in the Hebrew Bible, wherein sun worship is categorically prohibited while solar imagery is directly applied to Yahweh; in other words, Luke’s use of the OT in these texts goes well beyond simple Davidic allusions. This paper aims in part to contribute to the ongoing imperial cult discussions in Lukan scholarship by noting the connections between sun worship and caesar worship.

Mutual immanence, between Jesus and the disciples on the one hand, between the Father and the Son on the other, is a recurrent and well-studied motif in the Johannine farewell discourses (e.g., Dodd, Segovia, and Scholtissek). Reciprocal structures, however, permeate the Gospel in several dimension, not only in its language of eternal life and ethics. In terms of reciprocal epistemology, the Shepherd Discourse offers a principle—“I know my own and my own know me (10:14)—that the Gospel elaborates upon and illustrates on several occasions (e.g., 1:42, 47; 3:3; 4:18, 29; 10:15, 27; 20:16, 27). This presentation contains a survey of the motif in the Gospel of John, a discussion of its exegetical implications, and a comparison with other reciprocal epistemologies in Greco-Roman narrative and philosophy (‘like is known by like’), Jewish covenantal thinking, and early Christian texts.

In 2 Thess 3:6-15 Paul turns his attention to members of the Thessalonian Christ-group whom he calls periergazomenoi. He describes their behavior as eating meals for free at the expense of socially-superior affiliates who foot the bills. In commentaries and social histories, the participle, periergazomenoi (2 Thess 3:11), is unanimously regarded as ‘being busybodies’, and is explored in the context of ancient philosophical discourses attesting to he polypragmon and polypragmosyne. Curiously, these analogies often neither use Paul’s language nor take place in social settings similar to 2 Thess 3:6-15 where food and money are central. Since periergazesthai could mean a variety of things, each dependent on the setting, including ‘haggling,’ ‘investigating,’ and ‘belaboring,’ this paper asks what it meant at meals and when property or money was involved, as in 2 Thess 3:6-15? It analyzes data from the 4,000 occurrences of periergazesthai (and cognates) in literary, papyrological, and epigraphic sources from IV BCE – IV CE. In light of this new evidence, the ‘busybody’ rendering is ruled unlikely. The most fitting meaning in 2 Thess 3:11 is ‘hagglers.’ This generates new questions about money, economic status, and banqueting practices in this early church.

For the last two years I have taught a first-year writing seminar in the Department of English at the University of Virginia. The seminar is comparable to those offered in many Liberal Arts Colleges. The course teaches principles of academic argument by means of several short papers related to the course theme, "Monsters in the Bible and Film." In the course students write essays about biblical texts that feature monsters and about films that allude to these biblical texts and their themes. Teaching the course presents me with a double challenge. I have to teach principles of academic argumentation to students who have been trained primarily to compose essays for standardized tests. And I have to teach students with little to no formal training in biblical studies how to read and write about the Bible in an academic context. To accomplish these goals I have developed a way to use one of the course writing principles to help students approach the book of Job and its monsters. This allows me to illustrate the writing principle in the course of modeling a critical reading of the book of Job. The writing principle I teach in conjunction with Job is called a problem frame. The problem frame offers students a tool to use in structuring the introduction of an essay. It allows students to position or frame the essay's main claim as the resolution to a problem that readers care about. The principle is usually the most difficult for students to understand and incorporate into their writing. To teach the problem frame I argue in class that it is possible to consider the book of Job as addressing two related problems: how to understand both the nature of genuine piety and the character of a god who permits innocent suffering. The paper illustrates how mapping the problem frame onto the book of Job allows me to accomplish two learning objectives. First, I am able to model for students an important writing principle that helps them craft claims their readers will find significant and relevant. At the same time, using the problem frame in relation to Job gives me a tool to train students to recognize the ways in which biblical books advance their own tendentious claims and arguments.

Karl William Weyde (amongst others) has identified two puns in the book of Malachi: pene-’el in Mal 1.9 and‘er woneh in Mal 2.12. Both of these puns play on proper nouns found in other texts of the Hebrew Bible: pene-’el on the the place-name Peniel in Gen 32.31 and ‘er woneh on the name of the sons of Judah, Er and Onan, whose narrative appears in Gen 38. Both of these puns on proper names he argued to be allusive, drawing to mind the narratives in which these proper nouns are found. These narratives in turn enhance the meaning of Malachi. In this paper, I will discuss these two examples of wordplay and describe three more examples that can be found in the book of Malachi:’ayeh kebodî in Mal 1.6 on ’î kabod in 1 Sam 4.21, marpe’ biknapeha in Mal 3.20 on terapeynâ kanpêhen in Ezek 1.24, and bat ’el nekar in Mal 2.11 on bat batûel ben na?or in Gen 24.47. Four out of the five examples are plays on a proper noun and all five allude to other texts or stories in the HB. Arguing that wordplay is a preferred compositional technique of a scribe who wrote Malachi, I will demonstrate how the diachronic aspect of each case of wordplay (allusion) enhances a synchronic understanding of the text. I will show how wordplay can be indicative of the scribe's hermeneutic (how he read older texts) and of the scribe's communicative goal.

This paper presents an example of an Asian Feminist biblical reading of Philippians espousing the method of "continental self-reference" claimed by Sugitharajah. For Sugirtharajah, the ultimate goal of postcolonial biblical criticism is "establishing a competing theoretical ground of multi -religious discourse," not to oppose but to decenter the Bible, Christianity, and Western-oriented theoretical ground. "Continental self-reference" refers to an intentional practice of shifting the point of reference towards the historical experiences of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Oceania, and so on to construct a postcolonial discourse. Sugitharajah believes that reading a biblical text with or through Asians' historical experiences, cultural frames, sacred texts, and the like could disentangle the hidden power relations and ideologies of the biblical text. Paul’s interesting exhortation to Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians generated different imaginations among feminist biblical scholars. Most of them, however, focused on either the identification of the women or the relationship between the women and Paul. In fact, these approaches dismiss a significant body of Philippian church, that is, the Philippian women believers. Although the sociopolitical and cultural context of the early Korean Christian women is not identical to Philippian church, their historical experiences offer an insight to understand the power dynamics and exhortation in Philippians differently. The early Korean Christian women were initially evangelized by Western women missionaries whose number was increased in Korea as the number of Korean women believers increased and The Korean women soon actively participated in missionary works along with the Western women missionaries. But they also experienced conflicts with Western women missionaries because of a different view and standpoint in regards how to respond as Christian women to Japanese imperial domination. Returning to the Philippian church, it is likely that the presence of two women missionaries in Philippi was a consequence of the presence of the significant numbers of women believers in Philippian church. Paul’s exhortation to the women missionaries may reflect the conflicting atmosphere among the Philippian women believers who had diverse even conflict views from the women missionaries and /or Paul in regards how to responds to the suffering that was caused by the Roman imperial power as Christian women.

This paper investigates crasis of kai with the first person singular pronoun (ego, etc.). The investigation finds that the presence or absence of crasis is not haphazard but exhibits a pattern determined by the semantic value of the combination. The study starts from the LXX Pentateuch and other LXX books, then is widened to texts of the Zenon Archive and other papyri, where the pattern is found to be confirmed. It appears that a ‘rule’ was in operation in Greek of the Ptolemaic period. Further investigation needs to be done to establish whether the ‘rule’ operated earlier and later in ancient Greek or changed between eras.

This paper will respond to Carol Meyers’ assessment that there was a women’s ‘gender-specific’ tradition related to music performance in biblical culture reflected in some biblical texts and in archaeological evidence, as well as to her larger challenge of the use of the term ‘patriarchy’ to describe ancient Israel. Specifically, this paper, using an oral poetic, indigenous/feminist post-colonial approach, presents wide-ranging evidence in the Hebrew of several lyrical texts to propose there was a signature feature of a women’s lyrical tradition, either forgotten, suppressed, or neglected. The presentation will compare several lyrical texts associated with women to demonstrate there is a distinctive, pervasive, and consistent syllable sound repetition pattern in the Hebrew employed across biblical texts and genres (for example, in the Song of Hannah—I Sam 2:1-9; in the Song of Songs, and in the Song of the Sea, in antiphony). This sound pattern is distinguished from a consistent, identifiable syllable sound pattern associated with male lyrical tradition, also across genres, yet both found in apparent ‘call and response’ dynamic in lyrical texts. This proposed women’s lyrical signature, found also embedded in prophetic books, such as Isaiah and Micah, may be a key to assessing women’s compositional contributions and influence in and on biblical texts where women were mostly unattributed, and of course where it is not possible nor necessary to determine the identity of composers. In sum, this paper will agree with the critique of the use of ‘patriarchy’ across the board to describe ancient Israel, as a contemporary stereotype, and instead finds that women in the ancient indigenous culture had a more significant role as singers and lyrical prophets, as evidenced in the Hebrew, than the final written canon might lead one to believe.

The Deggwa is an Ethiopic hymnbook with origins in the sixth century CE, and attributed to St Yared who developed the Ethiopian liturgical-musical tradition. This paper analyses the symbolism as it is applied in the Deggwa, comparing it with themes found in the early Syriac writing of Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh. The similarities in the symbolic approach to the interpretation of Scripture raise important questions about the nature of the relationship between Early Syriac and Ethiopic Christianity.

Most scholars have assumed that Jews in Early Roman Antioch were considered to be Greek-speakers. Aramaic among Antiochene Jews gave way to Greek and Greek was used by Antioch Jews. Recent archaeological excavations, however, show that the linguistic milieu of Early Roman Syria was bilingual in Syriac and Greek. And the Jewish community of Early Roman Antioch was also bilingual/trilingual in Aramaic, Syriac, and/or Greek depending on their social levels. From the perspective of sociolinguistic method, linguistic milieu of Early Roman Antioch, successive immigration and periodic connection with Jerusalem imply that most Antiochene Jews were bilingual/trilingual in Aramaic, Syriac, and/or Greek. This paper applies sociolinguistic method to analyzing the linguistic milieu of Antiochene Jews in Early Roman Syria, as I suggested in my publication(Jesus and Gospel Traditions in Bilingual Context [BZNW 186; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012]). The study of bilingualism sheds new insights into the Jewish community in Antioch.

In the West Semitic epigraphic remains of the first millennium BCE, there were three ‘systems’ in use to cope with what we call word (or lexeme) bounds: the use of graphic separation marks between words (dividing dots), lexemic delimitation by simple space, or to totally ignore word bounds (scriptio continua). But there are also Northwest Semitic Epigraphs that run in a mixed mode, i.e. either omit expected delimitation marks or interrupt a seeming continuous line (scriptio continua) by unexpected spaces. Such mixed mode is mostly considered mere sloppiness of a scribe. Instead of blaming the scribes for something we do not yet fully understand, however, it will be shown that such phenomena are a layer of low-level supra-segmental graphic delimitation. This does not primarily care for lexemic word bounds, but is the unintentional ‘background radiation’ of the oral performance that lies behind the text. Some simple rules will be discussed that give hints to meter, prosody and breath units, or, in general, to the oral process (orality) and audibility (aurality) of tales and songs as they might have been performed in ancient times.

“What have heretics in common with Christians?” famously asks Tertullian in his On the Prescription of Heretics. A short answer would be: a lot. Despite vigorous claims to the contrary, diverging early Christian groups were not that distinctive. They all shared a common cultural vocabulary that made it hard for the outsiders to differentiate between them. Often, it was not easy for the insiders, either. A group’s identity is based on its distinctiveness; on the idea that “we” are different from the rest. The more a group resembles another group from which it wants to distinguish itself, the bitterer the conflict and the harsher the polemic. This kind of dynamics can also be discerned in Tertullian’s On the Prescription of Heretics. In this paper, I will analyze how Tertullian sets boundaries and what his criteria of belonging are. Tertullian uses two main strategies. First, he claims that his rivals are outsiders; even though they call themselves Christians, they are counterfeit. Second, because they do not belong, they have no right to the apostolic tradition and to read Christian scriptures. The struggle for the right to call oneself Christian was to a large extent a struggle over who has the right to represent the apostolic legacy and to appeal to Scripture. An essential part of my analysis is to show how Tertullian interprets passages from the epistles of Paul and the Gospels and how he claims his opponents (wrongfully) interpret the same passages. According to Tertullian, those who share the true faith should refrain from getting involved in debates with those who only interpret Scripture according to their delusions. What he fails to see, however, is that in this respect, his opponents do not differ from himself. Even though Tertullian claims to represent the only rightful legacy to the apostolic tradition, so do his opponents, too.

The so-called Plague Narrative in Exod 7–11 offers a fascinating story, the literary and theological content of which still challenges its readers today. One of the puzzling issues in this story pertains to the meaning of the Plague of Darkness at the end of the narrative. In this respect, the present contribution will propose a specific interpretation of the ninth plague, stating that this plague (originally set as the final one) actually functioned as the absolute climax of the whole series. To that end, it will first present the Plague Narrative in its literary context (1). Thereafter, it will focus on Exod 10,21-29 as a crux interpretum from a literary, redactional and text-critical perspective (2). Subsequently, it will succinctly explore the meaning of light and darkness in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East (3). And finally, against this background, it will interpret the plague of palpable darkness as a very serious crisis in basic existential trust (4).

The biblical Pharaoh is depicted as a ruler standing defiantly alone against Moses and his God. Several 19th-century musical settings add surprising dimensions to the story by including women at Pharaoh’s side. In his 1841 oratorio, Adolph Marx gives both Pharaoh and his queen lovely and appealing music to sing, which makes the listener feel sympathy for these characters. The most unique feature of this oratorio is the presence of Pharaoh’s mother, who dispenses advice to a youthful Pharaoh. She recalls the might of the Hebrew God— a fascinating touch and interesting gap-filling. In Anton Rubinstein’s 1891 opera, both music and text add great poignancy to the moment when Pharaoh’s daughter (Asnath) finds the baby Moses, making her a woman of flesh and blood. Later in the story, Asnath argues with her father. In the biblical account, she has no role after finding the baby Moses. In this retelling, she reminds her father that he need only give in to Moses’ demands in order to restore peace to Egypt and win his people’s blessing. Asnath’s plea is sung to lyrical, poignant music, suggesting that she retains a lingering affection for the man she saved as an infant. The feelings of Pharaoh’s daughter towards the adult Moses have never been explored in later retellings. Here, the music intimates deep feelings on her part. One of many interesting creative additions to Rossini’s 1818 opera Moses in Egypt is the relationship between Pharaoh’s queen (Amaltea) and Moses, whom she supports against Pharaoh.The queen plays a similar role to that of Asnath in Rubinstein’s opera, arguing Moses’ case before Pharaoh. Musical excerpts will be included, illustrating how the female presence in these works alters the tone of the narrative.

What is the function and effect of the virulent anti-Judaism of Melito’s Peri Pascha? Judith Lieu has noted that the violence of Melito’s Peri Pascha is violent language – we have no evidence of or call to violent actions here. Lynn Cohick points out that many of the first scholars to examine Peri Pascha were minimally, if at all, interested in the homily’s anti-Judaism, and that the discovery of the ancient synagogue of Sardis in the early 1960s inspired scholars to take a fresh look at Peri Pascha. Alistair Stewart Sykes even posits that Melito was Jewish, leading to an interpretation of Melito’s anti-Judaism which is akin to interpretations of John’s anti-Judaism – that this was an argument among Jews about who actually carried the mantle of Judaism. Recent scholars such as Lieu have argued that since the synagogue only goes back to the fourth century, interpretation of the second century homily cannot presume a Jewish community of such power and influence. Cohick even argues that the evidence connecting the Melito of our Peri Pascha to Melito of Sardis is shaky. Adding to the confusion, there is no direct reference to Jews in the homily. The invective is directed to Israel, which might be understood as biblical Israel, contemporary Jews or simply a foil for Christian belief. Given the uncertainty (at best) of the evidence that Peri Pascha can be used to reconstruct a rivalry between Jews and Christians in second century Sardis, this paper will explore the reception history of Peri Pascha and compare the rhetoric in this text to other early Christian anti-Jewish texts, looking particularly at its function as a Paschal liturgy.

The phenomenon of inner-biblical allusion holds unique promise for tracing the growth of the biblical literature and the development of Israel’s religious outlook. Using the lens of inner-biblical interpretation, scholars have made great strides in recent years in locating corpora such as Deutero-Isaiah, the Book of the Twelve, various psalms, and even narrative passages within the larger biblical narrative. For the promise of inner-biblical allusion to be fully realized, though, one must first overcome two fundamental problems of method, namely determining how textual allusions are to be confidently identified in the first place and then how they are to be evaluated in terms of their direction of dependence. What evidence is needed to establish a link between one biblical text and another text or tradition? And if a link between texts can be established, what evidence is needed to ascertain the direction of the textual or traditional influence? While these questions are not easily answered, their methodological importance is such that they cannot be easily sidestepped without jeopardizing the value of inner-biblical allusion as an area of research. In this study, I consider issues of method by examining the allusive techniques of three historical psalms: Psalms 78, 105, and 106. Using these psalms as a proving ground, I argue for a set of principles that can guide the search for textual allusions and help to establish the direction of their dependence.

From excerpts appearing on small amulets worn on a daily basis to lengthier selections inscribed on large banners carried in battle, Qur'anic passages figure prominently on objects that are not directly related to orthodox religious practice. Along with attesting to the piety of users and makers, these verses are intentionally selected to imbue the objects with the protective powers of the most potent resource for Muslims: God's own word. Specific chapters and prophetic figures occur repeatedly. In addition to the Ayat al-kursi (Qur. 2:255), by far the most frequently quoted Qur'anic verse, and larger sections of the Surat al-baqara, passages from the Surat al-'imran (chapter 3), Surat al-kahf (chapter 18), Surat al-naml (chapter 27) that stress God's absolute power or invoke the mediation of powerful intercessors such as Solomon, 'Ali, and Muhammad, form the verbal repertoire decorating these varied items. In this paper I plan to analyse a selection of items-including personal ornaments, talismanic shirts, arms/armours and banners-and reflect on the enhanced meaning, function and status that Qur'anic passages and religious invocations lent to them. This body of material forms one of the categories of an ongoing research project that will mature in a large loan exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum planned for the late 2016.

This paper analyzes two aspects of the early Jewish novel, “Joseph and Aseneth”: the transformative ritual process of lament and mortification through which Aseneth becomes fit to encounter a “man from heaven,” and the esoteric knowledge and transformed status that is granted to her through this encounter and her continuing access to heavenly secrets through her relationship with her brother-in-law Levi. The paper will discuss how these two aspects are woven into the usual romantic plotline of the ancient Greek novel, as well as considering the affinities of the novel with ancient rituals known from the Greek magical papyri and from the Hekhalot literature. Finally, the paper will examine whether the ritual process and esoteric knowledge gained from the encounter with the angel reflect practices known to us from other sources in Egypt of the first few centuries C.E.

In this paper, I intend to explore how femininity is defined through sexual violence in Judg 5:28-30. After the vivid description of Jael murdering Sisera in a nomadic setting (Judg 5:24-27), the reader of the Song of Deborah witnesses Sisera’s mother looking out her palace window (v. 28). The woman anxiously awaits for her son to return. In the company of her wise princesses, she finds comfort in the idea that Sisera is not home yet because he is too busy plundering a defeated army of their women – the word ra?amataîm “uteruses” is used – and their precious fabrics (v. 30). The Canaanite women’s words are very troubling from a feminist point of view. They use sexist “slang” to designate other women, reducing them to their sexuality/genitalia. All women are potentially war captives, depending on who wins the war. This raises an array of questions regarding the unity of the category “women”. There is no “natural” solidarity between women whose other affiliations, including ethnicity and class, need to be accounted for. In order to do so, I wish to examine Judg 5:28-30’s Biblical definition of feminine gender through the concept of “seriality” instead of “identity”. This notion allows us to think “women” as united passively to one another through their material environment and the material effects of other people’s actions, including enforced heterosexuality, and more specifically, rape (Young, 1994, 724 and 728-731). I will demonstrate how fruitful this concept can be to study the patriarchal constraints that shape the category “women” in the episode of Sisera's mother, while keeping in mind the diversity among women as individuals. Borrowing from the recent contribution of Delvaux (2013) on gender as seriality, I will also investigate the political resistance to male domination it can avail, exemplified by Jael in Judg 5:24-27, the “uterus” who violently “rapes” general Sisera.

At the intersection of biblical studies and pastoral care, this pager emerges from a new reading strategy employed for Ecclesiastes (reading "cross the grains"), leading towards the book's meaning-significance as appropriated in pastoral care and mentorship. Rooted in the rubrics of "text and praxis," and the postmodern orientation of "life-text," I aim at expounding on a much-needed window of perception for pastor-mentors. In that, embracing co-existing tensions is a way of engaging in one's "text-of-life." This path is healthy and vibrant, and one that requires the engagement of the “self.”

The shape of Deuteronomy changed considerably throughout the course of its transmission in the Second Temple period. This paper will approach the question of the character of Deut 12-26 as a whole by examining the stages of literary growth in the center section of the book that deals with the prescriptions for the practice of law (Deut 16:18 – 21:9). This literary analysis will provide a basis for developing a hypothesis about the scope, the sources, the setting, and the purpose of the original text of these chapters, and for Urdeuteronomium as a whole.

The poor state of preservation of the opening column (col. 2) of the Temple Scroll (11Q19) makes it difficult to determine the column’s original width. As a result, judging precisely how much text should be restored at the beginning and at the end of each line poses a challenge for any reconstruction, as a contrast of the two major restorations by Yigael Yadin (1977-1983) and Elisha Qimron (2010) makes clear. Even when they agree on the biblical text to be restored, they disagree on where the line-breaks should occur. The issue of contrasting restorations becomes acute at lines 8 and 9, where the preserved text, which reworks Exod 34, points to an interpolation of material corresponding in part to Deut 7. The column’s author, however, does not strictly follow the MT and also makes some additions of his own, which has led Yadin and Qimron to diverge in their restorations of the lacuna in line 9. Yadin relies on the extant example of theonymous attribution in another column of the scroll (52:4–5) and reconstructs accordingly at 2:8–9; while Qimron’s reconstruction does not suggest theonymy. The fragmentary condition of the column and the divergence in restorations has led me to work on a new reconstruction, with special focus on 2:8–9. This new reconstruction, which corrects existing proposals, is based upon direct examination of the manuscript itself (Accession number: H95.57.23A) at the Shrine of the Book. Two major methodological controls were employed: (1) detailed analysis of syntax, to assess the viability of the existing proposals; and (2) the use of digital restoration techniques, which works with the scribe’s own hand for the reconstruction of line length. Although the primary focus of this analysis is upon 2:8–9, additional minor corrections to col. 2 will also be provided. The final results confirm the Temple Scroll’s sophisticated techniques for constructing its claim to divine authority already in the opening column.

Since at least Gregory the Great, writers have been drawn to the book of Job to explore their own sufferings, whether physical ailments, social ostracism, or emotional pain. Both Jewish and Christian writers have used the book of Job as a template in order to explore difficult episodes in their own lives. This paper will survey some of these autobiographical works (including the Christian Soren Kierkegaard and the Jewish Franz Kafka), culminating in a comparison of two strikingly different recent films—The Tree of Life and A Serious Man—that use Job as template to explore, in part, the filmmakers' Christian and Jewish backgrounds, respectively. In so doing, I will explore a few important distinctions between Jewish and Christian interpreters when reading Job as a sacred text.

If the history of Biblical criticism in the last two centuries can be compared to a fugue in three parts, then the first part (ad fontes!) would doubtless be source and text criticism, the second part historical criticism (especially in its formgeschichte and redactiongeschichte varieties) and the third part a pastiche of social-science semiotics, including, without limitation, socio-rhetorical and reader response methodologies. We inquire here whether a fourth, largely unwritten counterpuntal might exist, specifically, whether there might be a quantitative future for theological inquiry. Beyond Augustine’s plaintive cry that it be so, and in spite of embarrassingly insular inaugural attempts at quantification (which somehow managed to be both positivistic and naïve!) we submit three reasons for exploring just such a future. First, an historical and cross-disciplinary review reveals, somewhat uncomfortably, that ours is one of the few remaining academic disciplines (if we are to extend the musical metaphor) where quantification is not a central voce in the fugue. Second, recent developments in linguistics, and in particular the functional schools, have provided the prospective quantitative Biblical researcher with a far richer set of language phenomena to measure than that provided by traditional grammar. Third, mature techniques in quantification (such as inferential statistics and causal modeling) are now capable of speaking to long-standing textual and contextual issues in our discipline. Our inquiry concludes with worked examples.

Like many Christian authors of the fourth century, Ephrem the Syrian exhibits a fascination with virginity, especially female virginity, as an idea and ideal. Whether he is dwelling on the virginity of Mary, of ascetic Christians of his own day, or of other beings and entities, he employs a rich and multi-faceted vocabulary replete with references to reproductive bodies. Two poles emerge from Ephrem’s virginity discourse: he tends to concentrate on either virginity’s fertility or virginity’s fragility. This pattern cuts across many of the writer’s works, including the two parts of his corpus in which virginity figures most prominently—the Hymns on Virginity and Hymns on the Nativity. In centering on these two aspects of virginity, Ephrem stands apart from contemporary extant authors, particularly from those writing in other linguistic milieux around the late ancient Mediterranean. While several early Christian writers stress virginity’s fragility by warning women of the perils that confront the dedicated virgin or by commenting on the problem of whether virginity can be proven by medical examination, Ephrem has a pronounced interest in linking such issues with Old Testament scriptures. Concerns about virginity’s precariousness and verifiability are refracted through biblical narratives about lost virginity and biblical models for ascertaining women’s chastity. Ephrem’s emphasis on fertility is even more striking and distinctive. Whereas many late ancient authors conform to modern readers’ expectations by constructing definitions of female virginity that foreground inexperience with sexual intercourse or intactness of sexual organs, Ephrem highlights the inherently barren quality of virgins’ wombs. For Ephrem, virginity is a state of sterility that by nature cannot produce new life—yet in Christ’s conception within Mary and in the life of Christian faith, God transforms virginity into a state of fecundity. My paper seeks to elucidate Ephrem’s fundamental meaning(s) for female virginity through consideration of these two discursive poles and their relationship to one another.

While the Noah movie hewed to numerous details of Genesis 6-9 for its filmic version of The Flood, even the most committed literalist would have to add some detail. The Genesis Noah never speaks before or during the deluge, for example. While some have called Aronosky’s additions fantasy or imagination, the film-maker did extensive research into post-biblical tradition (Enoch, Jubilees, Rabbinic tradition) and may have drawn on his enthusiasm for the flood stories of other cultures (Ila, Noah’s step-daughter is named after a Hindu flood character, for instance.) This paper will discuss the extra-biblical ‘citations’ and ‘allusions’ in Aronofsky’s Noah, showing how they have been interpreted and then whether and how they make meaningful contributions to his retelling of The Flood for today.

The apostle Paul is often said to express anti-gay sentiment in 1 Cor. 6:9 by means of the Greek terms malakoi ("softies") and arsenokoitai ("male-liers"). However, the juxtaposition of these two words has no precedent in Greek or Hellenistic erotic literature. In Greco-Roman times, sexual expression followed well-defined rules within hierarchical social structures. Most same-sex relationships between males conformed to the paiderastia pattern, involving an adult male (erastes) and a teenage boy (eromenos). Taken in isolation, the meaning of malakoi is relatively easy to establish due to frequent occurrences in ancient writings, but the exegesis of arsenokoitai is made difficult by extremely few occurrences (cf. 1 Tim. 1:10). At present there is no academic consensus. Perhaps arsenokoitai refers to men who practised abusive sex or engaged in illicit activities connected with the lucrative sex trade. Many English versions of the Bible misinterpret Paul's Greek original and mistranslate malakoi and arsenokoitai accordingly. The use of anachronistic language is widespread with post-biblical terms and phrases such as sodomites, perverts, homosexuals, people who practise homosexuality, and men who have sex with men. These choices are deeply problematic for several reasons: (a) 1 Cor. 6 has no links with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, (b) Paul never uses the term sodomite, (c) only in fourth-century patristic literature does sodomite begin to take on a sexual sense, and (d) not until the Middle Ages does it denote "person practising homoerotic sex." Similar considerations apply to "perverts." The modern phrase "men who have sex with men" connotes equality and so does "homosexuals," coined in 1869 in a European context. Moreover, today "homosexuals" applies to persons of both sexes, whereas arsenokoitai refers exclusively to males. In this passage, most English versions of the Bible display weak translation procedures based on incomplete literary analysis. In addition, the anti-gay bias may be ideologically motivated. In a 2000-year old text, the presence of post-biblical and modern sexual language is not only unfortunate and contentious but may be characterized as toxic. Millions of Bible readers around the world are influenced by the particular versions of the Bible they habitually use. As translators speak of "homosexuals" in 1 Cor. 6:9, the outcome in numerous Christian churches is predictable in the form of hostility towards LGBT people. The dire religious, political, social and psychological consequences of anti-LGBT campaigns orchestrated by powerful Christian circles are in the news on a regular basis. In summary, English Bible translators would be better advised to err on the side of caution.

Blogging provides many biblical scholars with a simple and fast way of presenting their academic views to a general public, even if there is little prestige or formal recognition for serious, academic posts. The benefit seems to lie in the quick networking of ideas and the building of relationships between scholars. The medium also allows scholars to easily play the role of accessible public intellectual, something badly needed in a world that has devalued advanced education. The Internet’s lack of censorship guarantees a high level of academic freedom but it also subjects scholars to an equally high level of non-academic freedom. Not only is there a complete lack of peer review, the likelihood that any serious post may attract unwanted attention from those with no understanding of the subject matter or fringe theory or doctrine to promote is very real. With most bloggers allowing readers some freedom to comment without moderation, discussions can be easily sidetracked into tangential or completely off-topic exchanges that can get acrimonious very quickly. Disallowing or vetting comments also smacks of censorship and may actually play into the hands of those who see critical scholarship as a self-absorbed ivory tower or even conspiracy against the “Truth.” This paper, then, offers a critical examination of how scholarly bloggers assert the validity of the academic study of the bible, their own academic legitimacy. It also examines the “othering” of non-mainstream theorists, religious fundamentalists, anti-intellectualists, purveyors of alternate histories, internet “trolls”, and assorted “dilettantes” and “crackpots”, and attempts to gauge the impact this may have on the practice of biblical scholarship and its reception by a wider audience.

Generally, Leviticus 19:29 is understood as a warning to fathers not to desecrate their daughters by making them prostitutes. Yet is the issue really about prostitution, or does znh denote something else? This paper will contend that there is good reason to question the traditional understanding of znh as the act of prostitution in this context. Two other possible interpretations of znh will be considered: engaging in sexually promiscuous behavior and participating in non-Yahwistic religious practices. Once the nature of the daughter's problematic behavior has been determined, several other issues raised by this text will be addressed. In what way is the daughter desecrated? How much blame is attached to the daughter, and how much to the father? What threat does such behavior pose to the land, and what are the consequences? Lastly, this paper will address the question of how this admonition fits into the larger context of Leviticus 19 and its concern with achieving and maintaining holiness.

The Shepherd of Hermas features a talkative protagonist also said to exemplify core virtues of self-restraint (enkrateia) and manliness (andreia). Discussions of virtue in the text frequently focus on speech: for instance, true and false words, true and false prophecy, and slander (katalalia). A divine revealer invokes the gendered stereotype of the talkative woman, telling Hermas: “[your wife] does not restrain her tongue, but uses it to perpetrate evil. But when she hears these words she will control it and receive mercy” (Vis 6.3). Yet it is the manly, self-controlled Hermas who is garrulous throughout. At times, the divine revealers with whom Hermas converses claim that his loquacity marks him as shameless (anaides), crafty (panourgos), and brazen (authades). Undeterred, he asks more questions, and certain dialogue markers repeat: “‘Why,’ I said?” (diati phemi). The Shepherd of Hermas thus activates speech conventions relating to gender and virtue, recalling ancient moral philosophers such as Plutarch, Philo, Theophrastus and others on garrulousness versus circumspection. Yet the text also disrupts such understandings in its favorable evaluations of its chatty protagonist. Other speech protocols are brought to bear, particularly modes of speech that characterize visionaries, disciples, and penitents. Attention to the status level implied by the work’s style and social concerns further nuances an analysis of speech and talk in this widely read second-century tale.

So-called Gnostic soteriologies contributed heavily to the construction of Christian theories of deification in the second century CE. But unlike their proto-orthodox counterparts (e.g., Justin, Theophilus, Irenaeus), the study of distinctly Gnostic forms of deification is rarely a topic of independent investigation. This paper explores two forms of deification preserved in the Sondergut of Hippolytus’ Refutatio: those of the Naassenes and the Simonians. Naassene and Simonian theories of deification are studied with particular attention to how they relate to contemporary proto-orthodox forms of deification in (1) the use of biblical texts (e.g., Ps. 82), (2) the role of Savior figures, and (3) visions of the afterlife. This study is part of a larger project of exploring second century Christianity in all its richness and variety. It indicates that Naassene and Simonian thought may feature more embedded Christian elements than previously observed.

Offering of Isaac is sometimes understood as an example of child abuse by the standards of modern morality (e.g. Dawkins 2006). Whether child abuse or ancient psychological experience of childhood trauma is a proper description of the legend needs further examination. However, the corresponding masoretic narrative (Gen 22:1-19MT) as well as septuagintal (Gen 22:1-19LXX) definitely concerns the childhood Isaac. Apart from “son,” Isaac is called “boy” (na?ar [Gen 22:12MT] or paidarion [Gen 22:12LXX]). Besides Isaac, Abraham also brings “two boys” (š?nê n?‘araw [Gen 22:3MT]) or “two boy-servants” (duo paidas [Gen 22:3LXX]). As one of the representatives of early Judaism, Flavius Josephus seems to reflect a contemporary awareness of the moral problem of child sacrifice. In his retelling of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, Isaac is no longer a child but a 25-year-old man. Even those side-characters like “two boys” or “two boy-servants” implicitly grow up and become “two home-servants” (duo oiketon [Ant. 1.225]). Instead of forcing the boys grow up, the Epistle to the Hebrews (as one of the representatives of early Christianity) just omit all the wordings like “boy” or even “son” which may cause any child-association. In this way, the narrative of faith is preserved with deliberate moralization.

“I am just a dry tree.” In Isa 56 a eunuch figure is implored not to utter these words. Perhaps it should not surprise that the ancient eunuch remains mute in modern commentary. We bring to the text a new methodology which reverses this. It is one which plots how (conceptual) metaphor is informed by and speaks back to, both consciously and unconsciously, intertexts. The eunuch is found to be operative in the metaphorical construction of meaning in the final redactional form of Isaiah. He has an intertextual voice which projects a conceptual metaphor of eschatological significance among both the final texts of Isaiah and the Torah. By the conceptual metaphor the text addresses both a (tangible) problematic social group and an (abstract) eschatological question. Neither the eunuch nor Israel can bring about its own fertility and longevity. Rather the LORD will restore both the name of the eunuch and Israel. But of particular interest is that three key motifs which factor in the construction of the metaphor in Isa 56(–66) are prefigured in Isa 54–55. First: Just as the barren woman of Isa 54 (an echo of Sarah) is granted children, so the eunuch is promised “a monument and a name better than sons and daughters” (Isa 56:5). Second: Isa 55:1–2 portrays an invitation to metaphorical eating quite similar to that in Isa 56:9 where all beasts are addressed. And third: Both the figurative tree and the eunuch shall be/have “an everlasting sign/name that shall not be cut off” (Isa 55:13/56:5). The postulates of a Second and Third Isaiah require us to see this intricate metaphorical continuity as a matter of mere literary influence. We find this explanation unsatisfactory and therefore question the worth of a neat redactional break after Isa 55.

As an academic discipline, Biblical Studies has traditionally taken up the tools of history and social context in an effort to situate and understand the texts of the New Testament. For over three-hundred years the historical-critical method has lead a majority of interpreters to read the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude in isolation from each other as discrete bits of communication between an individual author and a general audience. Yet, both the manuscript tradition and the history of interpretation indicate these letters have been read together as a rough collection. Eusebius is an early voice describing them as a specific collection (Hist. Eccl. 2.23.25) and Augustine seems to have read these letters as bearing a coherent apostolic theology (De fide et operibus 21). Two questions arise from this: When and why did these letters cease to be read together? The issue at hand is whether these letters should be read in isolation from each other, taking their individual historical situations as the guiding principle for their interpretation, or whether their literary and theological placement within the New Testament specifically and within the Christian canon generally should constitute the context within which they are interpreted. This paper outlines the early reception of James, Peter, and Jude (and 1—3 John) as a collection and reflects on the hermeneutical implications for reading these letters together.

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s poem Mythopoeia, he proclaims that, as humans, “We make still by the law in which we we’re made.” In other words, just as God created humanity in the divine image, so too, we have the ability to create, or rather sub-create. When Tolkien made this claim, he was referring to his own craft of inventing fantasy literature, of forming words that take their reader into another time and place. He believed that the secondary world—the imagined world—had great power and could transport truth into the primary one. Tolkien himself was a master of sub-creation. He established Middle-earth and its originator, Illúvatar, who conceived the Valar, some of whom shaped their own creatures. The poetic paradigm of a Creator giving life to other creators is not unique to Tolkien’s stories. In many ways, his literary sub-creation and its constructed world mirrors the cosmic origin myth of Genesis 1-5, its pro-creators within, and authors without. This paper will explore the rich analog of Tolkien’s sub-creation and its philosophical underpinnings in relationship to the makings of the story of Adam and Eve and their maker. It will highlight the garden as a secondary world of faërie and Eve as the first procreator and mother of life. The intertextual dialogue will also spawn a reexamination of the terminology used for creation (bara?, qanah and yalad) in Genesis 1-5 and its interrelationship with knowledge, sight, and speech.

This paper will appraise recent trajectories in Pauline studies through exploring intersections with the “visual turn," wherein I will front methodological concerns in the use of images for interpretation. To be sure, there has been a growing interest in using visual representation in Pauline studies over the last several decades. Part of this interest is associated with “Paul and Empire” scholarship and follows Paul Zanker’s seminal work on the “power of images” in the Augustan age. Beyond the promises and pitfalls of this particular instance, images are used in Pauline studies in several critical and interrelated ways: as background material for texts, as exegetical illustrations of theological concepts, as correlates for ideas, as historical evidence for the realia of the ancient world. In all such uses, though, words still reign supreme as something distinct from, and more important than, pictures -- even as words are “visual” in their own right, reading is a form of looking/viewing, and pictures are fundamentally malleable modes of communication. Thus I will observe how, and to what scholarly ends, unstable images are used to stabilize Paul, his work, his world, and his theology.

Paul’s plan for spreading his movement finds at least two major expressions in his letters: the gaining of followers as a population (see, for example, 1 Cor 9) and the acquisition of apportioned territory (2 Cor 10 and Rom 15). In discerning the distinct emphases of these rhetorical strategies, the intersections of various postcolonial theories and studies of biopolitics reveal how Paul’s rhetoric of land acquisition, though based in echoes of prophetic scripture, emerged in imitation of Roman rhetorics of domination (in terms of the “shifting borders” of Rome’s traditional purview, as well as controversies over land distribution) while reorienting categories of individualism and economics. While the mission language of the Palestinian Jesus movement (perhaps echoed in 1 Cor 9) advocated moving from village to village, while accepting support, as a way of uniting communities through the message of God’s empire, Paul’s deployment of the same language led him to engage heads of households (Chloe, Stephanas, etc.) and, thus, potential patrons and the economic entanglements they brought. Foucault’s work on sovereign power over territory and biopower over populations (and their overlaps with disciplinary regimes over individuals) offers a lens for reading the interactions among diverse Pauline tactics, while appropriation by (and resistance to) Foucault’s theories of administration and territory among postcolonial theorists (such as Edward Said and Dipesh Chakrabarty) helps us better parse out the relationship between traditional issues of individual, ethnicity, and community in Paul’s thought. I show how Paul emphasizes the sovereignty of God as alternative to empire by shifting focus to God’s action on the level of territory. While Paul’s attention to population reflects attempts at local and internal administration, territorial disputes indicate questions of power within the international movement (that is, among apostles) and at the global, cosmic level (in competition with Rome).

This paper examines the three Hebrews papyri found at Oxyrhynchus text critically and in their socio-cultural context.

The Protoevangelium of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew are related documents – Pseudo-Matthew incorporating traditions both from Prot. Jas. and Inf. Gos. Thom. The paper analyzes Judaism and anti-Judaism in these three related documents by focusing on (1) the role of Jewish individual characters and Jewish people as insiders or outsiders in the narratives of the three gospels, (2) the texts’ relation to Jewish scriptures, Jewish law and practice, and Jewish beliefs (= indicators of Judaism; cf. Luomanen, Recovering, 2012). The paper argues that although Jews are characterized in friendly terms in Prot. Jas — there is no indication of clear anti-Judaism — Prot. Jas. nonetheless exemplifies Christian supersessionism and ignorance of real-life Jewish belief and practice. Thus, despite its seeming innocence the narrative world of Prot. Jas. is a seedbed for open anti-Judaism, as can be seen in the way how its characterizations are further developed in Ps.-Mt, together with traditions from Inf. Gos. Thom.

The question of the structure of James’ literary composition has been extensively discussed in the epistle’s history of interpretation and has led to a variety of suggestions; theories concerning the structure and form of the epistle have in turn informed investigations e.g. into the matter of genre, audience and other aspects central to the interpretation of the text. As against the diverse approaches to the question of structure this paper puts forward the thesis that focussing on one central, overarching topic of the epistle allows clarification of the question of internal coherence. As will be illustrated exemplarily a thematic approach based on the topic of speech-ethics – i.e. ‘the evil of the tongue’ – can help clarify the overarching structure of the epistle and hence shed new light on an old question.

Mark 11–12 is a clever rewriting of the lost Gospel (Q or Q+) modeled after sections from Homer's Odyssey. The proposed paper will begin with evidence that the author was indebted to the lost Gospel (which I prefer to call the Logoi of Jesus). It then discusses Mark's reliance on Od. 6-7 for the triumphal entry and Od. 22 for the cleansing of the temple.

The instructions about priestly dues in Ezekiel 44 and Numbers 18 overlap to a significant degree, and this suggests that a literary relationship exists between the two texts. Wellhausen argued that since Numbers 18 distinguishes sharply between the dues owed priests and those owed to Levites, it must be a later composition than Ezekiel 44 which Wellhausen argued had first introduced the distinction between clerical ranks. This perspective has been championed by many scholars since Wellhausen’s time, mostly recently by Achenbach in his exhaustive redaction-critical analysis of the book of Numbers. Such reconstructions of the compositional history need to be re-examined and, I will argue, the reverse position taken: Ezekiel 44 presupposes and utilizes Numbers 18. To substantiate this argument I will proceed in three steps. First, I will demonstrate that Numbers 18 is a compendium of pentateuchal instructions about priestly and levitical dues. The composer of Numbers 18 utilizes numerous Pentateuchal texts, and other parts of the Pentateuch provide all the necessary textual pieces by which the compendium on priestly dues in Numbers 18 could have been compiled. Second, I will show Numbers 18 was interpreted in Ezekiel 44, and how certain features of Ezek 44.28–31 can only be explained as exegetical reuse of Numbers 18 and other pentateuchal texts. Conversely, I will argue that it is difficult to see how the writer of Numbers 18 could have written what he did on the basis of Ezekiel 44. Third, I will argue that the position advocated by Wellhausen and Achenbach cannot explain why the instructions on priestly dues originated, whilst a reason lies immediately to hand if we recognize that Numbers 18 was the earliest list of priestly emoluments.

As part of an ongoing project focused on the Aramaic texts from Qumran, this paper will examine and compare views of the true Israel and outsiders in a cross-section of Sectarian Hebrew literature from Qumran (e.g., the Serekh texts, War Scroll, and Hodayot) and Aramaic texts (e.g., Tobit, Testament of Qahat, and Genesis Apocryphon). The Sectarian Hebrew scrolls typically define the true Israel as a relatively small, circumscribed group. The Aramaic texts, however, often reflect a much broader construal, and portray idealized Jews interacting, cautiously but successfully, with the foreign ruling power structure. Though the sectarians presumably kept, copied, and read the Aramaic literature, these two very different approaches to Israel and outsiders speak to deeper differences between the two clusters of texts, and the Jewish groups behind them. The more open outlook of the Aramaic texts - especially when read against the Sectarian writings - help us to better situate the Aramaic texts within Second Temple period Jewish history and society, carrying further the work of Milik, Segert, Bickerman, Wacholder, Dimant, Tigchelaar, and others, who hold the Aramaic writings to be both non- and pre-Sectarian. It may also help us to better address the reason these texts were composed in Aramaic, and not Hebrew. At the same time, we are confronted with the interesting question of what the sectarians took away from a group of texts that in ways espoused views divergent from their own.

Scholars regularly debate whether Ezekiel the Tragedian’s Exagoge was written for performance, and if so, in what social settings. This debate usually focuses primarily on formal aspects of the tragedy, with scholars sometimes concluding that it was not staged because of its divergence from Aristotelian theory and Classical precedents, or because its speeches are more “descriptive” than “performative” (Rozik 2013). We argue, however, that the question of the Exagoge’s performance cannot be decided according to formal qualifications alone, especially given our limited knowledge of the conventions of Hellenistic tragedy. Instead, building on recent studies by Pierluigi Lanfranchi (2006) and Rachel Bryant Davies (2008), who view the tragedy as performable in association with the Judaean Passover festival, we call particular attention to the social and political functions that such a performance would have had in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Drawing on theories of performance and practice, and in particular, Catherine Bell’s understanding of “redemptive hegemony” as the way that practices simultaneously convey an understanding of the ordering of power in society and a vision for strategic empowerment (Bell 2009), our paper consists of two major sections. In the first, we survey an array of epigraphic, literary, and other forms of evidence indicating that theatrical performances were highly politically significant in the Hellenistic period, often functioning as propaganda for the Hellenistic royal dynasties. In the second, we interrogate the ways that the performance of the relations of “King Pharaoh” to the Hebrews and Egyptians in the Exagoge, and the figurations of God, Moses, and the phoenix as kings, reflect and critique the Ptolemaic kingship through the same performative medium usually exploited as a means of royal acclamation. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (2d ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Bryant Davies, Rachel. “Reading Ezekiel’s Exagoge: Tragedy, Sacrificial Ritual, and the Midrashic Tradition,” GRBS 48 (2008): 393-415. Lanfranchi, Pierluigi. L’Exagoge d’Ezéchiel le Tragique: Introduction, texte, traduction et commentaire (Leiden: Brill, 2006). Rozik, Eli. Jewish Drama and Theater: From Rabbinical Intolerance to Secular Liberalism (Chicago: Sussex, 2013).

The study of “Ancient Israel” is a dynamic and multi-faceted research endeavor, which is a field that has in the recent past, and is still going through major transformations. This is due, to a large extent, to methodological developments and new data from the various sub-fields which contribute to the understanding of “Ancient Israel”. These developments and data derive from, e.g., the various branches of biblical research, the wide-ranging spectrum of ancient Near Eastern philology, and the ever-growing database and more exact analytic perspectives of the full-range of modern archaeological research. The enormous breadth of knowledge, methods and perspectives which are encompassed in this cannot be overstated. Gone are the days of the polymath scholars who can fully-control the entire gamut of relevant research – at least while staying fully aware of the latest developments and perspectives in all these various subfields. Time and again, attempts to generate understandings of “Ancient Israel” – particularly those of broad synthetic scope, are the work of scholars whose expertise lies in one or two of the specific facets of this broad spectrum of knowledge – but at the same time, not being fully up-to-date, and sufficiently “in control” of other aspects of the relevant knowledge base and analytical toolbox. Just as one would not accept a physicist who uses outdated chemistry or biology, so, a Biblicist who is not up-to-date in the minutiae of archaeology (or vice-a-versa), is not be accepted. These lacunae clearly have an effect on the robustness of attempted interpretations. In light of this situation, I believe it is imperative to see more inter-disciplinary collaborative efforts in the study of “Ancient Israel” – so that a more complete and up-to-date panoply of methodologies can be brought to the forefront in such studies. Just as most modern “hard science” is carried out using inter- and multi-disciplinary team perspectives, similar approaches are needed in the study of “Ancient Israel” as well. Similar to the inter-disciplinary research that is seen more in more in archaeology, a desideratum should be that we see more and more multi-disciplinary teams joining together in the study of “Ancient Israel.” In this lecture I will attempt to bring some examples of some problematic interpretations due to lack of broad enough perspectives, as well as some which attempt to bridge some of these difficulties.

In The Savage Mind, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss famously suggested that animals are “good to think.” This paper argues that hybrid animals, or Mischwesen, are equally good, if not better, to think—especially when it comes to the domain of religion. The material evidence from the ancient world is replete with visual images of hybrid monsters, composite demons, and mixed divine beings. In recent years, biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholars have increasingly turned to the rich iconographical record to trace the diachronic development of religious concepts, as well as the cultural mechanisms that facilitate the spread of certain visual motifs (discussed extensively by Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger). One area that has not yet been explored, however, is the role that cognitive mechanisms play in the process of cultural transmission. This paper fills this gap by considering the iconography of hybrid creatures in Egyptian and Mesopotamian art from the perspective of two current cognitive frameworks: Dan Sperber’s epidemiological approach to cultural representations and Pascal Boyer’s theory of minimally counterintuitive concepts. Utilizing these theories, I suggest that culturally-specific depictions of hybrid animals—no matter how fantastic—exhibit a core set of properties, which helps to account for their stability across geographical and temporal distances. Overall, this paper demonstrates that an informed understanding of human cognition offers a fresh interdisciplinary lens on the Mischwesen iconography of the ancient Near East.

This paper is interested in exploring the relationship between the ancient rhetoric around identity found in the undisputed epistles of Paul and current day attempts to negotiate migrant and borderland identity in the global village. Using postcolonial theory as a lens through which to analyze both, these ancient, and postmodern praxes of identity formation and re-formation, I will explore how the motif of ‘being in Christ’ offers a conceptual and theological framework for resisting hegemonic and colonial structures of identity imposition. Paul’s letters will be mined for the ways by which they are suggestive of practices within Pauline communities that coalesce around issues of identity. Specifically, a number of themes related to the concept of ‘being in Christ’ will be explored: how identity as it relates to the Lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar is negotiated, how a kenotic ethic of relationally in community life might offer a postcolonial strategy within a colonial landscape, and how ambiguity is embraced in identity formation within Pauline communities that hybridizes but does not obliterate previous identities. Patterns of praxes among migrants and those who straddle a borderland between the global north and south will be studied in terms of how postcolonial concepts of resistance to hegemonic power can be seen to be exercised in lived realities. Postcolonial theory has been critiqued for being too abstracted from the political realities of its application in society. This paper will offer a response to such critiques by directly analyzing studies of migrant and borderland praxes through the lens of postcolonial theory and then bring those praxes into conversation with the communities of the ancient apostle Paul. In closing, this paper will ask how these ancient and postmodern postcolonial practitioners might offer a fertile ground for biblical studies to engage with the struggles that millions face in relation to their identity in today’s world.

Nowhere in the Quran is the imagery of heavenly virgins and sex arguably more explicit than in Surah Rahman, where mention of the qa?irat a?-?arf (55:56) and the ?ur maq?urat (55:72) is followed by the refrain "lam ya?mithhunna insun qablahum wa la jann" (55:56 & 74). This is most apparent in the translation of Hilali and Khan, where the verse is rendered, "no man nor jinn ya?mithhunna (has opened their hymens with sexual intercourse) before them." Though one aim of this imagery may be to stir believers' sensual desire for paradise, I argue that the imagery also serves a deeper literary effect - one of synecdoche where the greater paradise itself assumes virginity. This interpretation lies in an analysis of the recurrent theme of dualism that pervades Surah Rahman and its jarring absence in the verses concerning heavenly females. For instance, not only is the chapter's most famous refrain, "fabi ayyi ala'i rabbikuma tukaddhiban," addressed to the dual, the chapter presents two easts, two wests (55:17), and two seas (55:19). For the God-fearing, there are two gardens (55:46) besides which are two others (55:62). In the first pair of gardens (fihima) are two flowing springs (55:50), and in them both (again fihima) are fruits, two by two (55:52). Yet when the subject of the verses shifts to the heavenly females, the gardens lose their dual nature and suddenly become feminine themselves with the use of the adverbial fihinna. I argue that this sudden shift in the garden's grammatical character introduces an intentional ambiguity into the Quran's text, for the feminine object of ya?mithhunna now may refer to either of two feminine antecedents - 1) the females or 2) the gardens in which they reside. I further argue that application of the verb ya?mith (the imperfect of ?amatha) to the gardens (jannat) is fully consistent with the classical usage of the term - Edward Lane records in his lexicon the statement "ma ?amatha dha l-marta'a qablana a?ad" ("No one touched this place of pasturing, or this pasture, before us") (Book 1, p 1878). The chapter's imagery of virginal females thus serves as a synecdoche, a reference to the virginal nature of paradise itself, and shows that the Quran's use of imagery is intentioned and far more complex than the media hysteria over "72 virgins" or misinterpreted "grapes" would suggest.

For 23 years I have been teaching a Literature of the New Testament course within a Philosophy Department at a Comprehensive Public University. Passing this course with a C or better satisfies the university requirement for upper division writing. This requirement across the university also is a concern for being a bottleneck for student graduation success. More than half of my students are first generation college students and my university is a federally designated Hispanic Serving and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution. This context and the pedagogical challenges that go with it have forced me, especially within the last decade, to rethink how I can utilize Biblical Studies to maximize the environment in which my students can learn. To that end, I have focused on getting the students to think about reading as the flip side of writing, that the things they have to do in order to read/interpret texts are similar to the things they have to put in texts for their future readers. I divide the course traditionally into letters (Pauline) and narratives (gospel), focusing the letters of Paul, however, on the rhetoric of his suasion relative to goals of his letters and on the gospels relative to the meaningful structure given by their narrative construction. As a related experience, I share the writing pedagogical strategies I employ in an intensive summer version of the course which focuses on the Jesus story in Gospel and Film. Here I explore with the students how the particular versions of the tradition history within the Gospels as well as in the ongoing film tradition demonstrate the reading/writing strategic relationship between the particularity of expression and meaning. This again utilizes the conceptualization of reading being the flipside of writing and getting the students to think about how the particularity of their expression in their own writing makes a difference for meaning. Along the way, students seem to learn even more about Biblical Studies than they had in my previous more traditional iterations of the course.

This paper will respond to the preceding papers given in the session.

The Forum at Philippi was not built on the site of the city’s Hellenistic Agora. Rather, the Forum was built as an entirely new project in the imperial period, with two major phases during the reigns of Claudius (41-54 CE) and of Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE). At the height of its development the Forum occupied 10% of the city’s surface area and spread across successive terraces. The terraces were separated by the Via Egnatia, which served as the colony’s decumanus maximus, and the upper terrace was devoted to temples while and the lower terrace was given over to civic architecture and space. In spite of the fact that the Forum was an entirely new project, its architecture, design, and building techniques present a paradoxical combination of imported Roman and local Hellenistic features. This paper explores the reasons for these surprising developments by comparing them with other Roman colonies in the provinces of Achaia and Macedonia, and with local developments in Thessaloniki and Thasos.

This is the third section of the workshop on the Masorah Parva. It will concentrate on the "Notes on the Masorah Parva" Section of BHQ. This presentation will give some background on this section of BHQ, including its design and how notes were selected for elaboration.

After the Roman colonization and resettlement of Corinth (44 B.C.E.), cultic activity was slow to return to the Sanctuary of Demeter on the north slope of Acrocorinth. In the mid-first century C.E., the earliest activities were ritual practices involving terracotta lamps and inscribed lead tablets in a small room on the lower terrace. The tablets, recently published by Ronald Stroud in Corinth 18.6 (2013), record petitions of women and men to various gods (Demeter, Hermes, Ananke), target opponents or unrequited loves for “binding” or “destruction,” and request justice from the gods. The tablets include linguistic and graphic strategies that were common in magical tablets and papyri and thought to address the gods in their languages—voces magicae, invocative formulae, jumbled letters or obscure ways of writing, and rhythmic and supplicatory language. About a quarter of a century after this ritual activity began, new building occurred in the sanctuary precinct. The Roman inhabitants of Corinth built three small temples on the upper terrace and a staircase and entrance to the terrace. One of the temples had a mosaic floor dedication that named a temple-warden and a “priestess of Neotera.” In this paper, I analyze these two activities, temple building and curse tablets, as distinct methods of inscribing power—religious, social, and/or political—in the Sanctuary on the slope of Acrocorinth. In this sanctuary, disempowered individuals used obscure ways of speaking and writing to demonstrate their power to communicate with gods and acquire divine action. At the same time, prominent individuals with political power shaped the spatial orientation and architecture of the Sanctuary. I investigate the potential tension between the two activities and the resulting views of Demeter cult and communication with human beings and gods.

The significance of relationships in the Hebrew Bible is revealed in the Decalogue (Exod 20:1–17; Deut 5:6–21) in that the commands include both Israel’s obligations toward God, and individuals’ obligations toward one another. Underlying these commandments is the belief that maintenance of their social structure depended on love of God, and loving care of each other. The frequent references to the Israelites’ liberation from slavery suggest that their obedience to the law is a response of gratitude and love. There are also many reminders that they were strangers in Egypt and this factor is employed in enjoinders to care for resident aliens, as well as the needy. Clearly, there are strong links between law and love in the Hebrew Bible, as emphasised in the commands to love God (Deut 6:5) and neighbour (Lev 19:18). The complementarity of the concepts is demonstrated by reviewing the ethic of hospitality in section 2. The term hospitality is defined as love of strangers, and used to refer to provision of sustenance, shelter, and clothing to those from beyond one’s normal social group, without any expectation of reciprocity. I will discuss Abraham and Job, and show that by the first century CE, hospitality such as theirs was an indicator of righteousness, i.e. of obedience to the law. Section 3 then considers relevant New Testament texts, particularly focusing on Jesus’ summary of the law (Mark 12:29–31); his friendship with toll collectors, regarded as regenerate in view of their hospitality; and his radical call to love of enemies (Matt 5:43–48; Luke 6:27–36). To conclude, I will consider the references to loving one’s neighbour as fulfilment of the law (Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8), and comment on the failure of early Christians to attain the standard of hospitality advocated by Jesus.

This paper will examine the discussion of allegory in a new recension of Adrian's "Introduction to the Divine Scriptures," of which I am a co-discoverer. Unlike the textus receptus of this treatise which devotes only a few lines to allegory, this newly-discovered recension contains a lengthy account of the trope of allegory, including Paul's use of the term in Galatians 4. My paper will examine Adrian's account of allegory, focusing on how he restrains its presence in Scripture: it is only one of 22 scriptural tropes, and Paul's use of allegory is, in fact, to be properly classified under a different trope. This paper will position Adrian's assessment of allegory in the larger "Antiochene" tradition - esp. Theodore of Mopsuestia's writings.

Muslim and Christian texts agree about Mary’s virginity, but differ markedly in discussion of Mary’s vagina. Matthew and Luke are quite circumspect regarding the mechanism of the conception and delivery; in Luke, the angel reassures Mary (and the audience!) that the conception is not achieved in the usual manner but a function of the Holy Spirit “overshadowing” her. The Protevangelium of James unambiguously denies that Jesus came into contact with Mary’s vagina at either conception or birth. The Qur’an, however, depicts the conception as explicitly vaginal and describes a painfully normal birth. This paper analyzes representations of Mary’s vagina in the New Testament, Protevangelium, Qur’an, and related texts in order to illuminate the difference between Christian and Muslim accounts of Mary’s vagina and discuss the texts’ usage of Mary’s body as a tool of argumentation in the larger Christological debate.

Thirty five copies of the Qur'an and of the tafsir -eleven of them being translations into Aljamia- were found in a trove located within a house in an Aragonese town which had not more than 1600 inhabitants in the 16th century. Thanks to a thorough study of these translations, we can state that with a single exception they were closely related between themselves: the copyists, the ornamentation, the paper or the textual family. These similarities induce us to put forward the hypothesis that they were produced within a very short time span, in the same area, in order to be sold to neighbouring Muslim communities lacking the expertise required for the transcription of the texts they needed.

In New Testament scholarship it is undisputed that righteousness/justice and mercy are theological key terms in the Gospel of Matthew. Surprisingly however, the interrelation between these terms has never been subject to an in depth inquiry. In my paper I will argue that justice and mercy constitute a dynamic polarity that is constitutive of the matthean understanding of God’s dealing with man and man’s dealing with God. Starting point is the parable of the unmerciful servant. It will be shown, that Matthew conceives justice and mercy as two modes of divine action towards man that structure the relationship between God and Man as reciprocal: Man is obliged to imitate God’s mercy towards himself –the eschatological forgiveness of sins – in his social relations (imitatio Dei). If man fails to do so, God will act as judge (cf. Mt 5:7; 7:1f.). The God-man relation unfolds between the two poles of divine justice and mercy and characterizes this relationship as vivid and dynamic. For man God’s mercy becomes the criterion of justice respectively of the “overflowing righteousness” that is the condition for entering the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:20). Thus in the Gospel of Matthew mercy has to be understood within the framework of the act-consequence nexus: Divine mercy doesn’t replace justice, but is the precondition of a new beginning in the God-man-relationship that unfolds anew between justice and mercy. In other words: The attempts to identify justice/righteousness with mercy undermines their polarity as well as the dynamic reciprocity of the God-man-relationship. In addition I will argue that Matthews understanding of mercy is shaped by the Hebrew hesed. In the Old Testament hesed denotes i.a. God’s compassionate loving kindness that culminates in his readiness to forgive sins (cf. Ex 34:6) and that aims at a new reciprocity between God and man. For man this new reciprocity implies a righteous way of life and doesn’t exclude God’s recompensation of sins. This understanding of hesed is the basis on which Matthew illustrates God’s eschatological forgiveness of sins, which the members of the ekklesia are supposed to imitate.

Like in many an African community, or dare we say, a global community, heterosexual marriage (and its package) has been, and continues to be the norm. Embedded within many a union, is the challenge of problematic masculinities. The Mongo women in the Equatorial region of the DRC, appear to be no exception to the norm. The importance attached to heterosexual marriage within African cultures, a particular mainly androcentric biblical hermeneutic,the global hetero-normative culture together with the Mongo women’s poor socio-economic condition, all seem to work together towards the perpetuation of the ideology of “(heterosexual) marriage as norm.” Given the notion of dangerous masculinities prevalent within such unions and the observation that marriage has become a risky business in the context of the HIV and AIDS pandemic as well as the observation that the book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible also seems to perpetuate the "marriage-as-norm" ideology, how may the be re-read within such contexts? The preceding question will form the main focus of our paper

This paper will address the enigmatic “covenant with death” in Isa 28:15, 18. It will argue against the currently favored understanding of this metaphor as a reference to Judah’s reliance on Egypt for protection from the Assyrians at the end of the 8th century. The metaphorical resonances of “death” and “sheol” in biblical and NWS literature suggest a figure of great strength and appetite. These resonances conflict with the perspective on Egypt in Isa 30, 31 as too weak to help. The metaphor of personified death thus better fits a reference to Judah’s treaty with Assyria earlier in the 8th century, and this interpretation enables a unified reading of Isa 28:1-4, 7-22.

For a number of Johannine scholars, the combination of aporias and temporal disjunctions (whether proleptic or analeptic) in John’s gospel point to either the later editing of sources, or to the (perhaps more than one) revision of the gospel story by the final author. I suggest that most or all of these should be more appropriately attributed to John’s narrative interest in developing a well-structured and coherent story. In this paper I would like to explore one fairly narrow aspect of this issue, that is the role that proleptic introductions of, and subsequent rehearsals by, key characters provides in the narrative structure of the Fourth Gospel. In particular I will examine the importance and function of the following narrative linkages: John the Baptist’s interactions with Jesus, the periodic appearances of Nicodemus, the identification of Judas as one who will betray, and the role of Mary and Martha and the anointing of Jesus’ feet. In each of these there are “out of sequence” prior announcements or repeated features that realize or fulfill previous announcements. This pattern of announcing and revisiting certain characters in the gospel story seems integral to the development of the gospel story, and thus should influence how we see John functioning as composer.

It has been very common in research on the Greco-Roman world to assert that very few people existed in between the elite based in the cities on the one hand, and a homogenous mass of self-sufficient “peasants,” living just at or slightly above subsistence-level after taxes were paid, on the other. Market exchange was peripheral and, indeed, inimical to the “peasant” mode of existence, which was largely self-provisioning with barter having been the preferred means of exchange when any trade did take place. Two scholarly constructs in particular have given rise to this conventional view—(1) the (Karl) Polanyi–(Moses) Finley paradigm; and (2) the essentialist social-scientific concept of the “peasant” as a distinct socioeconomic and cultural human type. In this paper I survey scholarly critiques of both these constructs and show that anthropological field work has in fact revealed the following to be the two fundamental characteristics of agrarian societies actually studied on the ground: (1) marked socioeconomic inequalities within village communities, which are key to understanding their internal dynamics; and (2) a multiplicity of economic strategies employed by rural people in order to procure their livelihood, which include combining the cultivation of holdings with tenancy and wage labor, and/or with small-scale commerce and commodity production, as well as working in the transportation of goods, all of which involve market participation and not just production for self-use. I then survey data from Greco-Roman and Early Byzantine Palestine and Egypt— archaeological, documentary, and literary—which strongly suggest that the same two fundamental characteristics of agrarian societies were predominant in the villages of the ancient world as well. Some of the data from Palestine that I present will soon appear in “Inner Village Life: A Diverse and Complex Phenomenon,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods: Volume 1: Life, Culture, and Society (ed. David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, invited essay, forthcoming). To provide one example from the Egyptian data, whose analysis is part of a larger comparative ongoing project that I am undertaking, a private-land register of 216/17 CE from the village of Philadelphia shows that, while absentee urbanite landowners from both Alexandria and the metropolis of Arsinoe did own significant quantities of land near the village, it was the villagers themselves who owned the majority of it. The land in the hands of the villagers was furthermore very unequally distributed among them. One can estimate the net product of each holding in grain equivalent after subtracting taxes and seed grain, and then incorporate a conservative estimate for the basic subsistence requirements for a family of four in grain equivalent. The result is that the villagers’ holdings varied from one tenth that required for subsistence to almost 35 times subsistence-level (a factor of 350!), with a graduated range of sizes in between these.

This paper advances the thesis that persona-critical analysis may function as an essential, fruitful sub-method of performance criticism. The utility of persona-criticism is particularly evident in the analysis of psalms and their ancient enactments. The selected examples for this paper (Pss 89 and 101) illustrate how significant performance criticism may be to understanding the Psalter’s poetry. The paper will develop the primary thesis in three stages: theoretical, historical, and canonical. The first step is to describe and justify persona criticism as a relevant hermeneutical tool for ancient Near Eastern poetic texts. The underlying theory is that the speaker or speakers in a given psalm are correctly identified as literary personae (and are therefore distinct from the historical author). The postmodern theory and consequent methodology may be related to ancient poetic texts by establishing the aspect of poetic voice as a phenomenon of poetry. This phenomenon is demonstrable not only in the Hebrew Psalter, but in other Northwest Semitic, Akkadian, and Mesopotamian texts as well. The paper then considers how poetic persona functions in the performance of a psalm. While recognizing that the Psalter has more than one historical backdrop (cultic and exilic), the focus here is on the temple’s celebration of the royal throne – hymnody performed in the animation of monarchy. The intersection of persona and performance teases out an interesting discovery: royal psalms like Pss 89 and 101 do not merely demonstrate but formulate royal ideology; singing the psalm shapes the king. Psalms 89 and 101 are finally recast in their canonical setting, functioning as a “royal envelop” of sorts for the enthronement series (Pss 96-99) that plays a central role in the theology of the Psalter. Within their literary setting Psalms 89 and 101 continue to realize their formative capacity, reshaping kingship and, in doing so, reorienting the canonical Psalter’s audience in a coordinated effort to address the problem of exile.

In recent years the publication and in some cases public exhibition of papyri, originally from Egypt, transmitting glamorous lost ancient texts, have stirred polemics on their provenance and acquisition circumstances. The Artemidorus papyrus, the Gospel of Judas codex, the so-called Jesus wife papyrus, and more recently the London Sappho papyrus and the Green collection papyri have been presented in the media as surrounded by an allure of mystery, which has intrigued the wider audience, but in fact has more to do with the scarcity or quality of information given on their purchase. The aim of this paper is to provide a wider context for these famous cases. I will survey post-1951 (the year of the issue of the Egyptian law n. 215 on the protection of antiquities) acquisitions of papyri by both private collectors and public institutions in order to discuss questions and problems relating in particular to three areas: public access to data on the acquisition of papyri, publication and professional association policies, and academics’ communication with the media.

The authorship and purpose of Ephesians are among the most debated issues in NT studies. This paper resulted from the study of braided narratives across Pauline texts, and it is consistent with the works of Geertz, Turner, Strecker, and DeMaris. When following this innovative methodology that traces braided narrative, a new reading of Ephesians emerged. It is a reading that speaks directly to those contested historical and theological issues. This new reading is not arguing that an actual ceremony occurred beyond the performance of the letter being read aloud before many assemblies. This paper foregrounds the ritual pattern in the epistle that is revealed when the braided narratives are traced across the letter’s exousiological passages. That ritual pattern presents a cosmological model aiming to inspire a particular sense of the divine, a certain sort of devotional mood in the letter’s first audiences. If Ephesians is read attentively for exousiological language, as a ceremony, two facts become plain. First, the writer of Ephesians knew how the principalities and powers passages bound together Paul’s revelatory story-telling, like his Damascus Road experience and his direct paraenesis concerning the everyday life of the assembly – the writer expanded the binding pattern to shape the entire work. Second, Ephesians is a ceremonial text wherein a patterned ritual is spoken out as it is read and heard. The author of Ephesians took Pauline internarrativity and ‘wrote it large’ in order to structure a letter that contains an apostolic commissioning ceremony. Just as Paul was called and commissioned (not converted), so too are the saints recognized as already being with God but then called for re-tasking, just as Paul was. The ceremony is not announced to the audience but arises as the order and substance of the principalities and powers passages are revealed: a preparatory Eucharist, then the commissioning, and finally an investiture. The letter is clearly divided by theological and practical content at the second or central cardinal moment of the veiled ritual. That central moment is the reason for the letter: “the holy ones of Ephesus” are commissioned into Paul’s apostolic ministry.

The topics of healing and disability have become useful categories of investigation for scholars of ancient Jewish literature (e.g., Hogan [1992], Avalos [1995], and Abrams [1998]). The Qumran texts, too, have lent themselves to studying disability in Second Temple Judaisms (see especially Dorman [2007]). Yet, no scholar has specifically discussed the meaning(s) of the exclusions of persons with disabilities by the Qumran community, nor why a person with a disability, seeking healing, might join a community with such strict regulations concerning persons with disabilities. What, then, does the exclusion of disabled persons produce, on the one hand, for the Qumran community and, on the other hand, for the disabled persons who are part of that community? Following this line of reasoning we may think of the Qumran community as a social body focused on producing certain things through their religious laws. My thesis is that exclusion of persons with disabilities at Qumran produces (1) divine presence and authority for the sectarians, and (2) healing for the disabled sectarians. First, I will demonstrate how exclusion of sectarians with disabilities produces purity that allows for divine presence, atonement of sins, and revelation at Qumran. Secondly, and utilizing insights from John Pilch (2000), I will explain how the exclusion of persons with disabilities fosters healing for sectarians with disabilities by explaining how the sectarians: (A) provide ‘personal and social meaning’ for persons with disabilities, (B) effect behavioral transformation that mirrors a particular society’s conception of health, and (C) offer a ‘new or renewed’ reason to live for those with disabilities.

A number of scholars turn to the categories of “satire,” “parody,” or “irony” as a means of explaining the Book of Revelation’s distasteful (to us) use of violent fantasy. For example, David Barr writes, “John does not imitate the Roman imperial system so much as he makes a burlesque of it, a parody, a radical inversion of roles and power.” According to Harold Maier, Revelation uses “irony and parody to champion resistance to empire” and such features “may help Christian communities feel less at home in the American Rome.” Indeed, such articulations of Revelation as satire or parody appear largely driven by a modern desire to make this ancient text ideologically palatable. Alternatively, some have offered nuanced proposals on the relationship between Revelation and Rome, while still accepting “satire” or “parody” as operative categories in the work (e.g., Stephen D. Moore, Greg Carey). As yet, however, very little attention has been given to a discussion of what we mean by “satire” or “parody.” In this presentation, I offer a Foucauldian-inspired genealogy of satire and parody in their ancient and modern contexts, demonstrating their fluid complexity in antiquity and ideological deployment in contemporary settings. Taking up Roman exemplars of satire (e.g., Lucilius, Horace, Persius, Juvenal), I examine the relation between the satirist and society, how satirists typically shaped their genre, and its roots in Greek Old Comedy. In our modern context, one finds a rather unreflective use of the category “satire” or “parody”—from public figures as diverse as Jon Stewart and Robin Thicke—as a means by which one escapes criticism. This paper offers a comparative analysis of Revelation’s features that are purportedly “satirical” with the discursive strategies of ancient Roman satirists. While limited similarities may be seen here, typical scholarly uses of this category for John’s Apocalypse more closely resemble an uncritical popular usage offering the author a “pass” on his most disturbing language. If Revelation’s fantasies are mockery and not misogyny (for instance), then John is a champion of resistance and not simply (for progressive Christian scholars) an unfortunate inclusion in the canon. Rather, I argue, John should be seen as participating in Roman cultural discourse, negotiating his place within a complex arrangement of social interactions and power dynamics with the best discursive tools he had. Indeed, such discursive practices are not unlike Roman satirists, who came from divergent social backgrounds but often sought to define and defend true Romanness with their rhetorical jabs. In the final analysis, the categories of “satire” or “parody” cannot be employed to frame John as a champion of anti-imperial resistance nor can it offer him immunity from modern critical eyes. My presentation thus promotes more precise and responsible usage of these categories in the interpretation of John’s Apocalypse.

It is a favorite pastime among scholars who work with “rewritten” scriptural materials to pronounce on which texts truly merit the label. Although Géza Vermès included some targumim in his description of “Rewritten Bible” when he coined the term, most subsequent critics have left translations entirely out of account. In studies of Second Temple treatments of biblical figures or stories, the Septuagint is often ignored completely except in places where its tradition departs significantly from that which became the Masoretic Text. But translation, at least as conceived in literary disciplines outside of biblical studies, is never anything but an act of “rewriting.” Even in cases such as Genesis, where the LXX offers a reasonably “literal” or “quantitative” rendering of something approximating a proto-MT, the lexical and syntactic features of the Greek draw on a pool of cultural data, encoded in language, that is irreducibly distinct from that of its Vorlage. In this paper I seek both to enter the LXX more firmly into the conversation on rewritten scripture and to suggest an alternative approach to reading rewritten materials, pursuing these issues through a narrative-critical reading focused on Sarra, a figure whose characterization in the LXX has been little studied. My reading highlights a variety of pressures on Sarra’s individuation that emphasize her utility to the fulfillment of the divine promises. Along the way, I discuss a number of literary features unique to the LXX, such as lexical motifs and a cluster of ambiguous gender notes, in a bid to demonstrate that rewritten compositions, even translations such as the LXX, merit literary consideration on their own terms. Even basic misunderstandings, I argue, can contribute to thematic links within a translation that increase literary cohesion and interest. More broadly, I suggest that a narrative-critical approach, with its insistence on considering the linear sweep of a narrative, allows a version’s distinctive features to emerge more clearly than in traditional models that emphasize small-scale synoptic contrasts. In this way, narrative-critical methods may also have something to offer to the comparative enterprise that motivates many investigations into the rewritten materials.

The depiction of the desire between the two lovers in the Song of Songs seems contrary to understandings of desire elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as primarily male, dangerous, and something to be controlled. Feminist scholarship the Song has generally interpreted these more egalitarian constructions as liberating. Representative of this viewpoint is Phyllis Trible, who once lauded the Song as having “no male dominance, no female subordination, and no stereotyping of either sex” [Phyllis Trible, “Love’s Lyrics Redeemed,” in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 161]. While such egalitarian constructions of desire are present in the Song, it is not free from other gender constructions originating within its greater cultural milieu. The Song employs metaphorical imagery rooted in ancient Near Eastern war language that undermines the egalitarian and equitable portrayals of love between the man and woman. The paper will begin by exploring the construction of the man as a warrior-king in chapters 3 and 5, drawing on the work of Mark W. Hamilton on the royal body in ancient Israel. Next, in connection with Cynthia R. Chapman’s work on gendered war language, I will connect the warrior-king motif to architectural imagery in the Song that describes the woman as a city to be conquered (4:4, 6:4, 7:5, 8:8–10). Furthermore, the imagery of the warrior-man and the city-woman undermines the potentially liberating aspects of the Song, closing with the woman still unable to tend her own vineyard (1:6; cf. 8:12).

In Juvenal’s Satires (5.74-5) a diner in a socially-mixed gathering is chided by a server for choosing from the wrong bread platter; the offender should have known to pick an inferior bread to pick from its colour, relative to his modest status. While bread was a staple throughout the ancient Mediterranean, its forms and substances varied, and its significance as a marker of status likewise, according to three factors in particular: the species of the grain used; the fineness of the grind and the amount of sifting applied; and the presence or absence of leaven. The first and last are somewhat familiar from biblical texts; the juxtaposition of wheat and barley is an ancient commonplace, and a negative concern about leaven is familiar. The issue of leaven however is potentially misleading, since leaven was generally desirable, and the rising process time-consuming and hence expensive. Each of these three factors will be discussed here, in relation to a set of ancient Jewish, NT and early Christian texts.

On February 27, 2014, Paramount Pictures added the following disclaimer to the marketing materials for the soon to be released Darren Aronofsky film, “Noah”: “The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the book of Genesis.” From its emergence in the late 19th century until the present day, cinema has embraced the Bible and its treasure trove of narrative gems. These cinematic re-visionings of the Bible, from the sword and sandal epics of Hollywood’s golden age to the digital spectacles of the 21st century, all promise to expand our understanding of these old stories, such that the Bible becomes more than we imagined. The results are frequently less than satisfying and often controversial. Drawing on the history of the reception of the Bible on film, emerging data on the status of biblical literacy in North America, the increasing radicalization of the religious right, and with particular reference to Aronofsky’s film, this paper will respond to the question of why such a disclaimer was deemed necessary for this film, at this time.

This paper will contain essential elements of achieving a working knowledge of biblical Hebrew. More than the ability to reach academically bound students, teaching Hebrew to future congregational leaders demands factors that compel self-initiated student participation from the first day of class and beyond. Moreover, the paper will discuss a strategic grammatical, syntactical, and lexical minimum through which a student can have success in translating a text. Finally, it will propose a realistic goal for the acquiring and appropriation of a working knowledge of biblical Hebrew and how that supports the ongoing use of it in congregational leaders’ professional lives.

The Gospel of Mark’s ending not only serves as an enigmatic conclusion to an equally enigmatic narrative, but it also, through its notably absent resurrected body and invitation to return to a narrative past, presents an opening for re-conceptualizations of the messianic and justice. Engaging primarily with Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, this paper will explore the potentialities opened by the Markan narrative’s ending for reimagining concepts of presence. Of interest, first, for this paper is the extent to which Jesus’ body is constructed as an entity of the past, dead and gone. Here, mourning, loss, and a focus on what was reinforce Jesus’ death. The narrative’s movement toward absolute loss, however, is interrupted by the absence of Jesus’ raised body. It is in this moment his figure, as a specter, becomes ever more active. That is, the ghostly body’s vitality and activity is announced only in its absence. In fact, the messenger’s invitation to follow Jesus to Galilee heightens this discontinuity and introduces a severe temporal disjunction by invoking the narrative past and exploring the uncertainty and hopefulness of a future. At this point Derrida’s messianic figures prominently in this paper’s analysis. While the other three Gospels privilege the presence of a material body, a Derridean analysis of this passage allows for an expanded notion of what a body might look like and, more importantly, opens the possibility for the immanence of justice-to-come. In other words, the women at the tomb are called to return to the events expressed earlier in the narrative, at the very moment they are called to look for their savior through the promise of a future meeting. And while Derrida’s famous prayer, “Come!” is replaced by an injunction to “Go!” in this passage, the openness to a messiah who refuses to conform to an ontological presence allows for the very imminence of a future yearned for.

The hexaplaric fragments of Job are found in various Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Armenian sources. This paper will provide a comparative analysis of the chief witnesses to the hexaplaric fragments of Job, namely, the Syro-hexapla and the Greek catena tradition. The results of this study will help to determine the provenance of each source and evaluate the textual quality of the hexaplaric fragments preserved in both sources. An analysis of the internal evidence of these sources is important for establishing the history of the Hexapla for the book of Job and perhaps for other books.

The caste system is permeated by a ‘culture of violence’ against Dalit women. Dominant caste men grow up in a culture that reinforces in them daily their caste privilege and socio-economic power over Dalit women, and thereby their rights over Dalit women’s bodies per se, as well as their right to utilize these bodies as means by which to punish both Dalit women and men transgressors of the ‘natural’ caste and gender hierarchies. This in turn, reproduces the gender and caste divisions on which these same forced practices of discrimination and sexual violence are based. The Indian state bolsters this system by its failure to adequately investigate and prosecute sexual violence against Dalit women, sending a message of impunity to male actors in sexual crimes against these women. This selective tolerance by state authorities of sexual violence against socially excluded Dalit women effectively legitimizes this violence against Dalit women as a group, by subverting the democratic rule of law to the rule of caste. This paper seeks to analyze and interpret Ezekiel 23: 22-34 against this background using the tools of feminist hermeneutics.

The religious culture of ancient Near Eastern civilizations was highly technical and expressive. In the case of ancient Egypt and Israel, we are faced with two cultures that had great religious ingenuity, and had reached such an eminent state, for the most part, independently of one other. The cult rituals undertaken in both countries demanded a sacred structure, specialists, and high revenue. In the course of this paper, I will describe and investigate the religious symbolism behind the founding of Egyptian cult temples of the New Kingdom (c.1550-1070 BC) and the First Temple of ancient Israel. Specifically, I will focus on the foundation ritual stages as it relates to the king and his relationship with the concept of 'order'. Consequently, reference will be made to the affinities and dissimilarities between both cult rituals (ancient Egypt and Israel) and their underlying rational. I will also apply anthropological material from ritual studies as to shed light on the ‘meaning’ of such rituals. This paper, however, is aimed at being illustrative, rather than all-inclusive analysis of the subject matter.

In the introduction to her translation of Pseudo-Athanasius’s Life and Activity of the Holy and Blessed Teacher Syncletica, Elizabeth Castelli notes that the saint’s “illness and eventual death became a special form of ascetic practice—the endurance of illness.” While The Life of Saint Syncletica is not unusual in its depiction of a saint suffering illness, it is remarkable for its potent descriptions of disease and the ensuing bodily decay she endures and the concomitant vivid descriptions of visual and olfactory assault. In her later analysis of the text, Castelli demonstrates its challenge to “binary oppositions as the producers of…cultural meanings and practices,” because the Life does not polarize body and soul, but rather, blurs their distinctions, their roles, and their goals. More recently Derek Kruger and Virginia Burrus have each heeded Castelli’s call for anti-dualistic readings of this text and demonstrated the materiality and likewise instability of text and flesh, spirit and logos. Suzanne Bost has shown the use of illness and disease by Chicana feminist writers and artists in order to demonstrate the ways in which “corporeal upheaval” is a challenge to the “individuality and predictability (indeed, the identity) of identity.” By bringing these scholars into conversation, this paper argues that the fifth-century hagiographical Life and Activity of the Holy and Blessed Teacher Syncletica describes an ascetic subject that is relational to its desert environment and community. Syncletica’s holiness is determined not simply by the very vivid descriptions of her ailing and decaying body and the pain inflicted upon her, but also by her students and fellow ascetics who suffer with her and attempt to care for her. As such, it can only be described in concert with these relational aspects and then only characterized by its permeability, relationality, and precariousness. Reading this hagiography along with Bost’s analysis of Chicana feminist literature and the work of more recent scholarship on this text allows for a different interpretation of the function of illness and disease: not as the opposite of health and wellness, nor simply as a rhetorical tool for describing the ascetic subject, but instead an understanding of subjectivity hinged on the materiality of the body and its interaction with its environment, its community.

Biblical art, as many scholars have argued, not only is inspired by the biblical world but it is a cultural force that re-interprets the biblical text. Pictorial representations usually have an ideological agenda of their own (in terms of gender, sexuality, class, race, nationality, etc.), sometimes reinforcing the status quo, sometimes challenging it, but always altering the way we look back at the biblical source. In the present paper I put in dialogue two paintings in order to show how their respective sexual ideologies deconstruct each other, and to illustrate the ways in which such deconstruction invites a radical reading of the biblical text. First, I offer the example of Saint Martin of Tours as a paradigm of “Christian Caritas.” His story as narrated by biographers in the fourth century and portrayed later in the seventeenth century by Van Dyck is inspired by Matthew 25:31-45. The painter advances a visual representation of Christian moral excellence, producing a cultural product that represents a dominant tradition in Christian social and personal ethics. Second, I introduce the story of Pero and Cimon as a “counter-text,” as an example of a pagan source that deconstructs and queers such mainstream moral tradition. The pictorial representation of this myth by Rubens in the seventeenth century offers a sample of “Caritas Romana” that challenges traditional dichotomies between eros and agape, and calls for a queer reading of Matthew 25:31-45.

This paper will explore how parts of Ps 22 can be read in the voice of a woman.