This contribution will look at the Qur’anic understanding of “succession” (خلف), and more precisely how this concept is present in surat al-An‘am. The literary context of this surah deals, among other themes, with the prophets and communities that came before the Prophet and Muslim ummah, and with what does it mean to believe or to disbelieve. From at least the verse 146 onwards, the surah handles the question of continuity of the Prophet’s ummah with these previous communities. The structure of the surah then culminates in its last verse with the formula that is mentioned in the title of this contribution (“It is He who made you successors on the earth…” [transl. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem], Q. 6:165). This important formula also appears in some other Meccan surahs, as other motifs of the last verse also appear in Medinan surahs (cf. for example the concept of the “test”, بلو). Here lies our first question: What does the idea of “succession” mean in this literary context? But we need to take into account also another essential perspective that looks at the processes of othering, how they are laid out in this surah (cf. for example verses Q. 6:53.65.69.108.159). The differentiation between “We” and “Them”, or between the people who are “In” or “Out” of a specific group, is a probably natural (or better: historical or cultural) part of human societies, both in the history and in the present times. This contribution thus deals with a question, how the concept of “succession” copes with this continuity and also discontinuity of Muslim ummah with other communities? And what stance it encourages to take in the inter-communal relations and between the people of respective communities, both religious and cultural? In what ways it acknowledges the other communities and in what ways it emphasizes the differences apparent in the other communities? It will be shown that it just balances on the edges of the frontiers. “Succession” acknowledges the boundaries between communities, but at the same time, it transcends them.

In 1 Sam 13:13–14, Samuel declares that Saul's kingdom (מַמְלָכָה) will not be established (כון) forever (עַד־עוֹלָם), and this pronouncement functions as a turning point in 1 Samuel as Saul's reign transitions to David's. Though מַמְלָכָה in 1 Sam 13:13–14 is often translated as "kingdom," commentators frequently interpret these verses to refer not just to the end of Saul's reign but also to the end of his dynasty, which leads them to conclude that Jonathan has already been disqualified from succeeding Saul at this point in the narrative. Although מַמְלָכָה lexically refers to "kingship" rather than "dynastic succession," the interpretation of 1 Sam 13:13–14 is influenced by accompanying phrases—עַד־עוֹלָם and a form of the verb כון—especially since these same lexemes also appear in 2 Sam 7:12–16, which more clearly pertains to dynastic succession. This presentation will argue that these connections with 2 Sam 7:12–16 have influenced the interpretation of 1 Sam 13:13–14 and stretched מַמְלָכָה beyond its semantic range. That is, 1 Sam 13:13–14 refers to the end of Saul's reign but not his dynasty, and thus does not imply whether or not Jonathan is eligible to succeed Saul as king. Thus, interpretations of מַמְלָכָה offer different accounts of Jonathan's prominent role in 1 Sam 14—and to the function of Jonathan's character in the whole of 1 Samuel. By contrast with 1 Sam 13:13–14, in 2 Sam 3:10; 7:12–16, a series of key words indicate dynastic succession, showing that dynastic succession is not lexically denoted by מַמְלָכָה alone. In 2 Sam 3:10; 7:12–16, "house" (בַּיִת) and "throne" (כִּסֵּא) specify dynastic succession when מַמְלָכָה appears, and these juxtapositions serve as evidence that מַמְלָכָה alone does not denote dynastic succession. Additionally, "seed" (זֶרַע) is used in monarchic contexts to refer to descendants of kings who will reign after them, as in 2 Sam 7:12. Here and elsewhere in the Deuteronomistic History, it is these words, rather than עַד־עוֹלָם and כון, that qualify מַמְלָכָה to indicate a dynasty.

One significant word present in the Institution Narratives of the Last Supper in the New Testament (Mt 26:26–29; Mk 14:22–25; Lk 22:14–23; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26) is the word cup (τὸ ποτήριον). One word that is conspicuously absent is the word for wine (ὁ οἶνος). While it is safe to assume that the cup does contain wine, this lack of reference to wine is one that invites explanation. The use of τὸ ποτήριον for ὁ οἶνος has sometimes be explained to be a metonym. In this paper, I will argue that the use of τὸ ποτήριον for ὁ οἶνος was an intentional act by the writers of these narratives. Since ὁ οἶνος is not a rare word in the New Testament, the gospel writers’ reluctance to use it is bizarre. I argue that this reluctance comes from the complicated relationship that Second Temple Judaism had with wine. (De Vita Contemplativa). This relationship flowed into some Rabbinic writings (y. Šab. 1.4; Avodah Zarah 5.5). It was a relationship that swung between acceptance with moderation or total avoidance. While it was not entirely prohibited, it posed problems: its associations with intoxication and pagan rituals, for example was always a concern for the religious leaders. Therefore, the status of wine was not helped by the fact that it is a common element in pagan cults and social banqueting tradition. By using “cup,” the worshipers could shift the focus from the wine itself to the “wine giver.” This explains the consistent use of cup as a metonym for wine in many ritual contexts (cf. the four cups of the Passover Seder). In a sense, the τὸ ποτήριον is always more than ὁ οἶνος. I will argue that the use τὸ ποτήριον for ὁ οἶνος, reached a complete circle when some early Christians replaced wine with water in the celebration of their communal meals. The use of water in place of wine among some early Christ groups is a well-attested phenomenon and should be seen as a gradual but natural development that, given the consistent downplaying of the element, it will one day be replaced among some Christians, by a less controversial element. The desire to replace wine with water might have also been inspired by the words of Jesus signifying abstinence from the fruit of the vine until he would drink it ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ as in Mark 14:25.

Morton Smith’s discovery (1958) and publication (1973) of a previously unknown and otherwise unattested letter of Clement of Alexandria with its quotations from a previously unknown and otherwise unattested “more spiritual” (pneumatikōteron) and “secret/mystical” (mystikon) Gospel of Mark may well pose an intractable problem. Debate over the authenticity of the letter remains unsettled, either because the text is indeed what it purports to be, or because it is perhaps the boldest and most well-executed modern forgery of an ancient manuscript, ever. Given that vetting has proceeded now for half a century, or more, one might assume all the important data have already been combed over. But I don’t think that’s the case. Some scholars have argued the letter depends on Eusebius’ Church History, where the composition of the canonical Gospel of Mark is discussed more than once and where the statements of Papias and Clement himself are preserved, especially bk.6, where Eusebius says Clement said that after Mark then John wrote a “spiritual” (pneumatikon) gospel. This line of research goes back to Johannes Munck who commented on Smith’s pre-publication draft in the 1960s, and it includes Francis Watson’s much more recent study (2010). The striking comparandum that seems to have been overlooked decade after decade, though, is the letter of Serapion on the Gospel of Peter, also found in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., bk.6, right before the discussion of Clement’s works and Clement’s views on the order and composition of the gospels. The letter of Serapion and the purported letter of Clement parallel one another in that they each address a situation in which an extracanonical (version of a) gospel has been allegedly interpolated by heretics. The big difference is that a copy of the Gospel of Peter was discovered in the 1880s and published in the 1890s, independent of Serapion’s letter, apud Eusebius; whereas no such copy of Secret Mark has ever surfaced – just the copy of Clement’s letter that Smith said he pulled off the shelf at Mar Saba. What are the odds? Did Serapion and Clement in fact write similar letters under similar circumstances, one of which Eusebius had and reproduced, the other not, while somehow managing to put Serapion’s letter about a heretically interpolated gospel and Clement’s statement about a ‘more spiritual gospel’ together in the same book of his Church History? Or did Morton Smith base the Letter of Clement to Theodore in part on Eusebius, Hist. eccl., bk.6? I incline towards the theory of modern forgery but leave the question open as I present this neglected datum.

The Taʾwīlāt ahl al-Sunnah of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) has received little attention in academic literature. It represents a rare instance of an entire tafsīr work written by a scholar primarily known for kalām (Islamic dialectical theology). There are several conclusions of my research on this work. First, it encourages us to reconsider the genre of tafsīr as Qurʾanic commentary or exegesis as a discipline in of itself. Rather, in the early period, writing commentaries was an act of knowledge of production of many disciplines. Māturīdī’s tafsīr work lies no more in the supposed discipline of commentary than does al-Ṭaḥāwī’s (d. 321/933) Aḥkām al-Qurʾān. Rather, the former lies in kalām and the latter in fiqh. To what extent should we reconsider then the aims and purposes of their contemporaries and predecessors in tafsīr? Should al-Ṭabarī’s work fall in the discipline of taʾrikh? When does the discipline of tafsīr qua tafsīr originate? Second, the different styles, and occasionally positions, demonstrated by Māturīdī in his Taʾwilāt as compared to his Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, suggest that Maturīdi was conscious of certain hermeneutical concerns necessarily involved when writing kalām in the genre on tafsīr. Third, the Taʾwilāt illustrates how the epistemological concerns of the exegete’s primary discipline carry over in to their tafsīr work. In this case, as a scholar of kalām, Māturīdī’s primary concern is truth and certainty of meaning and belief, and levels thereof. This is likely the reason he is one of the earliest to employ the hermeneutical category of taʾwīl and employ it in contrast to tafsīr. Finally, Māturīdī’s act of writing a tafsīr suggests that we should reconsider the intellectual history of kalām as a discrete discipline. It would be both unfair and inaccurate to view Māturīdī as only a mutakallim. This does not suggest that we must necessarily insist that he was a polymath. Rather, early tafsīr works demonstrate a quest for meaning that was shared by scholars of both kalām and fiqh and hence knowledge in the early period may be characterized more broadly as epistemology, theological and legal, rather than cast in disciplinary rubrics.

In the context of the seventh to fifth century BCE, Egypt holds a seminal place in biblical literature as a safe haven. From a diaspora point of view, it is the “other;” in contrast to the epicenter of the dominant Judean Diaspora communities in Babylonia/Persia. Egypt eventually becomes the home to the LXX (in contrast to the MT). In the Prophets, Jeremiah’s last days are situated in Egypt (post 582), whereas Ezekiel is in Babylon. In the Pentateuch, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph each respectively migrate to Egypt. In Joseph’s diaspora novella, Egypt indeed becomes home. Joseph assimilates and becomes a “true” Egyptian – with an Egyptian wife, and two sons born through an Egyptian mother. Ephraim represents the Northern Kingdom. All of the North then, is of Egyptian blood. This is telling. Since the works of B. Porten, E. Seidl, G. K. Tepstad, A. Botta, R. Steiner, T. Holm, and others, the archives from Elephantine and the Amherst papyrus have offered tremendous new insights on Jewish or Judeo-Aramean and Samaritan communities in Egypt. More recently, Karl van der Toorn (2019) in Becoming Diaspora Jews has offered an important thesis, namely, the Elephantine Jews came from Samaria. Van der Toorn in passing notes that it was the third generation in Babylon that sparked religious nationalism. How does this translate to the communities in Egypt? This paper begins with the importance of generational consciousness within the diaspora communities, demarcating differences between the Persian and Egyptian-Elephantine points of views. Then, we highlight and underscore the three important markers of identity and community by the Jewish communities of Elephantine (or Egypt): (1) the 410 BCE event as a repeats of 721 and 587 BCE, (2) to be Judean, Samaritan, or Aramean, and insights from (3) Papyrus Amherst 63.

The completion of the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1990s gave rise to a lively scholarly conversation about how to characterize the manuscript corpus as a whole. The scrolls are often presented as a homogeneous unity or an intentional collection, but at the same time they are heterogeneous on many different levels: historically, religiously, linguistically, and literary. The challenge in this context is how to move from the analyses of individual compositions to the social reality of one or more communities behind these texts. In this paper I wish to consider the question of literary diversity in the scrolls and think about in which ways individual manuscripts (both from Qumran and elsewhere) can help us assess this issue. The opisthograph 4Q509/4Q496/4Q506 offers an intriguing example. Since opisthographs can carry multiple compositions on one manuscript, they can demonstrate which texts in antiquity were read, studied, and/or collected together. On this manuscript parts of Festival Prayers, the War Scroll, and Words of the Luminaries are preserved collectively. This opisthograph therefore consists of an internal collection of different texts that are generally not grouped together in scholarly classifications. In this paper I will take this manuscript as a case study to investigate literary heterogeneity within the collection, and evaluate how individual texts are categorised and grouped together within scholarship. Subsequently, I will compare this manuscript with Herculaneum papyrus 1021. In terms of both the size and date of the collection, the Villa of the Papyri from Herculaneum provides a relatively close parallel to Qumran. PHerc 1021 is considered to be the provisional draft of the History of the Academy by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. The manuscript consists of extracts from several compositions dealing with Plato’s Academy, together with marginal notes, additions, corrections, and other signs of active scribal involvement. As such, PHerc 1021 demonstrates how an opisthograph could function as (1) a collection of texts from many different sources, and (2) as a rough draft of a new composition. I propose that PHerc 1021 presents us with a striking parallel for the collection of extracts from different texts on one opisthograph. The Qumran opisthograph displays a similar case for textual variety: extracts were selected and brought together from different compositions (both sectarian and non-sectarian) on one manuscript, which indicates that these texts were not only deposited together, but also actively read and discussed by different people collectively. In the process of bringing texts together on a different manuscript, new meaning can be created. The presence of extracts from the War Scroll together with extracts from prayer texts for fixed occasions compels us to think about this manuscript as a liturgical document. Clustering ancient texts is not a neutral affair. How we group different texts together influences our perception of each of those texts individually. Opisthographs can provide internal collections of texts, and as such help us to critically think about our methods of both clustering and separating texts from each other based on content and genre alone.

The uneasy relationship between Evangelicals and Pentecostals was made even more difficult in the wake of Trump’s rise to power in 2016. Always considered like spiritual stepchildren within the greater evangelical movement, Pentecostals have sought to play the evangelical game only to be burned over and over again. Are Pentecostals accepted as true Evangelicals? Or are they always not sufficiently evangelical enough with regard to matters of doctrine? As a Latinx Pentecostal, the issue becomes doubly problematic for the notion of what it means to be a card-carrying theological evangelical is made more complicated by matters of social and political perspective. This paper argues that whereas in the past an “Evangélicostal” label may have worked to playfully allude to the convergence of Evangelical and Latinx Pentecostal identity, it is no longer an acceptable descriptor to account for the subsuming incorporation of Latinx Pentecostals under the Evangelical umbrella. The main reasons for this declaration will be explained under the following themes: the historical antecedents of difference, Latinx Pentecostal theological otherness, and embracing the gospel of social justice.

In my remarks I will present the triad of the "sword, plague, and hunger" as a perspective for which to compare and illuminate the ways that several current-day communities are encountering the exacerbation of food insecurity as a result of the pandemic on top of situations already strained by war and structural inequality.

In I Corinthians 11 Paul addresses the subject of head covering in the church for men and women. In verse 5 Paul argues that "any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head". In order to strengthen his argument that a woman should cover her head in church, Paul goes on to discuss the relationship between head covering and creation. In verses 8-12 Paul differentiates between the creation story, in which Eve was created from Adam, and the subsequent order of creation, in which man is born of woman. Paul states in verse 12: "For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God". Paul's rhetorical trajectory, from Adam and Eve to the normal order of procreation, is found almost word for word in rabbinic sources. Rabbinic parallels include: Genesis Rabbah, Parashah 8:9 (Theodor-Albeck, p. 63), Parashah 22:2 (Theodor-Albeck, p. 206), Yerushalmi Berakhot 9:1 (12d), Bavli Qiddushin 30b and Bavli Niddah 31a. Some of these parallels were noted by previous scholars, beginning with Strack and Billerbeck (1. Brief an die Korinther, p. 440), and including studies by Madaleine Boucher, Mary Rose D'Angelo, Burton Visotzky and others. These scholars differ on the question of how to view the relationship between the motif as found in the first century Pauline epistle and its formulation in later rabbinic literature. In my view previous scholarship on the issue failed to approach the analysis of the rabbinic sources with sufficient methodological sophistication. In this paper we will first compare the rabbinic sources to one another in order to trace how the tradition developed inside the rabbinic corpus, and only then determine the relationship between Paul and the Jewish tradition. Such an analysis will demonstrate that this parallel follows a common pattern, in which Paul utilizes first century Pharisaic oral traditions at his disposal in order to instruct the community in Corinth. This case offers a fascinating opportunity to examine the relationship between Paul and the Rabbis, due to the almost word for word similarity of the formulations.

The first letter of John employs temporal markers to describe the origin of the author’s imagined community and distinguish it from other Jesus believers by linking the past with the present and future by means of imaginative and genealogical strategies. In particular, the writer of 1 John builds on this argument by attempting to bond people together by imagining a common ancestor (e.g. 1 John 3:1, “we should be called children of God”). This genealogical frame further shapes the self-definition of Jesus followers by defining the community’s temporal, ancestral connection with God. In this presentation, I examine how 1 John represented the past and present in order to describe the meaning of Jesus and to de-legitimate those with whom the author disagreed. I analyze the rhetorical function of these temporal frames to argue that 1 John collapsed the present and the past in order to convince members of the audience that they are genealogically and temporally linked to Jesus and therefore to the Father as well. The condition of genealogical severance between the children of God and the children of the devil, on the other hand, defines the status of 1 John’s imagined opponents as complete outsiders. The community’s bloodline imbues a natural connectedness because descendants embody fragments of their ancestors. 1 John’s images of kinship, family, and religious membership invent a strong sense of fellowship among the Jesus followers, rhetorically differentiating those who deny the truth from those who receive it and who are “born of God” (1 John 2:29, 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 4 and 18). Based on his rhetorical construction of family, the writer creates a boundary between his group and those he describes as his community’s opponents and, in so doing, assures his audience of eternal life through their genealogical connection with God (1:2, 5:13). In this presentation, I investigate the rhetorical representations of temporal markers and structures as discursive devices that reveal the dynamic interactions between past, present, and future as they played in 1 John.

This paper explores the story of Noah’s drunkenness and his blessings/curse upon his sons (Genesis 9: 18-27) through the lens of recent psychological research on ostracism and prejudice, elaborating on how ostracism emerges in normal human development. This is a story of an older Noah, after his life’s major accomplishments, dealing with complex family relationships and leaving his heritage for future generations by defining Israel’s relationships with other peoples who, according to the biblical narrative, populated their world. Starting with Kurt Lewin’s and Gordon Allport’s early research on group interaction, and Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory; this paper draws on recent psychological research on ostracism. It examines how people develop a propensity for social categorization and social comparison; and how these attitudes persist through adulthood. Allport and Lewin’s early ostracism research emphasized the negative effects on victims. But, in the recent social science literature, there has been a surge of interest in the perpetrators or “sources” of ostracism. This narrative is told entirely from the perspective of the source of ostracism, expressing no concern for Ham’s feelings or the impact on him and his Canaanite descendants as victims of ostracism. Though this paper does not focus on the “curse of Ham” and the historical enslavement of blacks, the social psychology research still leads back to ostracism at the individual, family, and nationality levels. This paper maps three kinds of relationships drawn from the psychological research, examining the positive and negative implications of Noah’s blessings and curse. First, Noah’s blessing of Shem reflects “in-group”, relationships: those, with family, core kinship groups and other closely trusted people. Second, Noah’s blessing of Japeth reflects relationships with trusted outsider groups such as allies, friends, and those “others” with whom we sometimes cooperate or interact. Third, Noah’s curse of Ham reflects relationships with “rejected outsiders”: enemies, competitors, and others to be ostracized, defeated, subjected, or condemned. This is a story of positive and negative relationships involving patterns of acceptance and rejection within Noah’s family. The curse of Ham is not only a way to defend Noah’s family from the perceived threat from Ham’s deviant and disrespectful behavior, but also a way to strengthen the bonds within the remaining family kinship group. It also has implications for the Israelites’ relationships with other groups they encountered in their world. The ostracism of Canaanites insulated the Israelites from that perceived threat, while strengthening the internal bonds that increased the vitality and survivability of their community. In order to survive, the Israelites had to respond to the social and political realities around them. Genesis 9:18-27 maps out that world in terms of the Israelites’ relationships with kin, with allies, and with enemies. Seen through a psychological lens, this narrative reflects the underlying social realities in the ancient world and how to manage them effectively.

This paper first explains the methodology used to create a detailed coding of all the syllables of the Masoretic Text. This coding was required for the computational process used to create a complete Interlinear Morphemic Gloss of the MT (www.bhgrammar.com), and it was done in accord with Geoffrey Khan’s account of Tiberian Hebrew phonology. Secondly, the paper analyses this coding to provide an account of the syllable typology of Tiberian Hebrew, in light of cross-linguistic research into syllables by Blevins, WALS, and others. Finally, areas for future research into the Tiberian Hebrew syllable inventory are briefly sketched, such as Tiberian Hebrew's adherence to the Sonority Sequencing Principle, varieties of consonant clusters, phonotactic restrictions (both general and feature-specific), and the complexities of stress and weight in Tiberian Hebrew phonology.

᾽Αδιαλείπτως and its cognate adjective ἀδιάλειτπος (henceforth ἀδιαλειπτ-) are used five times in the Pauline corpus in reference to prayer: three times in remembrance-motifs (Rom 1:9; 1 Thess 1:2; 2 Tim 1:3) and twice elsewhere (1 Thess 2:13; 5:17). The lexemes are presented in lexicons as event-focused frequentative modifiers glossed variously as “constant[ly], unceasing[ly], continual[ly], incessant[ly], unintermittent[ly].” Commentators debate how ἀδιαλειπτ- should applied to Paul’s practice of prayer: does it indicate mystical piety expressed in prayer as a conscious, continuous state of mind, or is it a hyperbolic reference simply to regular times of prayer? Until now, the few resources that engage with the documentary papyri have used them unquestioningly to illustrate ἀδιαλειπτ- as a frequentative modifier (e.g., MM, BDAG, LSJ, TLNT). A fresh examination of papyrological and epigraphical material, however, demonstrates that ἀδιαλειπτ- is polysemous, dictating the need for substantial revision of entries in lexicons such as BDAG, LSJ, and GE. The two senses of ἀδιαλειπτ- indicate a) no lessening of duration of repeated or continuous action, and b) no lessening of certainty of repeated or continuous action. Forty of the fifty attestations of ἀδιαλείπτως from the first century BCE to the sixth CE are in legal documents comprising oaths, agreements, and deeds of surety (ἀδιάλειτπος occurs only once in the papyri prior to the seventh century CE in a letter that probably reflects Pauline usage). In such documents, ἀδιαλείπτως functions as a participant-oriented reinforcing modifier that strengthens performative obligation. It emphasizes the certainty with which goods, services, or labor will be regularly supplied: “without fail” is a suitable gloss. Further attestations in petitions, official and private letters, and inscriptions corroborate this participant-oriented reinforcing sense of certainty. The polysemy of ἀδιαλείπτως challenges customary understanding of the sense of ἀδιαλειπτ- in the Pauline remembrance-motifs. The remembrance-motifs perform a philophronetic function in which the participant-oriented reinforcing sense of certainty is the best fit: “I remember you without fail.” Rather than indicating the frequency of Paul’s intercessory prayers, ἀδιαλειπτ- emphatically reassures Paul’s recipients of his pastoral concern for them and, in doing so, strengthens their inter-personal connections. Furthermore, the uneven distribution of papyrological attestations between legal and non-legal documents indicates that ἀδιαλείπτως is a high-register lexeme best suited to formal environments; even the non-legal attestations occur in formal documents such as petitions or official letters and in personal letters containing indicators of elevated style. Paul’s employment of a high-register lexeme seldom attested in non-legal papyrological documents adds gravitas to the remembrance-motif and heightens the intensity of its sentiment.

Wisdom’s presence in God’s presence at or before creation is well attested in Jewish sapiential traditions. Most famously, in Proverbs 8 Lady Wisdom claims, “When [the Lord] established the heavens, I was there … then I was beside him, like a master worker …” (8:27–30). The locational import of Wisdom’s claim is unambiguous: she was “with” and “beside” the Lord—in God’s presence. Likewise, Sirach opens with the affirmation that “All wisdom is from the Lord and she is with him forever” (1:1). The locational import of Sirach’s assertion that all wisdom is “with the Lord forever,” is similarly unambiguous. The same is true of Solomon’s prayer to God in the book of Wisdom, in which he states, “With you is wisdom, she knows your works and was present when you made the world” (9:9). Given the widespread recognition that the Johannine prologue’s construal of the Logos is in a line of tradition with Sophia in Jewish sapiential traditions, especially Prov 8, Sir 24, and Wis 7, it has become natural to read John 1:1b as virtually all English translations do—that is, as “and the word was with God.” The majority of scholars who have written on the Johannine prologue render the “awkward” Greek clause in this way. Many of these scholars cite the notion that pros can indicate accompaniment in Koine Greek, making it potentially synonymous with para when followed by a noun in the dative case. Nevertheless, unlike the use of para and meta in Proverbs, Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon, the use of pros in John does not unambiguously indicate the Logos’s existence “with” God. Rather, it more naturally refers to the Logos’s Godward directionality. The major hurdle to this interpretation is its apparent awkwardness; its meaning is thought less clear than the simple affirmation of the Logos’s existence in God’s presence in eternity past. This article offers a solution to the problem. Through comparative analysis of the role of intermediary figures in (pre-)cosmogonic discourse in the Timaeus, Alcinous, Numenius, and Philo, this article argues that the reading, “and the Logos was Godward,” is supported by middle-Platonist metaphysics and cosmogony, and thus coheres with and builds on the generally Platonist and Philonic background of the Prologue and its Logos. This reading not only supports the (far) minority translation but also elucidates a neglected aspect of the Prologue’s “riffing” on the Logos (Attridge 2005): John 1:1b is an affirmation that the Logos was Godward in the beginning, and as such, is the paradigm of Godwardness. This fresh reading of the Johannine prologue sheds new light on the Logos’s cosmological and anagogical roles, demonstrating that they are two sides of the same coin, as they were in middle-Platonism. The Logos who was Godward in eternity past, according to our author, is the one who calls and brings humans Godward. Heard anew, John 1:1b is part of John’s affirmation that the Logos is both the paradigmatic cause of humanity and the paradigm of humanity’s Godward destiny.

Angelika Neuwirth observes that the prophets of the Qur'ān are examined almost exclusively through the intertextual approach. The intertextual perspective has produced valuable insight on the Qur'ān’s conceptualization of its former prophets such as Abraham. However, there remains a striking gap in the literature that investigates the literary function of the “biblical” figures within their own textual environment—namely within the context of the sūra in which they are embedded. My paper examines the the story of Abraham’s dispute (ḥujjat ibrāhīm) with his father/community in Q 6:74-84 from an intratextual perspective. Using a literary-critical approach, I argue that the Qur'ānic evocation of Abraham’s argument not only functions as part of the text’s intra-monotheistic polemic, as argued by G.R. Hawting, but it also foregrounds the inner life of a prophet struggling with his community, close kin and self (nafs). The excerpt presents an extended narration of Abraham’s reflections on the heavens and the earth, which are posited throughout sūrat al-An'ām as the ultimate sign (āya) of God’s unique power to create. The passage also hints at the anxiety experienced by Abraham who worries that unless he is guided by his Lord, he will become one of those who goes astray (Q 6:77). From a literary perspective that assumes the Qur'ān’s narrative material to be an integral part of the sūra’s discourse, Abraham’s unease parallels the internal struggle suggested by the sūra’s first person discourse, presumably addressed to the prophet Muhammad. The verses regularly remind its recipient that the former messengers were similarly ridiculed (Q 6:10) and denied (Q 6:34) by their communities, and verse 33 even acknowledges the sadness that this causes the prophet Muhammad. The first section of the paper presents a close reading of Q 6:74-84 alongside the other Qur'ānic scenarios depicting Abraham’s argument with his father/community (19:44-50, 21:50-71, 26:69-104, 29:16-18, 37:83-98, 43:26-29). Drawing on the concept of the type-scene utilized by biblical scholars—most notably Robert Alter—in their examination of biblical variants, I observe the key parallels presented by the Qur'ānic passages. The Qur'ānic type-scene conveying Abraham’s argument resemble in narrative sequence, motifs and formulaic phrasing such as the opening locution, “idh qāla ibrāhīm.” Another important characteristic is the focalization of Abraham’s inner thoughts regarding his community’s idolatry. However, type-scene also differ in important ways that guide our reading of each unique variant and their function within their respective sūras. For example, the passage evoked in sūrat al-An'ām is the only variant that does not emphasize the inadequacies of the idols but rather the wonders of the heavens as evidence of monotheism. The final section of my paper brings these observations to sūrat al-An'ām. I demonstrate that this unique emphasis on the heavens functions as a thematic thread throughout the sūra, which consistently orients its audience towards the natural world. Moreover, it brings into relief the dynamic relationship between God, his creation, the prophets and their communities.

This paper examines how cognitive processes (construal, profiling, and frame semantics) interact with a given socio-cultural setting to affect the structured polysemy of the verb λύω. This verb has senses that exist in seeming contradiction. One might encounter λύω and not recognize its meaning, expecting something like ‘loosen’. In the lexicon, one finds it not only means ‘loosen’ or ‘release’, but also ‘destroy’. But these seem contrary. One is positive and the other negative: freedom vs. destruction. There are, indeed, words with two opposite senses. In English, an apology is a state of contrition, but also an ardent defense of a position. Often such words are learned in such disparate contexts that it can be difficult to integrate them together into a single perspective. Understanding the relation between the two senses of apology would require a language user to take the time to educate themselves into their history (the Greek ἀπολογία). The probable situation is that particular language users simply partition these two senses as homonyms—or, as they are often called, contranyms. The Greek verb λύω might appear similar, seemingly edging into the domain of contranymity. But the mechanism motivating these senses and the structure of the learning process for language users differs vastly from the English apology. Rather than usage divided by social structure and perhaps class, the growth of λύω’s semantics does not appear to be a result of a partitioning of circumstances for its usage. Instead, there is a natural pattern of growth from one sense to another, beginning with λύω’s most central or basic usage. Cognitive linguistic approaches to language acquisition, as well as to embodiment and culture, suggest a way forward to reconstructing semantic structure of λύω and the mental representations that underlay it. Bibliography Bowerman, Melissa, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2001. Language acquisition and conceptual development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cuyckens, Hubert, René Dirven, and John R. Taylor. 2003. Cognitive approaches to lexical semantics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fauconnier, Gilles. 1997. Mappings in thought and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, George. 1990. The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on images schemas? Cognitive Linguistics 1: 39–74. Langacker, Ronald W. 1990a. Concept, image, and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Petruck, Miriam R. L. 1995. Frame semantics and the lexicon: Nouns and verbs in the body frame. Pages 279–97. In Masayoshi Shibatani and Sandra Thompson, eds., Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pütz, Martin, Susanne Niemeier, and René Dirven, eds. 2001. Applied cognitive linguistics. Vol. 1, Theory and language acquisition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tomasello, Michael. 2007. Cognitive linguistics and first language acquisition. Pages 1092-1112. In Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens, eds., The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics. Oxford University Press. Verhagen, Arie. 2007. Construal and Perspectivization. Pages 48-82. In Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens, eds., The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics. Oxford University Press.

The appearance of the mythologeme of Baal’s love for a cow in at least four different Ugaritic literary texts – explicitly or implicitly – accentuates its significance in Ugaritic mythology in general, and in the mythic image of Baal in particular. Nevertheless, according to the extant texts, this mythologeme is very limited; the Ugaritic Baal is never associated with herds or cows, nor does his cow appear in any other texts, such as god-lists or cultic texts. This stands in contrast to the Mesopotamian moon-god, whose love for a cow, recorded in incantations, is in accordance with his image in hymns, works, and iconography as a bull or herdsman possessing a huge herd of cows. Surprisingly, to date this Ugaritic mythologeme has garnered only minor attention in scholarly literature. The present paper thus seeks to trace the sources of this mythologeme, examining its dissemination in the Ancient Near East in general and its unique development in Ugarit in particular. An additional section is devoted to the presumed reflections of the Levantine adaptation of this mythologeme in contemporary and later Mediterranean literature.

Translating the phrase EN XRISTW ‘in Christ’ (and related phrases) in a meaningful way is a recognized translation problem. For centuries, the prevailing English translation tradition has been to render this by (the calque) ‘in Christ’. But English readers today, including trained theologians, often find it difficult to define the phrase, despite centuries of use. We assume that Greek EN indicates, in its most basic sense, a physical location inside of something, but there are several well-recognized extended uses of the preposition, including metaphorical uses that evoke what today in Cognitive Linguistics is recognized as a ‘Container Schema’ (Howe 2006:237). The situation for English ‘in’ is similar. Thus, for Bible readers, when the location indicated by ‘in’ is a person called the Christ and when what is located in Christ cannot be physically inside a person, English speakers naturally seek a metaphorical interpretation, even if they may not agree on a specific meaning (this vagueness is apparently due to the foreignness of the construction). But in the case of translations into Kurdish, a ‘literal’ rendering of ‘in Christ’, especially when people are said to be ‘in Christ’, leads to unacceptable results, since native speakers unfamiliar with the Bible state that the collocation makes it sound like believers are somehow inside of Christ’s physical body, which sounds bizarre or inappropriate. To be sure, there are also extended uses of the Kurdish equivalent of ‘in’, but the particular Kurdish construction of ‘X (is) in Y’, where X and Y are people, normally forces a physical interpretation. Nevertheless, we will illustrate that there are certain contexts where a physical interpretation can be cancelled and a non-physical interpretation is possible (and where a literal rendering is thus acceptable). But, in most cases, translators must turn to a ‘more explicit’ solution, one that necessarily involves taking an exegetical stance. For example, when translating instances of the phrase referring to ‘believers being in Christ’, Kurdish translators have resorted to solutions used in ‘meaning-based’ translations in other languages, where the phrase is interpreted to indicate a social relationship, such that the believer is said ‘to be identified with’, ‘to belong to’, or ‘to be in union with Christ’. In recent decades, such meaning-based solutions have gained widespread circulation in the world of Bible translation, but not without protest. Concordance can of course be lost, especially when multiple solutions are required (depending on context), and readers familiar with a literal rendering of ‘in Christ’ in another language may feel something has been ‘lost’ or ‘changed’. The data presented in this paper illustrates a common translation problem that follows from how different languages can work in both similar and dissimilar ways, and that while some grammatical constructions (as defined in Construction Grammar) may translate well between languages, others do not, due to the arbitrary nature of the pairing of form and function in specific languages. Thus, although Greek EN, English ‘in’ and Kurdish equivalents are to some degree used similarly, there are also significant mismatches in their meaning.

Upon first look, the biblical metaphor of the tree root communicates a simple, dualistic theology of the righteous versus the unrighteous. While the roots of the righteous are said to be strong, planted in nutrient-rich soil, and yielding branches that bear fruit, the roots of the unrighteous are said to decay, to be planted in poor soil, and to be uprooted by YHWH (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:15; Psa 9:6; Prov 2:22, 12:3; Isa 27:6; Jer 17:8). Each iteration of the metaphor has its own nuance but remains embedded in the basic framework of good tree versus bad tree. Upon closer look, the metaphor of the tree root begs an important question: Can a “tree” help where it is planted? This paper examines biblical metaphors that center on the relationship between tree roots and the soil in which they are planted (e.g., Job 8:17, 29:19; Psa 1:3; Isa 65:22; Jer 17:8; Ezek 31:4). Although a tree cannot change the location of its planting, how it navigates its environment can sometimes make the difference between life and death. Other times, it cannot. Does this scientific observation also apply to the groups and individuals to whom these metaphors refer? What does the root metaphor have to suggest about the underlying theology of these particular biblical authors?

This paper documents a recent shift in my teaching the Synoptic Problem to undergraduate students at a state university in the Bible Belt. For several years, I have presented diagrams of the Augustinian, Griesbach, Two-Source, and Farrer Hypotheses along with my own English synopsis (revealing similarities and differences corresponding to the Greek) of the paralyzed man from Matt 9:1–8//Mark 2:1–12//Luke 5:17–26. The diagrams work well as an exam question for students to know that scholars continue to debate the Synoptic Problem. Conversely, the synopsis itself often fails to command critical engagement from students who have been conditioned not to question the biblical text. It’s one thing to compare Mark’s earthen roof with Luke’s tiles, but it’s another thing to miss entirely that Matthew’s scene takes place outdoors with no house at all; yet students can overlook such obvious discrepancies in an attempt to relate the three accounts as “basically the same.” Discerning my students’ (including non-religious ones) proclivity for harmonization, I have turned the tables over the past five semesters in my 100-level New Testament survey, 200-level Jesus in Film general education course, and 300-level elective on the Life of Jesus. I now teach the Synoptic Problem by having students form groups, and I distribute my translations of the paralysis healing on three separate sheets of paper. At that point I simply ask the students to construct a fourth version that harmonizes the three renditions. Through active engagement with the text, the differences become more readily apparent, and no two groups have ever harmonized the three texts in exactly the same way. The whole class discusses their respective editorial decisions, and then we transition to the Synoptists themselves. With their newfound authorial awareness of narrative coherence and rewriting via expansion, contraction, or combination, students are better able to brainstorm which text(s) might have engendered the other(s). In other words, instead of showing learners on the front end how scholars have solved the Synoptic Problem through the centuries, I let students generate solutions themselves. For example, Matthean priority stands to reason if Mark and Luke added the dramatic rooftop entrance to explain how Jesus saw the friends’ faith, and there’s nothing students can imagine that hasn’t been tried at some point in scholarship. Although harmonization may seem antithetical to higher criticism, actively constructing a harmony proves far more enjoyable and pedagogically effective than passively staring at a synopsis.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.

In the United States, opposition to paying reparations, whether to contemporary indigenous, African American, or other communities, often turns on utilitarian and libertarian reasoning—forms of moral logic that regularly serve to underscore both the theoretical and practical difficulties pertaining to making restitution (e.g., social, political, and financial) for historical injustices. The objective (or at least the typical outcome) of such perspectives is to leave the past in the past—to move forward toward a cleaner and less fraught social reality without taking adequate stock of contemporary evidence of negative, ongoing impacts of past injustice. Drawing on the interpretive framework of missional hermeneutics—in particular, the stream focused on missionally located interpretation—this paper examines Jubilee imagery in Leviticus 25 and Luke 4, as well as the narrative of Zacchaeus’s encounter with Jesus in Luke 19—in order to explore an alternative and, for Christians, a more exegetically robust, biblical logic that could support arguments in favor of contemporary reparations, despite theoretical and practical difficulties highlighted by utilitarian and libertarian objections. Scholars have long recognized the historical problematics inherent in the Jubilee texts. The fundamental interpretive question, however, is not a historical one; rather, the critical question, particularly from the perspective of missional hermeneutics, is one of moral logic. This paper will suggest that the Jubilee materials in Leviticus 25 are best understood in terms of communal moral formation. The hermeneutical import of this corpus is less about historicity than about what the text communicates about God and the community of God’s people. In short, the Jubilee points to a set of convictions or values—indeed, a moral logic—to be understood as characteristic of God and the people alike. That logic suggests that it is entirely insufficient to lament contemporary inequities and the ongoing effects of past problems without serious and socially transformative, revolutionary redressing of the past in the present. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s own mission statement (drawn from Second Isaiah) draws on Jubilee imagery, and the story of Zacchaeus provides a vivid moral and missional illustration of how the moral logic of the Jubilee can and, indeed, should function in contexts beyond the specifics of land redistribution in Leviticus 25. Drawing in particular upon the so-called second and third streams within missional hermeneutics, this paper first lays bare the assumptions and logic of biblical moral reasoning relative to the Jubilee and redistribution of capital so as to challenge, at least within the Christian community, attempts to reject contemporary reparations on the basis of other moral logics. And, second, the paper argues positively that active discussion about and concrete enactment of a socially revolutionary process of reparations should be understood as a missional imperative for the contemporary Christian community. In fact, the biblical texts under examination highlight how movement toward a more just future is predicated upon and inextricably linked to an adequate dealing with the past.

Most scholars agree that it is important for Qur’anic believers to enact taqwa, but they differ on its translation. A review of the term muttaqin in Q. 2:2 on the website corpus.quran.com reveals the following translations: “those conscious of Allah” (Sahih international), “those who ward off (evil)” (Pickthall), “Those who fear Allah” (Yusuf Ali), “Those who guard (against evil)” (Shakir), “the pious” (Muhammad Sarwar), “the pious and righteous persons who fear Allah much (abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds which He has forbidden) and love Allah much (perform all kinds of good deeds which He has ordained)” (Mohsin Khan), and “the godfearing” (Arberry). Abdel Haleem (2004), has “those who are mindful of God” with a footnote stating that the term is a “fundamental concept about God and the believers’ relation to Him,” and that to translate the root w-q-y as “fear” is an “over-expression of the term.” Erik Ohlander (2005) agrees that taqwā is an important leitmotif in the Qur’an; in his diachronic analysis of the term, he argued that its meaning changed through time, from “guarding” in the earlier periods of the Qur’an to “fearing” in the later periods. This paper revisits the root w-q-y and other roots that have been translated as “fear”, including H-dh-r, kh-w-f, kh-sh-y, and r-h-b. It reviews what we can know about the meaning of these terms, proposing a continuum of interpretations including “fear” and “wariness”, and explores the nature of fear and wariness in the Qur’an. The paper shows that, contrary to interpretations of taqwa as warding off evil, God is the correct object of this term. This paper also revisits the idea of a diachronic shift in the semantic meaning of taqwa, asking whether we can indeed detect such a shift, and looks at the earliest works of tafsir and an early Sufi manual to see how the term was understood in those periods. According to the sources surveyed, the concept of fear/wariness of God is supposed to deter the believer from wrongdoing, and, when practiced, it emphasizes the believer’s subservience to God’s commands. The question arises as to why the semantic concept of fear, wariness, and guarding was so important in the Qur’an and beyond. The paper argues that the concept of fear and wariness is inherently connected with the concept of God’s power and mercy.

The topic of “law” (nomos) in Josephus’ writing has been approached from several angles. Scholars have long discussed the biblical/Mosaic Law – i.e., the Torah – as a clear reference-point from which to gauge Josephus’ particular brand of adherence to or independence from the covenant code(s) of the Pentateuch. Thus, there has been discussion of to what extent Josephus’ “anti-traditional” laws cater to a gentile readership (Revel 1924), and about how we should read Josephus’ “fresh presentation” of the Torah among other re-presentations of the Second Temple and Mishnaic/Talmudic periods (Vermes 1982), and regarding Josephus’ idiosyncratic take on a plethora of kinds of laws, such as those regarding the Sabbath (McKay 2015), marriage and family (Bons 2013), and other topics. In regard to Halakhah and Second Temple discussions of biblical Torah and/or Jewish law, Josephus proves an infinitely interesting source. A niche component of Josephus’ conception and deployment of law in his writing is the idea of a natural law, something that Steve Mason, Andrew Krause, and others have noted within the worldview implicit in Josephus’ prose and which represents a fixed, eternal, universal rule. Yet this concept in Josephus is seldom clearly defined and yet to be fully understood. This paper represents a lexically-grounded approach to the “law(s) of nature” as a Josephan idea. It argues that what could be understood as “natural law” in Josephus’ corpus is, in its strictest sense, a more particularized notion than has heretofore been appreciated. In particular, this paper argues that Josephus recognizes a more or less specific idea which he communicates via the technical terminology of “law of nature.” Josephus does this twice, at War 3.374 and 4.382. In both passages, Josephus is speaking of the relationship between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. Negotiating between these realms, either by departing from life into death (3.374) or by interacting with the dead (i.e. corpses) as a living person (4.382), constitutes a key action which, for Josephus, is integral to defining the “law(s) of nature.” This paper explores this concept and reads Josephus in conversation with other Greek and Jewish thinkers writing in and around the first century C.E., differentiating his use of the “law(s) of nature” from, e.g., those of Philo and clarifying Josephus’ construal of what may rightly be termed his version of “natural law.” This study thus helps to establish a more robust understanding of Josephus’ vocabulary and thought-world for the reader, and along the way it ends up speaking both to “law” as a broad concept within Josephus’ corpus and to “religion” in Josephus, inasmuch as Josephus’ discussion of “law(s) of nature” involves the life-death transition, divine-human interaction, and right/wrong ritual action. Thus, this paper intersects the subjects of “law” and “religion” as important topics in Josephus’ thought and writing by conducting a philologically-grounded, theoretically-driven study of Josephus alongside his contemporary cultural contexts.

In 1978, J. W. Wenham published a rejoinder to C. H. Bird’s 1953 essay in JTS, “Some γαρ Clauses in St. Mark’s Gospel.” In his response, Wenham claims that Bird incorrectly identifies the fig tree (תאנה) with the people of Israel on the basis that the phrase is used to describe the “fortresses of Nineveh” in Nahum 3:12. Although the image of a fig tree commonly appears in prophetic metaphor, precious little has been written on the tree within its broader literary, visual, and ecological context in the ancient Near East. Fig trees were some of the earliest domesticated plants in the ancient Near East. The careful propagation and modification of figs improved their viability and desirability in the ancient world. Throughout the Fertile Crescent and Egypt there were two varieties of figs, the sycamore fig (ficus sycomorus) and the common fig (ficus carica). Figs were fertilized by a symbiotic wasp (cratosolen arabicus), but in the absence of such wasps, common in Egypt and Israel, human intervention was required. This special attention—gashing or cutting—in the early stages of maturation to yield a product with optimal taste. It required this step because it was not pollenated by wasps as the other type of fig tree was. Thus, fig horticulture was not a passive activity, but an active cultivation. Attention to this activity might impact the interpretation of the fig tree in the prophetic imagination, particularly the dream of one’s own fig tree as a wish for security and an unbothered enjoyment of the fruits of one’s labor, which is disallowed by war and violence. Despite the attention that the fig tree has received in the secondary literature around prophetic metaphors (most notably the promise that everyone would sit under their own fig tree and vine), few have examined the intensive role that fig cultivation played in the ancient world. This paper seeks to examine the prophetic metaphors and imaginations around fig trees and fruits in light of the cultivation practices of the fig in the ancient Near East and the ancient world. Focusing on the use of fig trees in the book of Joel, this paper will explore the textual and visual records that depict figs and fig cultivation as a way to more fully understand the prophetic imagination of figs. Special attention will be devoted to fig varietals in the ancient Near East and their respective cultivation and harvest requirements. Finally, the paper will turn to ecological hermeneutics to discern the interpretive and metaphorical value of fig trees in the prophetic imagination.

Paul’s response to sexual behaviour reported as taking place in the Thessalonian community includes a description of the Lord as ἔκδικος (1 Thess 4:6). This is usually translated as ‘avenger’ with emphasis on punishment of wrongdoing and on the role of God or Jesus as judge. This paper sets Paul’s use of the term in the context of a brief survey of wider Greco-Roman evidence. The common use of ἔκδικος to signify a legal representative for minors and adult women particularly resonates with the context in 1 Thessalonians. Paul’s portrayal of Jesus as ekdikos in 4:3-8 supports the view that children are included among those experiencing or vulnerable to sexual abuse. The traditional interpretation of ἔκδικος as ‘avenger’ in 4:6 is based on LXX usage of related forms. However, ἔκδικος itself carries a similar range of meaning in LXX as in papyri, inscriptions and literary sources, where it denotes legal representatives, public prosecutors those championing a cause or (infrequently) avenging violent death. The common, defining features are that an ἔκδικος acts to address wrongs by word or action and does so on behalf of one or more others who are unable or not allowed to act for themselves. Such a portrayal of Jesus as ἔκδικος speaking or acting on behalf of those without power resonates well with the content of 4:3-8. Paul portrays the current situation with vocabulary of neglect and exploitation of power (ὑπερβαίνειν καὶ πλεονεκτεῖν (4:6). Those most vulnerable to such sexual exploitation – children and lower status women, including slaves – would also typically be those who would require an ἔκδικος in legal hearings. As wider context, the listing of ‘corruption’ of children with other sexual transgressions by other Hellenistic Jewish and Early Christian writers (e.g. Philo Hypoth 7.1; T.Levi 17:11; Did 2:2) supports Paul’s similar inclusion of such behaviours within the broad sense of πορνεία. Children in the Thessalonian community may be included in those already being exploited but will certainly be among those vulnerable to future abuse. This perspective expands the range of possible scenarios into which Paul is speaking. Recognising the inclusion of children highlights the power differences and dynamics at work in this new believer community and some of its potential dangers for those of lower power and status. It also adds a new dimension to Paul’s portrayal of Jesus: as speaking or acting on their behalf.

John's gospel reflects an awareness of the general contours of Samaritan self-understanding, as well as the range of attitudes Judeans held toward them. In the gospel, the Pharisees disparage Samaritans, using them as a racial slur incorrectly hurled at Jesus; Jesus, by contrast, accepts a Samaritan woman's ethnic self-identification as a descendant of Israel, and the text represents Jesus himself in a way that often resembles the Mosaic Taheb. This paper will focus on how the text portrays the Samaritan woman of chapter 4. She is surprised to be spoken to by Jesus, and asks “How is it that you, although you are a Judean (Ιουδαιος), ask a drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman (γυναικος Σαμαριτιδος)?” (4:9a). The account characterizes her as someone who values various markers of her ethnic identity-- shared ancestry, shared connection to a homeland, and shared distinctive practices. She marshals these markers of identity in the face of a foreigner (Jesus) who people were often hostile to hers, and who might wish to challenge her beliefs. I will examine the discussion between the woman and Jesus from an ethnos-conscious perspective, with attention to the ways in which ethnicity was constructed in ancient rhetoric, and how the unfolding encounter positively thrums with ethnic signifiers. Finally, I will conclude that John's depiction of the Samaritans as a valid (and valuable) mission field for Jesus and the disciples is significant. John's esteem of the Samaritans goes against both common Judean prejudices, and even the evaluation of other early Christ-believers, who could occasionally characterize this ethnos in a somewhat hostile light (Luke 9:51-55; Matthew 10:5-6). But to John, although salvation might be /from/ the Judeans, it is no less /for/ the Samaritans. In his encounter with the Samaritan woman, Jesus undercuts the relative importance of various markers of earthly ethnicity, and thus subtly undermines the category of race itself. Most importantly, John challenges the widespread assumption that race divides people ("For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans" - John 4:9b), as Jesus rejects such divides and reaches across them.

The frameworks of the progymnasmata highlight the rhetorical features of the Lukan pericope wherein Jesus responds to a question about taxes to Caesar. What results can be recognized as a sophisticated use of multiple rhetorical topoi in service of characterization, plot development, narrative irony, and heightened tension in the midst of the narrative conflict. It also results in clear recognition of the nature of Jesus’s response as a mixed chreia—a memorable saying coupled with an action and a physical object. Identification of the type of chreia in Luke’s text marshals further evidence for those who argue for the literary dependence of the Gospel of Thomas upon the Synoptics when consideration is given to the progymnasmata’s instructions for expansion and contraction of chreia. The adaptations to the chreia then become evidence of a change in purpose; the mixed chreia reappropriated the saying in order to address broader concerns about wealth rather than concerns about taxes and idolatry. In addition to the appearance of this gospel chreia in Gospel of Thomas, the enacted saying developed an afterlife that extends into ancient documents for several centuries after Jesus’s life. In each setting, it is evident that the chreia represents a significant teaching that was carried forward by early Christians.

Paul Flesher and Bruce Chilton remark in their seminal book, The Targums: A Critical Introduction: “The Targum of Psalms may be the least studied of all Targums” (pg. 252). This paper addresses their claim by providing a detailed study of Targum Psalms’s use of “speech identification” as a literary-translational technique. By speech identification, I mean instances in which the Aramaic translator recasts his target biblical verse or verses by marking the identity of its speaker(s) and oftentimes by adding content that extends beyond the Hebrew text in front of him. This paper will examine the use, context and history of this translational technique in the Targum. It will begin by drawing patterns in the Metrugaman’s use of speech identification. Which figures appear frequently? Which appear less often? What do these figures typically do or say? The paper will then shift to a discussion of the context in which speech identification appears. It will attempt to answer: Why does the Meturgaman see fit to insert speech identification into these particular locations? To what degree is he solving exegetical cruxes or advancing particular theological arguments? As about 30 instances of speech identification exist, this paper cannot exhaustively discuss them all. Rather, it will examine a few examples as a framework for understanding the many others – acknowledging that variation might exist. The paper will then very briefly outline the history of speech identification as a literary feature in other Targumim as well as in rabbinic Psalm interpretation. It will examine how Targum Psalms draws upon, develops and differs from other and earlier instances of speech identification. Ultimately, by studying this single literary-translational feature, this paper will shed light on both Targum Psalms and its intellectual world.

In this paper I identify a common error committed by Hebraists as they identify terms that seem to be indicative of either CBH or LBH on account of their relatively exclusive occurrence in either one corpus or the other. Here I will utilize data from the recently Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible, launched in January 2019 by my Bar-Ilan University colleague, the computational linguist Moshe Koppel and myself (https://tiberias.dicta.org.il). I will show that Hebraists routinely ascribe diachronic significance to terms that are statistically insignificant falling victim to a statistical illusion long known by cognitive psychologists and brought to popular light by the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman known as the small sample fallacy or, the so-called “law of small numbers.” Conversely, I will show that in seeking lexical terms that are indicative of CBH and LBH respectively, they overlook many terms that are far more indicative and significant from a statistical perspective. The capacities to easily calculate the frequencies of lexical, morphological and syntactic data in a corpus and to determine their relative significance are now available with the launch of the Tiberias. Tiberias marshals cutting edge advances in the field of machine learning and computational linguistics to empower users to easily conduct their own experiments analyzing and classifying the texts of the Hebrew Bible through the measurable features of linguistic data, and providing them with verifiable results. For an overview of the capacities and functions of Tiberias see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUx7VD6YHpw. To animate my study I turn to arguments advanced by Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten in their recent work, How Old is the Hebrew Bible? concerning the linguistic profile of Genesis 24. I shall demonstrate that one of their arguments marshals evidence in improper fashion, ascribing significance to terms that are insignificant and failing to appreciate the importance of other terms of far greater statistical significance in this chapter. The paper concludes with a survey recent studies from the field of computational linguistics in which machine learning has been harnessed with great success in experiments in temporal text classification and with a discussion of the implications of these methods for the linguistic dating of biblical texts.

In the section of De Vita Mosis that deals with Moses as lawgiver, Philo praises the Torah as the most excellent legislation ever designed in a human society and emphasizes its universal popularity among the nations, Greek and barbarian alike. I contend that these two features are to a great extent novel in Jewish discourses about the Law. While previous Jewish authors writing in Greek celebrated the perfection of the Torah, they did not compare it explicitly to other legal systems. Moreover, previous Jewish reflections about the universal dimension of the Law (including some of Philo’s own developments) were based on the Law’s tight relationship with the law of nature, whereas in De Vita Mosis, Philo introduces a new argument, that of the concrete universal reception of the Law among various peoples. I will argue that Philo’s statements in De Vita Mosis are to be understood in the framework of contemporary perceptions of and discourses about Roman law and jurisdiction. My demonstration will proceed in three stages. First, I will compare Philo’s praise of the Torah in De Vita Mosis to previous Jewish discourses on the Law from the Hellenistic period (such as those of Aristobulus and the author of the Letter of Aristeas) as well as other passages of Philo’s work that are more philosophically-oriented. Second, I will analyze the similarities between Philo’s discourse in De Vita Mosis and that of Josephus in Against Apion. Finally, I shall compare them both to the way Cicero and other Roman authors talked about Roman law, and suggest that Philo’s statements may be seen as a response to Roman or pro-Roman discourses.

It has long been noted that John’s Apocalypse exhibits irregular grammar and syntax. Laurențiu Moț has suggested that as many as 232 morpho-syntactical errors have been proposed by scholars. The leading explanation for the last two centuries has been that the solecisms are due to Semitic language interference. This paper seeks to provide fresh light on the cause of the solecisms and the reception of Revelation by inaugural audiences by examining rhetorical handbooks which contain instruction regarding the use of grammatically incongruous expressions as rhetorical figures. The rhetorical handbooks note a difference between accidental morpho-syntactical errors which were vitia and intentional grammatical irregularity which were considered to be figura and viewed as rhetorical artistry. The handbooks provide the criteria for determining whether morpho-syntactically incongruous constructions were erroneous or artistic. The criteria are based on the principle of imitatio. If a notable figure in the past used a particular irregular construction, then its reuse for stylistic purposes would have been considered rhetorically artistic. The rhetorical handbooks point us to new lines of inquiry regarding the morpho-syntactical irregularities in Revelation. If an ancient text known to be a source text for John exhibited grammatical and stylistic irregularity, this would be significant. This paper will argue that such a text exists. In a 1988 article (and reiterated again in his NICOT commentary), Daniel Block argued that the “grammatical difficulties are legion” in the inaugural vision of Ezekiel 1 in the MT. He details difficulties in grammar, style, and substance providing numerous examples in each category. He concludes, “The problems raised by the text itself are so numerous that it is difficult even to know where one should begin.” Indeed, one of the scholarly explanations for the function of Ezekiel 10 is to bring coherence to the confusing text of Ezekiel 1. Perhaps no other work from the Hebrew Scriptures was as influential to John as Ezekiel, and the inaugural vision is unquestionably the source of the throne scene in Revelation 4. I argue that John encountered this irregular grammar in Ezekiel, and then used this rhetorically stylistic figure to further authorize his own vision: As Ezekiel spoke when he had a vision of God, so John does. While scholars have long known that John draws extensively on the Hebrew Scriptures for the structure and content of his revelation (especially Ezekiel), this paper argues that John also draws on the irregular style of one of Israel’s great prophets to create an artistic rhetorical style. (This paper is a continuation of the research I presented in this section at the 2018 annual meeting in Denver)

The personal names of the Hebrew Bible, and the theophoric sentence names in particular, have long been seen as a unique source for the study of Israelite theology, psychology and popular piety. One of the observations that emerged in the effort to classify the names and correlate them with religious and political changes over the biblical period was the observation that female names (FNs) were virtually lacking within the great mass of theophoric names, while profane names predominated among the FNs. Wellhausen saw this differentiation as an index of the differentiation of male and female roles in Israelite society and religion. Max Löhr's 1908 study of the FNs contested that view, noting that some names were attested for both men and women and that FNs were found together with MNs in almost all of the major classes. Löhr's conclusion that there was no essential difference between male and female names appears to be assumed in subsequent treatments of the names, exhibited most recently by Rainer Albertz in his study of personal names as expressions of family religion in ancient Israel and the Levant. This paper presents the results of a fresh study of the names, including the epigraphic names treated by Albertz. Analyzing the types and distribution of male and female names in the Hebrew Bible, it demonstrates significant gender-related differences reflecting the gendered roles and values of Israelite society.

This paper examines the Syriac reception of the lists of unclean birds (Lev 11:13-19; Deut 14:12-18) in the Peshitta. While previous research has already dealt with these bird lists in the Hebrew and Greek traditions, very few studies have looked at the Syriac version. To clarify the relationship of the Syriac translation to the Hebrew Vorlage, as well as further our understanding of the translator’s strategies, the present study focuses on the major difference between the Hebrew and the Syriac lists, namely, the much smaller number of birds in the Syriac list. The omission of certain terms in the Peshitta can in fact be explained by comparison with other late antique and early medieval Jewish sources. Indeed, texts like the Targums or the Talmud show that the meaning of certain terms were already being discussed at the time of the Syriac translator. In this situation, the author of the Peshitta chose to omit the difficult terms, rather than to render them at all costs. While this choice sets the Peshitta apart from the other biblical versions, it does not denote a careless translation.

As missional theology emerged some three decades ago, Darrell Guder deconstructed many of Christendom’s distorted understandings of mission. Missional hermeneutics followed as White, Western male scholars sought to correct their tradition’s interpretive errors that enabled the ushering in of cultural imperialism as missionaries taught the gospel. Voices of women and scholars of color have, however, remained largely absent from the academic missional conversation (i.e., the 2016 Reading the Bible Missionally, without female or Global South scholars). In this paper, I engage womanist interpretations of a core missional text in order to practice missional hermeneutics’ interest in heeding diverse perspectives. I bring New Testament scholars Mitzi Smith and Musa Dube’s work to Guder’s basic hermeneutical question, with one addition (in italics): “How did [the interpretation of] this particular text continue the formation of witnessing communities then, and how does it do that today?” (Called to Witness, 92). Human interpretation of scripture, after all, not only leads to positive formation in the Missio Dei, but also malformation whereby the Missio Dei becomes distorted, as with imperialism. As Katie Cannon pointed out, the transatlantic slave trade was built on imperialistic interpretations of the Matthean “Great Commission.” Mitzi Smith and Jayachitra Lalitha identify a “theologic of normalized othering,” which formed Western Christian missionary activity and arises from the “Great Commission” phrase διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς (“teaching them,” Matt. 28:20a) (Teaching All Nations, 2). This “teaching them” logic is a missionary pedagogy that enables the dehumanization of the oppressed. Smith and Lalitha call for interpretations of the Great Commission that promote mutual humanity rather than “the dehumanization of both the commissioned and his others” (5). Heeding the work of Mitzi Smith and Musa Dube, I propose the concept of “co-mission” to correct pedagogical othering in Western interpretations of the “Great Commission.” From Smith’s African American perspective, she pushes back on David Bosch’s centering of Matthew 28:18-20 as the hermeneutical key to the entire Gospel (Smith, 135). Instead, she reinterprets this pericope in light of the rest of Matthew as a holistic mission of incarnated justice, embodied in Immanuel, God with us. Dube goes even further. She perceives a Matthean imperialist agenda, with its mission discourse promoting subjugation and conquest of inferior students by authoritative teachers (Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, 148). In her experience of forced migration to Botswana, Dube was distinctly “unlike the Matthean Christian readers, who travel with authority to teach all nations, or their imperialist counterparts in more recent centuries” (“Go Therefore and Make Disciples of All Nations,” 225). Heeding these perspectives invites reckoning with how Matthew 28:18-20 interpretations formed Christendom communities, and imagining how alternate interpretations could re-form witnessing communities today. Can missional hermeneutics consider a new pedagogical paradigm in which parties “can speak as equal subjects who meet to exchange words of wisdom and life”? (Dube, 234). Interpreting this Matthean text as formation for co-mission invites participation in the gospel as an act of solidarity and mutuality rather than imperialistic pedagogy.

David’s daughter Tamar (2 Samuel 13) is famous because of her brother Amnon’s assault. She is also remembered for her extended defense and subsequent rebuke of Amnon, a remarkably lengthy and rich set of speeches in the dense parataxis of biblical narrative. Tamar’s voice is ultimately contained, her character moved from the scene, and the inexorable pull of David’s narrative returns. What does it mean to perform this biblical voice? This paper will treat the tension between Tamar’s voice and the body that accompanies it in a set of plays and one ostentatiously theatrical novel. These reenactments build on the biblical narrative by extending and amplify the performance of Tamar’s voice—and sometimes celebrating it. In two Golden-Age Spanish plays (Tirso de Molina’s La venganza de Thamar and Calderón de la Barca’s Los cabellos de Absalón), Tamar is satisfyingly loud. Unlike the biblical Tamar, silenced by Absalom and exiled forever to his country home, these Tamars keep talking, shouting, singing, arguing. These plays, however, especially when read in connection with Dan Jacobson’s twentieth-century novel The Rape of Tamar, (a “drama” narrated by an Iago-like Jonadab, Amnón’s procurer), dramatize Tamar’s voice as dehumanized, disembodied vocal explosion. In all three versions, Tamar’s body is immaterial. In María Rosa Gálvez de Cabrera’s Amnón (1804), Tamar’s story is also restricted within a larger narrative centering on David’s heir, Amnon (here unsettlingly portrayed as a tragic hero). As in Tirso and Calderon’s plays, Amnón dramatizes Tamar’s voice, her self-justification, and the silence with which David responds. But in Gálvez de Cabrera’s work, Tamar performs a striking reversal: Tamar’s famous words appear in an elaborate speech in which Tamar herself describes the rape in full, narrating for David and audiences the movements and reactions of her own body and developing a dramatic scene through her own description. Gálvez de Cabrera’s play provides an opportunity to read an affectively ambivalent Tamar performing Tamar as embodied voice.

This paper is a preliminary, sample commentary on Philo's Mos. 2.31-44, covering his account of the translation of the Septuagint.

The near sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22) presents a traumatic rupture in the family saga of Abraham and Sarah. After the fateful journey to Moriah, the family unit is torn apart. Abraham descends the mountain alone, and father and son never again appear together. Read through the lens of trauma theory, this passage can be said to encode something of the ruptured relationship between Israel and God, reflecting a sense of bewilderment as to the meaning and nature of the exilic experience. Replete with gaps and indeterminacy, the sparse yet hauntingly graphic narrative leaves the audience questioning the motivations and emotions of its main protagonists; what was going through Abraham’s mind? why did he comply? why did God impose such a harsh test, and what was achieved through demanding such obedience? The question of the character of God looms large and is open for multiple interpretations. The gaps in the text have long invited interpretations of Genesis 22 which reflect the anxieties and traumas of a given age. Chagal’s Isaac paintings, for example, bring images of the Shohar, the pogroms, the crucifixion and the binding of Isaac into one image. A more recent intertextual engagement with Gen 22 occurs within the dystopian, post-apocalyptic TV series The Walking Dead (season 7, episode 1 “The Sacrifice of Isaac”). Here, the fear of the breakdown of society, the collapse of systems of justice and the angst of an eternal, empty meaninglessness are explored through the presence of zombies (the walking dead) and rival gangs competing for status and power. Within this paper, I explore the intertextual dialogue between Genesis 22 and The Walking Dead in order to explore how these two texts might speak into their own traumatic contexts, and how they mutually inform each other.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Isaiah and Intertextuality.

As Angelika Neuwirth reminded (1996, “Vom Rezitationtext über die Liturgie zum Kanon”), canonization of a given text can be defined as the moment when the commentary steps out of the boundaries of this text. When the text reaches its final canonized form, the locus of its interpretation – which until then was within the text – moves then outside the text – and becomes exegetical literature. Applying this to the Qur’an, Neuwirth considers the inner (precanonical) interpretation as visible in the permanent growth process of the text in response to the audience’s moving situation and understanding of the qur’anic message – and the external (postcanonical) interpretation as the tafsîr literature. These insights enable researchers in the field of Qur’anic Studies to look at the Qur’ân as a text which includes both a commentary (text β) and a text commented upon (text α). Then, if one considers this new paradigm – the Qur’ân is composed of two parts, one commenting upon the other –, several questions arise. (a) How can one differentiate sharply between both parts? (b) Which one predates the other? Or did they appear simultaneously? (c) Can the commentary (text β) develop different sorts of commentary or is it monothematic? (d) What were the goals of the person who inserted these commentaries? Explaining, stressing, persuading, stirring emotion? (e) Can the intertwining of text α and text β provide some clues about the steps of composition of the text? As will be seen, the harvest appears plentiful. The issues at stake relates to different types of qur’anic features: 1. phenomena of iltifât and other abrupt breaks –grammatical and/or thematic and/or linguistic – (M.A.S. Abdel-Haleem 1992, “Grammatical Shift for Rhetorical Purposes”; Neal Robinson 2003, Discovering the Qur’an); 2. asides; 3. disruptive arguments as rhetoric tools (Rosalind W. Gwynne, God’s Arguments); 4. metatextual or self-referential statements (Daniel A. Madigan 2001, The Qur’ân’s self-image; A.L. De Prémare 2004, Aux origines du Coran.; Stefan Wild (ed.) 2007 Self-referentiality in the Qur’ân, among which Nicolai Sinai, “Qur’ānic self-referentiality as a strategy of self-authorization”; A.S. Boisliveau 2014, Le Coran par lui-même.); 5. issues related to authority, persuasion, and the identity of the voice of the text (D. & M.T. Urvoy 2007, L’action psychologique dans le Coran); and 6. Medinan (or Meccan) insertions and the issue of chronology of verses and surahs (Boisliveau forthcoming, Du Coran à son image; Emmanuelle Stefanidis [unpublished],Du texte à l’histoire). These qur’anic features are usually not addressed together (N. Sinai (2017, The Qur’an. A historical-critical introduction). Addressing the difficulties inherent to the mobilization of such a number of factors, this paper will propose a mapping of the interrelations of these elements in the light of the Qur’an as a “text + commentary”, and of the new directions of research, in terms of elucidation of both the meaning of the presence of these commentaries and the process of composition of the text.

The Dialogue between Jesus and the Devil (Dial. Devil; BHG 813f-g; CANT 84) is a narrative dialogue that expands upon the temptation account of Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. In its Greek and Slavonic recensions, the dialogue portrays Jesus and the devil debating the reason for Jesus’s descent to earth, who the devil’s accomplices are, what happens to repentant and unrepentant sinners in the afterlife, the death of John the Baptist, and the devil’s ultimate fate. Dial. Devil participates in a long history of elucidating why the devil hates humanity and attempts to mislead them, and yet goes further than many narrations about the devil by portraying the Antichrist as the devil incarnate. While the idea that the Antichrist is the devil incarnate is a common topic on evangelical Christian blogs today, this late ancient apocryphal text depicts this exact scenario and has Jesus explain the purpose the rise and fall of the devil-Antichrist at the end of the world. Here, I explore what late ancient apocalyptic texts Dial. Devil may be put in conversation with (ranging from the 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John, Apocalypse of Sedrach, Greek Apocalypse of Daniel, Narration of Zosimus, and the Qur’an), as well as how the multiple recensions conclude with a variety of tortuous endings for the devil-Antichrist.

Humans regulate their emotions with other people. This co-regulation happens in both private and public/communal prayer, which are not as distinct as is often assumed, since the self is already dialogic. Our inner voice, for example, derives from voices we have heard in the social environment. Public prayer is therefore prior to private prayer, and private prayer is still social. The research on emotion regulation helps explain what happens in prayer, and how prayer both emerges from and constructs the dialogical self. On the basis of experience, people form internal working models of others (including God) and use these IWMs to co-regulate their emotions with others even when those others are not physically present. Prayer texts show explicit evidence of the inner voice and internal working models. The paper will briefly describe an empirically-based theory of prayer and how it may be applied to the analysis of ancient prayer tests, specifically psalms. The Psalter has long been used as a “school of prayer” because it offers an education in emotion regulation by developing the inner voice and an internal working model of God. The Psalter thereby helps shape the self. Although form-critical categories remain helpful for thinking about emotion regulation in the psalms, the present work proposes an approach grounded in psychological and neurological research. The paper will illustrate the approach with brief discussion of a few psalms from differnet form-critical categories.

One of the most striking features of the material remains of the Roman Empire is its abundance of marble. Yet, while the artistic value of marble has been admired for centuries, only recently have scholars begun to recognize marble as a significant part of the ancient economy. This paper explores the development and growth of an Ephesian marble economy during the imperial period by providing an overview of the extraction, production, distribution, and consumption of marble in Ephesus. I begin with a brief description of the imperial marble economy in order to provide a framework from which to situate the Ephesian marble economy. Specifically, I look at how the imperial marble economy established a precedent and ideology of marble, associating it with power and prestige, and thereby increasing its demand. I next look at the specifics of the marble enterprise in the city of Ephesus. I explore its more than fifty quarries, its trade networks, and its use of both local and imported marble throughout the city in order to establish the scale of its extraction, production, and consumption of marble. The infrastructure that went into creating, building, and sustaining such a significant enterprise, generated the need for a large workforce. Next, I explore the working and living conditions of marble-workers in Ephesus. Given the scope of the Ephesian marble economy, it is not difficult to estimate that marble-workers were a sizeable presence in the city’s population and that the majority of these workers were among the laboring poor. As day laborers their ability to find work fluctuated from day to day and often depended on weather and other changing conditions. Moreover, the economic vulnerability in addition to strenuous and dangerous working conditions would have contributed to a lower survival rate. In sum, given the considerable amount of infrastructure and organization the marble economy demanded, an understanding of the economic and social world of Roman Ephesus is incomplete without an account of the city’s marblization.

The Temple of Isis at Pompeii is an excellent subject for investigating and theorizing the contribution from material evidence, artifactual remains, and material contexts for our understanding of religions in the Greek, Roman, and broader Mediterranean world (on the temple, see, e.g. Moorman 2007, Swetnam-Burland 2015, and 2018). Several authors have commented on the difficulty of interpreting material objects (e.g. Moser and Wright Knust 2017; Swetnam-Burland, 2018, 594; Veymiers 2018, 38; Van Andringa 2018, 572-573. Barrett (2012), and Canevaro’s review (2019) citing Bassi (2016), Boscagli (2016), Hodder (2012), and Porter (2010), among others, have identified several new tendencies and theoretical approaches. Among them are the rejection, as anachronistic, of rigid binary oppositions such as “cultic” vs. “cultural,“ “religious” vs. “secular,” “sacred” vs. “profane,” “Roman” vs. “Egyptian,” “religion” vs. “Egyptomania,” “self” vs. “other,” and “authenticity” vs. “fantasy.” Among the new theories Barrett and Canevaro identify are: materiality-oriented or “thing theory” (how these objects and images might have helped shape behavior and attitudes); object biographies (the ways in which objects participate in social relationships with people and mediate human relationships); connectivity, hybridization, and entanglement theories (the changing valuation of artifacts and images in new cultural contexts, the contextualization of Aegyptiaca), the agency of objects, cultural authority, and fragility (Goldhill 2014). Mol (2017) and Versluys (2017) treat Pompeii in this context. Above all, the objects demonstrate an intention beyond just “ritual.” Nine small pieces are documented in the 1992 official volume, Alla ricerca di Iside. These are a small Egyptianizing herm, a brazier, a set of candelabra with lotus petal tops, a sistrum, a decorated cista of lead, a glass mug decorated with a Victory, a statuette of a squatting Egyptian male divinity of faience (Ptolemaic period), a sphinx, and an ushabti (mummified figurine) of glazed faience (7th or 6th cents.) (Adamo Muscettola 1992 and D’Errico 1992, but see also Hoffmann 1993). Only about half of these objects relate strictly speaking to Isis rituals, including the squatting divinity. The ushabti, however, of the 7th-6th centuries could have been mistaken for the mummified Osiris (on ushabtis, see Teeter 1998 and Taylor 2000). This piece does relate directly to the Isis cult, but it is difficult to see any ritual use. In any case, the authentic Egyptian objects related the shrine to Egypt and served to authenticate the supposedly true Egyptian character of the temple. The brazier, the cista, the sistrum, and the candelabra would serve ritual purposes, though the brazier and the cista carried no Isiac iconography. Only the sistrum would be indispensable for an authentic Isiac ritual. We see, then, different relationships and that not just ritual objects but others were essential for the sanctuary above all the Egyptian and Egyptianizing ones. The small material objects sought as well to link the temple to the outside Isis and Serapis world: ancient Egypt, Alexandria, other Graeco-Roman Isiac shrines, and the Graeco-Roman cultural world in the Roman Empire, and profoundly shaped the lives of the Isiacs, relating to them in different ways.

The prominent meal scenes in Luke have often been compared with Greek and Roman literary symposia. Jewish texts related to meals have received comparatively little attention in the exegesis of Lukan meal scenes. The present paper will seek to demonstrate the potential of this neglected literature to illumine Lukan meal scenes. Comparing Jesus of Nazareth’s banqueting instructions found in Luke 14:7-14 with those of Jesus Ben Sira found in Sirach 32:1-2, I argue that the Lukan passage radically relativizes dominant social systems of the Hellenistic world, demonstrating both continuity with and difference from Sirach 32:1-2. These texts are especially apt for comparison because both of them reflect the influence of Hellenistic banqueting practices while also containing, or at least claiming to contain, Jewish discourse on banquets. The banqueting instructions in Sirach 32:1-2 concern wise behavior as a banquet master and serve as part of Ben Sira’s larger program of reforming the prevailing honor and shame system. Though wealth and position constituted the primary means of attaining honor in Ben Sira’s society, Sirach promotes “fear of the Lord,” expressed as humble service in 32:1-2, as the true means of attaining honor. The banqueting instructions in Luke 14:7-14 consist of instructions to choose the lowest rather than most honored seat and to invite socially disadvantaged people rather than those likely to reciprocate. These instructions, which are structurally similar though not identical to those of Sirach 32:1-2, challenge both the honor and shame system and the reciprocity system. The challenge they present, however, is far more radical than that of Sirach. Rather than merely reforming these systems, Luke 14:7-14 confronts its readers with a radical choice between continuing to work within the prevailing social systems or rejecting these systems in favor of new ones. Luke 14:7-14 therefore demonstrates continuity with Sirach 32:1-2 in its structure and in its use of banqueting instructions to challenge existing social systems and promote an alternative. It differs from Sirach, however, in demanding something like a conversion from the social systems of the Hellenistic world to those of the kingdom of God, whereas Sirach counsels its readers to work within worldly systems to reform them. This study does not establish Sirach 32:1-2 as a source for Luke 14:7-14, but rather provides a case study demonstrating 1) that meal-related texts in Hellenistic Jewish literature can illumine the meal scenes in Luke and 2) that the Luke is more at home in the Jewish world than has often been acknowledged.

This paper presents a comparative study aimed at producing a typology of the motif of docile animals normally considered to be wild, a fairly common motif in ancient Mediterranean religions. The paper describes several predominant types and theorizes regarding their functions. One type features docile animals juxtaposed with wild behavior by human cultic participants. The cult of Dionysus, attended by both his leopard and the bacchants and bacchantes engaged in orgiastic behavior, and the cult of Cybele, flanked by her lions (sometimes leopards) and adored by her self-mutilated and self-flagellating followers, are two prominent examples. This type invites structuralist and related theorizing, in the manner of contentions set forth by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Edmund Leach regarding such phenomena as the granting of names. Dionysus and Cybele are also two among various nature deities, many of them Earth or Mother Goddess figures, whose dominion over the natural world is symbolized through the accompaniment of docile wild animals. In the longest of the Homeric Hymns to Aphrodite, for example, the goddess, portrayed as “mother of beasts,” is flanked by wolves, lions, bears, and leopards. A third type symbolizes human dominion over animals. An interesting, albeit challengingly complex, example of this is the famous Minoan bull-leaping, associated mainly with Knossos. Scholars have offered a wide range of opinions regarding the specific intentions of bull-leaping, in some cases denying any explicitly religious aspect, and sometimes even denying that it actually occurred in practice. In any event, most agree that the function of bull-leaping (even if only symbolic) involved signification of human dominion over animals—the bull being arguably the most wild and powerful animal on the island of Crete. A fourth type features the orderliness of animal behavior per the mandates of accepted religious practice. Artistic depictions of Roman animal sacrifice, for example, almost always portray the sacrificial victim as calm and content; but anyone who has handled large animals, especially bulls, knows that such scenes are to some degree fantastical. Only a handful of depictions, such as the floor mosaic in Ostia of a bull sacrifice, portray the more credulous wildness of the victim. Theorizing this type invites consideration of Jonathan Z. Smith’s memorable article “The Bare Facts of Ritual,” in which he argues for the efficacy of idealistic presentation of ritual notwithstanding the common shortcomings of actual practice. Such must surely have been the case in most instances of Roman animal sacrifice. This quite common motif of docility might almost be termed mythic motif, as most instances can be said to be presented in the context of myth. But if not always mythic, the motif nevertheless is consistently symbolic and often presents, as in the case of the victims of Roman animal sacrifice, an ideal type, sometimes in in the context of ritual. In sum, the motif of docility is a significant subject for the study of ancient Mediterranean religions, a sound typology for which should prove helpful. (Word count: 486)

Although not all that many women appear in Matthew’s storyline, the evangelist includes at least six Gentiles in his mix of female characters. As women and as Gentiles, they sit doubly outside of the centers of power and access in Matthew’s storyline. We could also note that they have not always fared well at the hands of male interpreters of Matthew. Their portrayal has traditionally been characterized by misrepresentation (especially in the case of the four in the genealogy), misappropriation (the Canaanite woman), and what I call ‘a missed chance’ for significance (Pilate’s wife). The goal of this paper is to take another look at these women to see what we might learn about their impact on Matthew’s story as well as their significance for Christian theology. I conclude with something of an autobiographical note on my own experience interacting with Matthew’s Gospel for over twenty years and especially the evangelist’s potentially surprising egalitarian ethic for Christian community.

The CATSS database has enabled rich philological study of the Masoretic text and the Septuagint in recent years, but a more powerful, computer-based utilization of the data has remained elusive. With the aid of computer software like Accordance, more refined, precise, and complex textual analysis is now possible. This talk will detail some of the new techniques available, centering on a live demonstration of the new capabilities. These techniques include more accurately finding alignments (or lack thereof) between the texts; combining CATSS data with other textual features, such as morphology, root, or syntax; linking to other related texts like the Targums; and restricting query results based on whether the LXX equivalent was a compression or expansion. The goal of this talk is both to demonstrate the new potential of computer-based study and to enable scholars to integrate these techniques into their own research.

Until recently, the most significantly variant extant Qurʾan texts that had been well-documented were seen in the lower text of the hijazi palimpsests. At the November 2019 Annual Meeting of IQSA, I presented a Quran fragment of 11 folia likely written between 50 and 100 years after the death of Muhammad that, despite its later date of origin, and despite having even been corrected in numerous places, still contains numerous significant variants from the so-called ʿUthmanic rasm. This interesting object bears upon the Quran’s transmission history in its first century. Now, I follow up last year's introduction and overview of the fragment with further inquiry into some of its particular features, relating these to other current research in the area. The variants include: 1. law-lā annahum (“were it not that they had”) in Q5:66, instead of now-standard law annahum (“had they”) 2. fa-ghafar lanā (“so forgive us”) included near the end of the verse Q5:83 3. lakum in kuntum (“for you, if you”) written in Q6:99 where li-qawm (“for a people”) stands in Ḥafs 4. khawḍihim (“their foolish talk”) in Q6:110 in the place where ṭughyānihim (“their blindness”) occurs in Ḥafs 5. min not present in Ḥafs precedes shayātīn of Q6:112 6. a-fa-ghayr dīn allāh abtaghī ḥakamān (“shall I seek a judge other than the religion of Allah”) written in Q6:114 where a-fa-ghayr allāh abtaghī ḥakamān (“shall I seek a judge other than Allah”) stands in the Ḥafs 7. alīm (“dire”) written in the place where Ḥafs has shadīd (“severe”) in Q6:124 In this paper, I present new material and further discuss the instances above, as well as others, and relate the specific textual peculiarities of this manuscript fragment with corrections or variants in the same verses or words in other manuscripts or fragments. My initial facsimile edition of these folia (Think and Tell Press, 2020) will be be followed by a scholarly edition reuniting them with other related pages, forthcoming in Brill’s Documenta Coranica series, projected for publication in 2021.

The first complete Slavonic Bible was assembled in Russia in the last decade of the fifteenth century under the patronage of the archbishop of Novgorod, Gennadius (Gennadij Gonzov, ca. 1410–1505), and later became known as the “Gennadian Bible.” Prior to this, “Scripture as a whole” was unknown to the Slavs, since in both the East and South Slavic areas, texts circulated only in sylloges of disparate structure. According to the Orthodox Tradition, the genesis of the Gennadian Bible is linked to a doctrinal controversy on the so-called Heresy of the Judaizers that supposedly had spread in late-fifteenth-century Russia. The paper deals with the sources and the textual history of this corpus. Furthermore, it focuses on the reasons why the revision and the expansion of the Slavonic Bible was considered an appropriate tool to counter the alleged Judaizing heresy.

The Qurʾān includes a four principal references to the keeping of tahajjud or night vigils (Q. 3:113, 11:114, 73:2-4 and 73:20), and in Muslim tradition Muḥammad was accustomed to performing such devotions even before receiving the revelation of the Qurʾān. This paper will compare and contrast the methods and practices of keeping vigils in the Bible, and in Jewish and Christian post-biblical sources. After a brief survey of the Biblical and post-biblical literature, this paper will focus on three Christian works that may contribute to an understanding of Qurʾānic tahajjud, namely the "Institutes" of John Cassian (d. 435 CE), the "Ladder of Divine Ascent" of John Climacus (d. 600 CE, and works on prayer and asceticism by Isaac of Nineveh (d. 700 CE, aka Isaac the Syrian). The paper will approach the question of Qurʾānic tahajjud from three perspectives. The first will concentrate on a practical element: the Qurʾān refers to the fact that during the night vigil, the Qurʾān should be recited in a ‘slow and measured voice’ (wa-rattili’l-Qurʾān tartīlan, Q. 73:4). To what extent to these Christian sources describe the recitation of scripture in a similar fashion? What are the motivations for doing so? The second will explore the theme of the adoration of God during the night vigil and the performative act of prostration, which is how the Qurʾān describes the vigils of the People of the Book (Q. 3:113). To what extent is prostration an element of Christian night vigils. The final part of the paper will examine the references to tahajjud being divided into thirds (Q. 73:2-3, 20), exploring the scriptural and liturgical precedents for this. The overarching aim of this paper is utilise Jewish and Christian sources to help illuminate the Qurʾānic practice of tahajjud. Although early Muslim liturgical and devotional practices are unlikely to be derived directly from external religious sources, and may, indeed, have developed from pre-Islamic Arab practices, comparing the Qur’ānic ritual of tahajjud with other religious forms of devotion and keeping vigil can help deepen our understanding of the function and spirituality of tahajjud in the Qurʾān.

There is general agreement that the author of Colossians references Ps 110:1 in Col 3:1 and that he uses the imagery of Jesus’s co–enthronement at God’s right hand to highlight that Christ and the Colossian Christ–confessors have been exalted above every other power in the cosmos. To explicate the significance of this heavenly co–enthronement, most scholars appeal to the original context of Psalm 110, arguing that the author of Colossians evokes the psalm’s fulfillment of a Davidide as co–regent of God and the Colossian Christ–confessors’ participation in this promise. In this paper, I elucidate the import of co–enthronement imagery in Col 3:1 with what I term royal and imperial temple and throne sharing, which were two distinct honors that Greco–Roman communities bestowed on pious, beneficent, and divinely approved rulers. I argue that the author of Colossians expresses his reference to Ps 110:1 in light of royal and imperial temple and throne sharing and in the process democratizes certain aspects of these honors to the faithful Colossian Christ–confessors. The purpose of so doing is to showcase that God already deems them pious, worthy, and, most importantly, that he approves of the Colossian Christ–confessors. In short, the author of Colossians uses Ps 110:1, which he interprets through the lens of royal and imperial temple and throne sharing, to convince his audience that they have no reason to practice or to adopt the so–called Colossian Philosophy.

Regardless of what one thinks about the origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices or their ‎Gnostic character, it is worth contextualizing these manuscripts within the greater history ‎of Coptic revelatory literature, because such a greater history is now becoming possible, in a ‎new and rich way. On the one hand, the old genre of the ‘(Gnostic) revelation dialogue,’ once ‎a central pillar of Nag Hammadi studies, calls for rethinking and revision from the standpoint ‎of the study of the genre apocalypse; on the other hand, we have the recent flourishing of ‎scholarly work on the Coptic ‘apostolic memoirs.’ This body of literature is deeply indebted to ‎the world of the apocalypses, and may even be best understood as the ‘next stage’ of Coptic ‎apocalyptic, i.e. revelatory, literature, following the Nag Hammadi and related Coptophone ‎apocalypses. This paper will 1) argue that the ‘(Gnostic) revelation dialogues’ are best ‎understood simply as ‘type I apocalypses’ (i.e., without otherworldly journey), rather than ‎belonging to a genre distinct from that of ‘apocalypse’ properly speaking. It will also 2) ‎explore the fruits (and limits) of trying to read the ‘apostolic memoirs’ as revelatory literature, ‎by comparing some of the Nag Hammadi apocalypses with the ‘memoirs’ as regards narrative ‎frames, general themes, appeal to revelatory authority, and the relationship of these texts to ‎social institutions. ‎

In Ezek 33, the prophet is informed that, to his audience, he is merely a singer of love songs (kəšîrʿagābîm), and that they “hear your words but do not heed them.” Many commentators understand this to be a searing indictment of the hearers. This essay, however, poses the question: what if the audience is actually onto something? Is there indeed a tension between theological and literary discourses in Ezekiel, specifically in Ezekiel’s poems? In the poems, whether they are unmarked (e.g., Ezek 31) or marked as poetic text types (as a qînâ [Ezek 19; 26; 27; 28; 32], a māšal [Ezek 17; 24], or ḥîdâ [Ezek 17]), Ezekiel is less a viewer of images (dəmûṯ) than one who fashions images, in literary form (see especially the use of d-m-h in Ezek 31). This essay will focus in particular on Ezek 19, 28, and 31. In each of these texts, the wild, vivid imagery—the flamethrowing vine, cherubic Tyre, and Egypt-as-Assryia-as-Tree, respectively—confounds explication as straightforwardly figural or metaphorical language. To be sure, these poetic images serve to illustrate rhetorical claims, such as the imminent downfall of the hubristic nations, but they are not subordinate to those claims. In other words, Ezekiel’s poems create images that take on lives of their own. Additionally, in Ezek 19, Ezekiel offers a lament of sorts, but also puts forth a poetic meditation on the very form of the qînâ. In other words, Ezekiel’s poetry communicates not just on the level of the rhetorical-theological, but also on the level of the aesthetic. As a highly self-reflectively textual work, Ezekiel also seems to be aware of the theological problem entailed by the very concept of prophetic poetry. The poetic prophecy must bear the impossible weight of being a divine message mediated by human linguistic craft. That burden, though, also becomes a space for possibility. Where the divine message ostensibly speaks destruction, the poetry carves out space for beauty and hopefulness in the face of trauma.

In the same way that we do not consider that a person "knows" a language sufficiently until they can efficiently use materials in the language itself, like an English-English dictionary or a Russian-Russian dictionary, we might wish that the next generation could benefit from a Greek-Greek dictionary. Emiliano Caruso has already produced vocabolario monolingue di greco antico monolingual dictionary of ancient Greek (Rome, 2014, 478 pages). It has 4400 entries of ancient Greek lemmata defined in Greek, and/or given examples in Greek. The examples are primarily from the Greek New Testament. Sample entries will be reviewed. Then the questions become where should we take this? To what level? Are the pedagogical benefits worth the work? Several sample revisions and expansions will help us in these discussions about the usefulness of a Greek-Greek dictionary. A nice nexus might be comparing words like ἀνακρίνειν, ἀποκρίνεσθαι, διακρίνειν, διακρίνεσθαι, κατακρίνειν, and ὑποκρίνεσθαι based on the κρίνειν root. We can also bring together modern lexicography with some of the remaining Greek-Greek resources of antiquity like Hesychius and Pavlidou's glossaries. Some issues arise for Greek-Greek entries. 1) As mentioned, the entries would need to have at least an initial part that would be accessible for students with minimal vocabulary levels. This could build from Caruso as a first model. 2) A Greek cognitive framework may be helped by the Greek glossaries, though textual usage remains definitive along with integration with 21st century scholarly intuition. 3) Limitations on the entries should be applied so that the entries become achievable and heuristic for students and scholars alike, perhaps like a Learner's Dictionary of a modern language.

With diversity so often construed as adversity in Christian origins, it is unsurprising that John is perceived as the “other” Gospel and Johannine Christianity as a tradition that “others” those outside its social parameters. As Gospel writing becomes increasingly regarded as a competitive practice—part and parcel of the early Christian maelstrom of divisive diversity—the fourth evangelist is at times viewed not merely as a corrective Gospel writer, but as one who has set out to usurp and upend the standing traditions. Yet it has also become axiomatic that Johannine antagonism is arrayed not only against outsiders, but against insiders who are “othered” amidst harsh internal battles. The prayer that believers may be “one” in John 17 and the sparse reference to “those who went out from us” in 1 John 2:19 are the coordinates along which a historicizing approach maps reconstructions of Johannine Christianity. Through mirror-reading, scholars reason that a prayer for “unity” implies internal strife, with the departure of the “secessionists” in 1 John corroborating suspicions that the “Johannine community” was fractious and schismatic. In such an interpretive construct, these Johannine Christians had the tendency to “other” one another. Is the sectarianism so toxic that they cannot get along with their own fictive kin, much less with the wider world of emerging Christian networks? This paper challenges the exaggeration of diversity into adversity that has led to a reading of John and the Epistles linked to his tradition as an anti-society with an anti-language. The argument proceeds along four claims: 1) John is not a competitive Gospel writer but releases his own composition into a plural field of existing works as a worthy vista into the significance of Jesus that is to be situated alongside others; 2) the oneness for which Jesus prays in John 17 is less concerned with internal social unity than it is with asserting a group identity grounded in the Shema; 3) the departure referred to in 1 John 2:19 has become unnecessarily overblown in biblical scholarship; and 4) though Johannine boundaries were guarded and maintained, they were nonetheless capable of gracious inclusion as evidenced not only in Gaius’ embrace of the “strangers” but also in the act of Incarnation in which the ultimate “Other” became flesh and dwelled among us.

The study of animals in the Bible has recently developed out of a few different streams: animal ethics, ecological ethics, and posthumanism. My starting point is elsewhere: my students. I teach both “Religion, Agriculture, and Ecology” and “Religion and Film.” Many of my students come from farming families and will farm after they leave college. What’s arresting when one reads the gospels compared to their filmic interpretations with an agricultural lens is the surprising lack of animals where we would expect to find them – yet we imaginatively fill them in. Did the centurion ride a horse? Did the Magi use camels? Did Mary ride a donkey to Bethlehem? The gospels are silent. Animals must have been there, but they are taken-for-granted-daily reality. Because they are taken for granted, we must pay attention to why the gospel writers bring them up when they do. I have begun to read with a heightened sensitivity to the physical interrelations between humans and other animals, how humans represent animals, and how the representation of animals often reflects ancient ways of viewing other humans. I have begun to think more about things like the various animalizations of humans that occur in the gospels: negative “out-group animalizations” by calling human beings by names of animals (vipers, fox, dog) and positive in-group animalizations – “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16). There is, of course, the consumption of animals (especially fish); the use of animals for clothing and other elements; working animals that one rides (especially donkeys); the phenomenon of divine animality (the holy spirit appearing as a dove); and sacrifice. One place where the tensions of the absences and presences of animals in the gospels reaches hermeneutical urgency is in film. Filmmakers must make an audio-visual decision of whether to fill in the narrative gaps, how to do so, and how to evaluate it. One could, of course, choose not to include animals at all (e.g., Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar), but this may, in fact, accentuate the gospel absence. Filmmakers may seek create an aura of verisimilitude to the filmic account by adding animals that we imagine to be present in the ancient gospel accounts (e.g., King of Kings), but can also activate and undermine certain evaluative codes, using animals as symbols for divisions among humans, as well as demonic and angelic presences (flies, serpents, birds, goats). With this in mind, I would like to bring the canonical (and some extra-canonical) gospels into dialogue with the film, Son of Man (2006) by Mark Dornford-May, which is set in Judea, South Africa. Though better known for its sound editing and music, Dornford-May strategically uses animals and animality in socially and spiritually significant ways, particularly to demarcate corrupt political figures under Satan’s influence versus those under God’s influence.

Prepositions are often neglected. But I show that they play an important role in discourse about divine presence. I draw attention to the way that the Temple Scroll adapts the Deuteronomic name formula. It replaces the adverb sham “there” with the preposition ׳al “above” in relation to the temple and the preposition betokh “among” in relation to the city. I show that this prepositional rhetoric functions to coordinate the name, the glory and God’s-self. This paper thus contributes to the question of the Temple Scroll’s use of Priestly and Deuteronomic traditions and the helpfulness or otherwise of this division in the Hellenistic period. But why did the Temple Scroll choose the prepositions ‘al and betokh in particular? This requires investigation into the pluriform resonance of these spatial categories. My paper has methodological implications for how as scholars we treat the place of philological details at the intersection of conceptual systems and textual relationships. Similar rhetoric in Jubilees, P, Ezekiel, Isaiah and other Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q380, 4Q174, 4Q457b) does not map on to the Temple Scroll in a straightforward way. We cannot find a ‘source’ for the prepositions ‘al and betokh. I develop a more complex model than citation or allusion, which recognises the simultaneous influence of idiom, formulae, and specific texts. I demonstrate the important role that this prepositional rhetoric plays in the Temple Scroll’s combination of sacred places in its temple-plan. Since the beginnings of research on the scroll, its temple plan has been understood to reflect traditions of a heavenly archetype. I show that divine presence is as, if not more, important than ‘temple-vision’. I also call for more subtlety in the use of language of ‘indwelling’ which is ubiquitous in scholarship on divine presence. The connections between traditions in the Temple Scroll are not created by the concept of a temple or sanctuary as a place within which God must dwell, but rather by the specific prepositional rhetoric of dwelling above and among. This prepositional rhetoric is not an innovation of the Temple Scroll, but functions to inscribe it into a literary tradition. The Temple Scroll is tapping into interconnections already woven into the fabric of the biblical texts. It therefore helps us to return to the biblical text in a new light, to draw out a tradition of divine presence ‘above’ and ‘among’ which nuances the wider scholarly account.

As a catena of polemical exchanges, Josephus’ Contra Apionem has naturally invited analysis of its rhetorical strategies. While many of the discrete argumentative moments have received scholarly reflection, this paper focuses on a neglected global tactic at work throughout Contra Apionem; being bookish. First, it maps Josephus’ bookish self-presentation, highlighting his interest in ancient records, authorship, translation, textual criticism, archives, and privileged archival access. Second, this paper reads Josephus’ bookishness in light of the ascendant place of documentary evidence in Greek historiography (via Polybius’s critical engagement with Timaeus of Tauromenium) as well as the literary culture in first-century Rome (particularly the Roman library culture as reflected in Diodorus Siculus and Livy). The claim made here is that by projecting mastery of the book, Josephus attempts to access idealized representations of the ancient ‘scholar’ and thus gain apologetic purchase for the entirety of Contra Apionem and thereby defeat his scholarly enemy, Apion.

This paper is concerned with two commonly neglected features of Cairo’s architectural heritage: its houses and the surviving epigraphic repertoire displayed in their interiors that, as will be argued, helped render them into sacred places. It is based on an analysis of religious inscriptions displayed in eighteenth and nineteenth-century mansions. These inscriptions consisted primarily of verses from the Qur'an, as well as poems in praise of Muhammad, religious invocations, and foundation texts. They were prominently displayed in the salons and reception areas of these houses so that they were readily visible to residents and their guests. The inscriptions have been largely overlooked by scholars, or regarded as decorative. More careful analysis reveals that they had iconic significance in the everyday lives of the inhabitants that rendered domestic spaces sacred ones: centers of blessing and as barriers against malevolent powers. Moreover, the paper will also argue that the inscriptions had a ritual performative function linked to the efficacy attributed to their recitation on ceremonial occasions and healing those afflicted with an illness.

The text and literary critical research of the book of Esther usually focuses on the most common ancient versions in Hebrew and Greek: the Masoretic Text, the Old Greek, and the so called Alpha Text. In the last decade special attention has also been given to the first witness of the Latin textual tradition: the Vetus Latina. According to the general consensus it is a translation of the Old Greek. In the case of the book of Esther, however, some distinguished scholars such as Motzo, Schildenberger, Schneider, Milik, and Haelewyck have suggested that the Vetus Latina, or its Greek Vorlage, is in some way independent of the Old Greek. Using their own examples, I will critically analyze the hypotheses of the scholars mentioned before and demonstrate, using translation technique studies, that some of the readings of the Vetus Latina as used in the their argumentation are actually either interpretive readings of the Old Greek or redactional material added by the translator of the Vetus Latina.

Biblical scholars have examined histories of different political forms of ‘the biblical’: for example the Liberal Bible (Sherwood), the Enlightenment Bible (Sheehan), and Bush’s Bible. Trump’s Bible seems to usher in a whole new era of relations between the political and the biblical. Whereas the general trend has been for references to the biblical to become more vague and generic, in Trump’s Bible the citation of specific biblical texts and figures returns with a vengeance. The examples cited are often very specific, and (in an atmosphere of declining biblical literacy [cf. Beal]), seemingly deliberately obscure. Trump has been compared to the Persian king, Cyrus, and Esther. Is this an example of Protestant individualist interpretation, turned neoliberal, where anything goes? What does it mean that Trump is being compared to a foreign king, and a woman? Given Trump’s well-known antagonisms with immigrants, foreigners (as opposed to Americans) and women, isn’t this identification with foreign female figures rather queer? By focusing on the Cyrus analogy and looking at the tensions between the contemporary and biblical sources, I will explore Trump’s Bible in relation to the polarisation and tribalism of American politics and attempt to define this new form of ‘biblical interpretation’. I will ask if the Cyrus analogy is overtly positioning Trump as a non-Christian, ‘foreigner’ to the Christian evangelicals; and/or whether it positions him as the unexpected messiah. I will also look at how the comparison plays out differently in Israel and North America with examples from material culture; for example, a coin engraved with Trump’s face placed beside Cyrus'. Finally, what, if anything can we make of Trump’s (accidental?) identification with the Iranian-Persian outsider-messiah, in the context of the conflict between North America and Iran?

Perhaps the most emotionally tense moment in all of Mark’s gospel takes place when a lonely Jesus agonizes over his impending fate in the garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42). It is as if the movement of the narrative grinds to a screeching halt as a distressed Jesus contemplates aloud the very near future of his execution in the unnerving silence of an olive grove. Up to this point in the gospel, Jesus is in total control of his circumstances – seemingly unthreatened by his opposition and even predicting his future suffering and death in an almost disinterested way. But here in the garden he is in turmoil. Despite his request to stay awake, his closest companions cannot keep their eyes open. It seems that he has been abandoned by everyone who ever mattered to him. It is in this fragile state that Jesus prays, first asking God to remove “the cup” from him, but then immediately surrendering his own will to God’s will (14:36). This is the first time Mark’s audience has seen Jesus relinquish seemingly total control of his situation, only to regain it again immediately afterward when he allows himself to be arrested as a “fulfillment” of the scriptures (14:49) – the first step on his path toward the cross. On the surface, it might appear that Jesus has been abandoned, not only by his friends and followers, but by God himself – a view that is often supported by an atomistic reading of his cry from the cross later in Mark 15:34. However, I argue that Mark’s garden account is told in such a way as to underscore the presence of God with Jesus throughout his passion. In this paper I will look at several narrative clues throughout the gospel that culminate in Mark 14:32-42 to indicate that God is present with Jesus through his suffering and death. First, Mark takes great care to emphasize the connection between God and Jesus in their relationship. By contrast, there is a deliberate emphasis on the absence of Jesus’ closest companions while he suffers. Second, the vulnerability of Jesus in the garden is immediately replaced by a Jesus who is in total control, even as he is arrested. This can best be explained as God’s empowerment in answer to his prayer – his presence with Jesus as he begins his ordeal. Third, the “cup” language of Jesus’ request and Jesus’ resignation to God’s will suggests that God is carrying out his plan directly through Jesus’ death and resurrection. He is intimately involved in Jesus’ passion, as this is the means by which God brings about his Kingdom.

In his 1975 monograph Kerygma and Comedy in the New Testament, Via argued that the Gospel of Mark shared critical features of an aristophanic world view and could thus be categorized, albeit broadly, as a tragicomedy. More recently, Hatton has argued for reading Mark as a comedy due to its consistent ambiguities and sharing of features critical to comedy such as self-referentiality, internal commentary, costuming, and direct-reader address, while Combs has argued for formal parallels between Mark and the New comedic playwrite Plautus. Finally, Iverson has persuasively argued for the presence of humorous elements in the Evangelist’s “Bread Discourse” (Mark 8:14-21). In the present study, I build on these observations by paying particular attention to the of theme mistaken identity in the Gospel. Though this is a feature of tragedies (and comparisons between this feature and Mark have been noted), it is also a staple of New Comedy, being elemental to the comedies of Plautus, Terence, and Menander. Such comparanda raise the possibility that the Markan text interacts with questions of Jesus and his identity in a comedic key. Indeed, as I demonstrate, a close reading of Mark 4:35-6:6a reveals that the entire miracle cycle turns on the comedic incongruity of characters’ ignorance regarding Jesus’ identity as well as an intentional problematizing of Jesus’ miraculous stature. Taken together, these threads comprise a cycle that generates a form of engaging, comedic drama, problematizes Jesus’ Christological capacity earlier than is generally assumed, and reveals new vistas apropos of the rhetorical potential of the text by harnessing the power of humor in performance. Taken together, these findings indicate that humor was an intentional element of the Evangelist's rhetorical strategy and suggest that Via's observations of Mark as a tragicomedy are worth reconsidering.

This paper analyzes, in a comparative way, some sacred places devoted to Michael the Archangel in Constantinople and Asia Minor from the age of Constantin to the age of Justinian. Paying attention on literary sources spanning from the 4th to the 12th centuries (Eusebius, Sozomenos, Procopius, Esychius, Johannes Malala, and hagiographic texts), the investigation draws on a “situational” approach, centered on the historical and religious context (continuities and discontinuities) which led to the Michaelic dedications. The major focus is on the sanctuaries called Anaplous and Sosthenion, both located on the European coast of the Bosphorus; also the Phrygian sanctuaries of Chonae/Colossae and Pythia will be taken into account. These places had been previously consecrated to diverse (and minor) pagan deities, and had been a destination for pilgrims, who experienced there healing practices, like incubation. They were converted in “Michaelia” in the 4th-5th centuries C.E., and textual sources mis-attributed their transformation to the Emperor Constantin. The second stage of this exploration involves the analysis of a comparable phenomenon occurring in Italy: here the sanctuary dedicated to Michael the Archangel, located on the promontory of Gargano (Apulia) and currently registered in the UNESCO Word Heritage List, was founded in the 5th century C.E. in a cave formerly devoted to pre-Christian cults, where also incubation had been practiced. By investigating the historical data and the textual information related to the above-mentioned sanctuaries, this paper explores (and supports) the hypothesis that it was precisely the late antique re-shaping of the cultic connotation of these places which guaranteed – rather than interrupted –their material and religious subsistence, encompassing and exploiting the perception of their sacredness among the “social agents” (both the individuals and the public communities).

Francis Quarles’s pithy aphorism of 1621 is representative of reception of the biblical Dinah: “Women (like Ribs) must keepe their wonted home, /And not (like Dinah that was rauish’t) rome”. This paper explores reception of the biblical Dinah and its assertion of a direct relation between women’s physical liberty and sexual violence. Previously understood as a cautionary tale against female independence, the slut shaming of Dinah was explored in Anita Diamant’s popular novel The Red Tent (1997). This paper goes back a further 140 years to George Eliot’s novel Adam Bede which offers a radical challenge to Dinah’s reception. In borrowing this biblical figure for her depiction of Dinah Morris the Methodist preacher, Eliot interrogates the various assumptions that have accumulated around female mobility and sexual waywardness. The paper is part of a large project exploring Victorian writers’ innovative approaches to the Bible’s women.

In 2 Peter 1:3–4, the author constructs a high Christology through the strategic employment of two types of grammar. First, he uses ordinary Greek grammar to construct deliberate ambiguities and exploits such constructions to create new conceptual connections between the agency of God and the agency of Jesus, essentially fusing or conflating the two. Second, the author integrates into his argument the conceptual grammar of Greco-Roman culture, utilizing language and categories to explain and elaborate upon the divinity of Jesus. This paper will follow the logical argumentation of 1:3–4 and note how the author seeks to develop a high Christology by 1) observing the ambiguity of the grammar regarding divinity, 2) arguing that the author is intentionally recalibrating his recipients’ perception of Jesus, 3) noting how the author describes Jesus using the imagery of a victorious and beneficent king, and 4) exploring how partaking in the divine nature provides the solution to the problem of human defilement.

In this talk I will present the harvest of MS Tyrnavos 25 from the tenth century. This catena manuscript has proven an extremely rich source of Hexaplaric readings of Job, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. For Proverbs, too, it offers a substantial amount of Hexaplaric readings, many of which were not known before.

This presentation examines Josephus’ speech before the walls of Jerusalem in War 5.362-419.

The extended metaphor of besieged Jerusalem as a boiling pot of stew in Ezek 24:1-14 appears in three distinct yet related vignettes. Verses 3b-5 portray the pot being filled with choice meats and cooked. Verses 6-8 reveal the filthy pot as the city of bloodshed, its contents rejected and concludes with the related imagery of blood spilled upon rock. Verses 9-13 depict the pot and its contents as given over to a purifying fire. This extended metaphor presents numerous interpretive challenges in two main respects: how is each vignette to be understood on its own and how is the extended metaphor as a whole understood through the cumulative force of these three vignettes. Because successful metaphor analyses are often dependent upon their integration with other critical methods, it is no surprise that the analysis of this extended metaphor will require the integration of different methods in each of its vignettes. While the analysis of each vignette may benefit from the integration of multiple methods, I will focus on the one method that provides the most value interpretively. For vv. 3b-5, I examine how the poetry contributes to the luxurious and exuberant portrayal of the cooking pot as Jerusalem. Specifically, I analyse how the poetry’s usage of repetition, parallelism, and poetic rhythm depicts Jerusalem as a prized city, which ultimately provides the conceptual foundation for analysing how the other two vignettes’ specific pot metaphors build upon this first vignette. For vv. 6-8, I examine the seemingly odd juxtapositions of the imageries of the filthy pot, bloody city, and blood shed upon bare rock. As a whole, scholarship has not addressed the central importance of the imagery of blood on the rock to the boiling pot metaphor. I propose how the imagery of God’s shedding of Jerusalem’s blood upon bare rock serves as the poetic climax of this vignette and how this imagery is to be understood in light of the passage’s re-use of Lev 17:1-13 (Holiness Code) as a means for describing God’s angry rejection of Jerusalem. In vv. 9-13, I focus upon the text-critical issues in relation to this vignette’s specific boiling pot metaphor. In light of how the LXX and MT present the details of this section’s pot metaphor quite differently in several instances, I examine how these differences may have arisen from each tradent’s unique understanding of the extended metaphor. In conclusion, I offer some observations on the “plasticity” of metaphor and explain how it has been exploited in Ezekiel’s metaphor of the boiling pot to produce a “thick” announcement and defense for Jerusalem’s doom.

In the Hebrew Bible, the use of ‘am ha’ares extends from the times of the monarchy and the Babylonian exile to the post-exilic period, but there has always been a debate about its specific reference. This article aims to investigate what it refers to in the monarchy period based on related events and texts in 2Kings, in order to provide a new perspective for furtherly exploring the social system of ancient Israel. In this paper, firstly, I will review the previous viewpoints about the term and point out their weakness; secondly, I will give a detailed analysis of its use in the book of Kings and emphasize the important role of this group in the succession of kings; thirdly, I will try to infer its specific reference from the places of origin of the mothers of the kings supported by this group; lastly, combined with the history of expansion of Judah, I will explain why this group is called ‘am ha’ares. In regard to its referent in the monarchical period, the previous viewpoints can be basically divided into three types. The first viewpoint emphasizes that it refers to a particular institution or class in the Judahite kingdom, such as parliament, landlords. The second type considers that this term is not technical and refer to all the people, the people in a particular area or the representatives of people in an etymological meaning. The third type suggests that this term refers to a functional group which plays an important role, but cannot hold a stable position in the social system. ‘Am ha’ares plays an important role in the succession of some of the kings whose mothers originate from the Shephelah, Beersheba and the Negev areas. Accordingly, this article argues that ‘am ha’ares refers to those nobilities who belong to the same clans or tribes with the queen mothers. Because these nobilities can influence and represent the interests of common people in their place, this term also designates the common people in these areas. From the 9th to 6th B.C.E, the Shephelah, Beersheba, and Negev areas never truly become the stable parts of the kingdom of Judah. In order to control these areas, the Judah royal courts often have a political marriage with local nobility families. These nobilities try to anoint those kings whose mother come from the same clan or areas with them so as to make more benefits for themselves and those people in these areas. Therefore, those nobility and common people were called ‘am ha’ares so as to distinguish them from the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah. In the Babylonian period, some of ‘am ha’ares were exiled to Babylon, however others still remained in the Judah and fled to the north of the highland of Judah. With these people living together, the Jacob tradition from the North Israel and the Abraham and Isaac tradition from the Hebron and Beersheba areas were integrated into a unified text, which formulates their memories and identities.

Biblical scholars generally agree that Jesus' identity and discipleship are the main themes of the Gospel of Mark. These two interrelated themes are addressed in the central section of Mark (8:22–10:52) more clearly than anywhere else. In this section, which starts and ends with two healing narratives of two blind men (8:22–26 and 10:46–52), the Markan narrator conveys through the metaphors of blindness and the recovery of sight what the implied author means by "seeing" Jesus—fully understanding his identity as the suffering messiah—and by "following" him. In this paper, I examine how persons with disabilities—more specifically, blind persons or those who have impaired vision—may perceive the way their experiences are represented in the two Markan healing narratives (8:22–26 and 10:46–52) that bracket this section. I expose and problematize the stereotypical and distorted depictions of disability—i.e., blindness as disabling and marginalizing, and as rendering one vulnerable to exploitation—even of the Markan Jesus. In doing so, I first present David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder's conception of narrative prosthesis, a way to examine "both the prevalence of disability representations and the myriad meanings ascribed to it." Second, I discuss one of many meanings ascribed to persons with disabilities, i.e., commodities as conceptualized by Arjun Appadurai. Third, I look at a modern cultural example, the American freak show, in which persons with disabilities are presented as commodities. Robert Bogdan's interpretation of the freak show helps us to see how disabled persons as the other are commodified and en-freaked for the benefit of the self—understood here as the "normate." Finally, I thus suggest that, as in the freak show, the two Markan healing narratives can be read as describing disabled persons as deviant and secondary to able-bodied people. Those healing narratives commodify the two blind men for normal people's benefit, i.e., a better understanding of who Jesus is and how one should follow him.

The Annunciation Broadcast By Prophets (1565) was an altarpiece created by Federico Zuccaro (1541-1609) for the Church of the Annunciation, Rome. It was the first image commissioned by the Order of the Jesuits, a movement involved in propagating the objectives of the Counter- Reformation Church. Altarpieces were particularly effective points of communication between the Catholic Church and the lay beholder, and used visual exegesis as a means to communicate appropriated receptions of biblical texts. The intimate connection that these objects have to their theological and political context marks them as significant moments of biblical reception, that have, up to this point, been overlooked by historians in the field. The paper also identifies the broader lacuna in scholarship surrounding the reception history of the Bible during the Counter-Reformation. Whilst this is due to a preference for studies of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, the lack of scholarly investment poorly reflects the relevance of the Counter-Reformation period to the reception-historical methodology. The context prioritised the interpretation of the Bible through the lens of Church tradition, or in other words, the history of the Bible’s reception. This affinity is echoed in the reception-historical approach found in contemporary biblical scholarship, creating a hermeneutical link between the two contexts. Visual culture was a valuable expression of Counter-Reformation rhetoric and visualised the mediation of biblical texts through Church tradition. This paper uses Zuccaro’s altarpiece as a tool to argue this hypothesis and postulate the intimate relationship maintained between texts and their reception in Counter-Reformation Catholicism.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Early Christian Judaism.

This study identifies and explains the significance of an allusion to Deuteronomy’s Law of Vows (Deut 23:22–24) from within Zerubbabel’s request to King Darius to fulfill the vow Darius made to the King of heaven (1 Esdras 4:43–46). First, I demonstrate on the basis of lexical and syntactical evidence that the author of 1 Esdras 4:46 alluded to Deut 23:24. This argument is significant insofar as commentators have often overlooked even the verbal similitude between Deut 23:24 and 1 Esdras 4:46 (e.g., Bird, 2012; Böhler, 2013; Japhet, 2013), with few exceptions (Talshir, 2001), and no one to my knowledge has argued for an intentional allusion from the latter text to the former. Secondly, I demonstrate how the allusion to the Law of Vows functioned as part of the author’s broader aim to glorify Zerubbabel as a Davidic hero of the restoration (cf. Talshir, 1999, 2001; De Troyer, 2002; Bird, 2012; Japhet, 2013), particularly lending to a portrayal of Zerubbabel as lawful, shrewd, and perhaps wise. Finally, with the allusion from 1 Esdras to the Law of Vows well established, I comment upon King Darius’s supposed coronation vow referred to in 1 Esdras 4:43 (cf. Bird, 2012; Japhet, 2013; Böhler, 2013; NRSV; NETS), arguing that the verse actually refers to a conditional vow Darius made prior to his coronation—a vow which has come due because he achieved the throne.

It is a pity that lexicographers of the Hebrew language have not been in the habit of leaving behind them not only their lexica but also accounts of how they went about making them, their goals, their methods, their doubts, and their frustrations. This paper will offer a record of the processes involved in one particular lexicographical project I have been engaged on in preparing The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised (DCHR): namely, synonym hunting. Hebrew synonyms have not much interested scholars in the nearly 400 years since the unique work of Plantavitius in 1644. But I decided that the revision of DCH, and its users, would benefit from a collection of all the identifiable synonyms for each word of the Hebrew vocabulary, whether the 107 for be strong, 34 for darkness, 25 for dwelling, 18 for weak, 4 for flax. This paper will focus on the How, i.e., the process of identifying and validating the candidates for synonymity. Juggling the resources for identifying synonyms has been an exciting and demanding occupation, involving the interactive use of six different pieces of software, and constant checking of the textual evidence. The Why question will briefly explain the origins of this undertaking, and the Wherefore will sketch some of the uses of synonym knowledge.

Genesis 16 is usually quoted in discussions on abuse in reference to the harsh treatment of slave (Hagar) by master (Sarai). However, the only formal claim of abuse in the chapter is that brought by wife against husband. Sarai sues Abram for not protecting her from her slave-girl’s arrogance upon learning she was pregnant (Gen 16:5), a behavior similarly condemned in Prov 30:21–23 and LH §146. Contrary to most interpretations Sarai does not ask Abram for a judgment, but rather appeals to YHWH for a decision (cf. Ex 5:20-22; 1 Sam 24). She is ultimately empowered to act not by a ruling from Abram, but by the legitimacy of his legal argument – that the matter of correcting Hagar’s behavior was not under his jurisdiction and Sarai had the authority to protect herself – “Look, your slave-girl is in your hands, so do with her as you like” (Gen 16:6). This reasoning is paralleled in Mesopotamian legal texts (LH §146 and marriage contracts) that put a concubine or slave-wife under the control of the primary wife in similar scenarios. Contrary to most interpretations our passage does not depict a disinterested Abram who grants Sarai permission to abuse Hagar, but rather portrays Abram as a husband unjustly accused of abuse by his wife, and who exonerates himself with his legal wisdom (cf. his legal argument in Gen 18:23-25, also J). This domestic abuse suit is unique in the Hebrew Bible and is therefore essential to reconstructing understandings of domestic abuse in Ancient Israel.

Hebraists unanimously agree that the Hebrew language of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) includes Late Biblical, Samaritan and Tannaitic Hebrew features as well as Aramaic traits, even though there is no consensus concerning the nature of the language of the DSS so far. Morag, Ben-Ḥayyim, and Qimron allege that the DSS reflect a spoken variety; in contrast, Kutscher and Blau state that DSS Hebrew is a literary variety with interferences from spoken Hebrew and Aramaic. Furthermore Tov, Dimant, and Schniedewind suggest that one-third of the scrolls displays hallmarks of a sectarian or an anti-language. All these hypotheses require further qualifications. DSS Hebrew does not reflect a single variety, but at least three distinct dialects that differ typologically. Morag identifies three varieties: General Qumran Hebrew (GQH), to which the majority of the scrolls belongs; Qumran Mishnaic, the variety attested in Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (4QMMT); and the Hebrew idiolect of the Copper Scroll (3Q15). My contribution aims to challenge the GQH label, since it alone fails to account for the variation embedded within most of the scrolls attributed to that category. GQH, therefore, should not be understood as a monolithic entity, but rather as an umbrella term for a variety of genres, scribal schools, scripts, traditions, and idiolects. I will analyse a sample of three syntactic features, each of which will either be in binary opposition with its Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH) counterpart, viz. presence or absence (according to Hurvitz’s method), or in varying degrees of contrast, viz. predominance of one feature coexisting with its parallel CBH feature (in the vein of Hornkohl). The three syntactic features will be culled from a sample of narrative, poetical, halakhic, and historical sections of GQH. Additionally, these literary genres will be calibrated by the macro-differentiation between biblical and non-biblical DSS, even though biblical and non-biblical excerpts of the same literary genre often exhibit more parallels than biblical texts belonging to different genres. Where necessary, I will take different scribal schools, scripts, traditions, and idiolects into account. Given that the lexicography, including the phraseology, of 4QMMT theological sections is influenced by CBH more than that of 4QMMT halakhic section (as noted by Qimron), among GQH texts, the investigation of the Damascus Covenant (DC), which includes both historical and halakhic sections would be intriguing. Since Qimron identified more CBH lexical elements in DC historical section than in DC halakhic section, it would be interesting to compare the syntactic features of these two sections. It can be inferred from documentation found at Qumran that the alleged Essene community, to whom the DSS belonged, was educated and trilingual, with Hebrew being its predominant language. The multilingualism in Qumran is not surprising since multilingualism prevailed in Palestine in the Late Second Temple Period. An outline of the sociolinguistic situation in Qumran among Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek is beyond the scope of my contribution, but I will formulate a tentative hypothesis on the sociolinguistic relationships among Qumran Hebrew varieties, with special regard to the texts belonging to the purported GQH.

This dialogue portion of the session is a description of on my work and scholarship in discourse on Patricia Hill Collin’s intersectionality with Professor Najeeba Sayeed.

We are close to the 50-year mark since Wolfgang Schneider wrote the first proposal of Biblical Hebrew syntax (1974) based on the text-linguistic method of Harald Weinrich (Tempus, 1964). My recent research on the topics of BH and Targum Aramaic syntaxes (Syntactic Studies in Targum Aramaic and Following the Blueprint I) argued that the way in which Schneider and Alviero Niccacci read the method of Weinrich—from the meaning of the terminology to its particular application to BH—does not really correspond to the original method. In view of the original method, it is mistaken to suppose that: (1) What Weinrich calls the commented world versus the narrated world is the same as the direct speech versus indirect speech; (2) The foreground/background opposition is the only possible interpretation of word order in Biblical Hebrew (wayyiqtol is foreground, the rest of the sentences—xqatal, xyiqtol, simple nominal sentences—are background); (3) Tense means real-time; on the contrary, Weinrich’s method is an alternative way of examining language which does not resort to tense, aspect and mood theories; instead, he proposes the text time – the sequence of linguistic signs (that includes but is not limited to tenses) in the oral and written communication (cf. Weinrich, Tempus. Le funzioni dei tempi nel testo, 1964/1978, 77-78). In my research, I have proposed a BH syntactic outline which I think mirrors the achievements of Weinrich’s text-linguistic theory: he creates a tightknit correlation between the tense in Modern Languages and theoretical syntactic functions. This correlation is based on analyzing language from the standpoint of three dimensions of language: register (this can be of narrative or of comment); relievo (this can be of foreground or background; or presto versus lento, respectively); perspective (lack of perspective or retrospection/anticipation). Following Weinrich who developed this three–way analysis of tense in Modern languages (for example the English past tense belongs to the narrative register, foreground/presto relievo, and it lacks perspective), I have proposed a similar description for the BH sentences. I consider that BH tense and word order work together to achieve the syntactic values which Modern languages normally achieve through the tense system. My current paper aims to present a basic outline of BH syntax in the prose text of Genesis 24 of the Masoretic Text. The main point of this presentation is that the BH word order replicates Weinrich’s comment versus narrative tenses opposition of the Modern languages, i.e. SVO word order generally indicates the comment register, VSO signals the narrative register. The plan for this presentation is the following. 1. A few words about the historical and methodological background of Weinrich’s methodology and its reception in Biblical scholarship. 2. Outline the main point of the paper and a short discussion of the relevant vocabulary. 3. Present the text-linguistic analysis of wayyiqtol, wqatal xqatal, and xparticiple as evident from the prose of Genesis 24. 4. Closing statement about the relevance of this type of syntactic analysis.

The bětūlāh law in Deut 22:13-19 details the process for checking a young bride’s virginity when her husband claims that he has found no such signs. This law involves explicitly exclusive expectations for a woman within ancient Israelite society and, importantly, constructs her sexuality as something that must be safeguarded for the sake of a male head of house and, later, for a husband. The punishment for a woman who fails to disclose her non-virgin status to her parents before marriage and thus has no “signs of virginity” is death by stoning at her father’s gates in order to purge the bad deed from the midst of the people. The involvement of the elders of the town is especially telling. Another, proximate crime in Deuteronomy that also involves the involvement of one’s parents and the elders is that of the bēn sōrēr in Deut 21:18-21. Just like the bětūlāh, the bēn sōrēr must appear before the elders of his town and rely upon his parents to provide evidence either for him or against him. Just like the bětūlāh, the bēn sōrēr must appear at gates proximate to his home for judgement (ša‘ar měqōmô). Finally, just like the bětūlāh, the punishment of the bēn sōrēr functions to purge the bad deed from the midst of the people. The correspondences in punishments in these two laws indicate elements of generational hierarchy in Deuteronomic law that extend to both men and women in each of these exclusive legal rulings. For the bětūlāh, she has disgraced her family by having sex before marriage and not disclosing this to her father, who likely accepted a virgin’s bride price for her. For the bēn sōrēr, he has failed to be obedient to his parents and poses a threat to his family’s wealth and well-being. Both exclusive laws demonstrate exclusive gendered expectations of children in relation to their parents that are held to the same legal standard of punishment: women are expected to allow their families to control their sexuality before marriage and men are expected to be obedient to their parents.

The cursing of the fig tree in Matt 21:18–22 is one of the most problematic passages in the Gospels for ecological interpretation. Although in Matthew this passage follows the cleansing of the Temple, rather than serving as an inclusio of that episode as it does in Mark 11:12-25, interpreters still treat the fig tree as symbolic of worship that does not produce good fruit and justify its destruction as a symbolic act. Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree seems to treat it solely as a producer of commodities and justify the destruction of bodies that do not conform to anthropocentric and utilitarian expectations. This presentation adopts the ecological hermeneutics principles of suspicion, identification, and retrieval through an ecomimetic investigation of the fig tree to challenge its traditional erasure as an object of moral concern. Because of the importance of figs in ancient Israel, biblical authors and their original audiences were likely to be much more knowledgeable about fig trees than are modern interpreters from industrialized nations. By offering sustained attention to the fig tree, ecological hermeneutics offers interpretive possibilities that more traditional approaches overlook. Because figs often rely on symbiotic relationships with other species for fertilization, the tree’s barrenness is not solely dependent on the tree itself but rather reflects failures within its social-ecological system. Furthermore, the tree’s barrenness does not prevent it from being an important, contributing member of its ecological community. Although fig trees were prized for their fruit, they also fill other vital roles within a functioning ecosystem, including those of habitat, water transport, sap provision, shade, and erosion control. Even a fruitless fig tree is an important player in its local ecosystem. Identification with the fig tree heightens the irony of Jesus’ destruction of the tree because it bore no fruit. It invites interpreters to read the following parables of the two sons, the wicked tenants, and the wedding banquet through this lens of irony as commentaries on nonconforming bodies and behaviors as well as the disappointment of unnatural expectations. I conclude by surveying the implications this investigation has for the ongoing work of New Testament disability studies today and reflecting on the contributions that ecological hermeneutics offers to the wider field of biblical studies.

A number of royal psalms within the biblical Psalter feature oracles of reassurance addressed from the Judean god to his client king (e.g., Ps 2:7b–8; 110:1). These inset oracles resemble other reassuring messages spoken from a patron god to a client king, as, for example, in the Old Aramaic Zakkur Inscription (“Fear not [’l tzḥl], for I have made you king”). Many scholars suppose on the basis of these similarities that the biblical oracles trace back to the Iron Age, and that, like memorial inscriptions, they once targeted an individual, named king. In their canonical presentation, however, the royal psalms are anonymized in order to function as community texts. In a 2004 Festschrift chapter, Scott Starbuck proposed a three-stage movement from the first, named usage to the royal psalms as they stand in the canonical Psalter. Starbuck’s second stage of transmission, when “editorial processes…excised specific references to monarchical protagonists,” suffers for want of evidence, as he admits. But it may be that one Egyptian Aramaic document provides a “missing link” of sorts: a snapshot of a royal tradition in transformation; an exemplar of an intermediate stage between a one-time oracle addressed to a single, named king and a community text like the biblical psalms. That document is Papyrus Amherst 63, and specifically its column vi. Although its findspot is uncertain, this long Aramaic document, written in Demotic script, is dated to the fourth century BCE. Internal clues point to its production within a soldiering community. Its column vi includes what translator Richard Steiner labels “The Heilsorakel: a reassuring reply,” in which the god Mar speaks to a nameless client king: “Be strong, my servant, fear not [‘l tdḥl].” This paper explores the light this example sheds on the transmission of royal traditions in the Second Temple period—and the process of their collectivization.

This paper returns to the most basic questions of Paul and Pharisaism, using the traditional criteria of historical analysis. Was Paul a Pharisee? And if so, for how long? While entertaining the logical possibility that Paul was a life-long Pharisee, indeed the son of Greek-speaking Pharisees in Tarsus, who continued to identify as a Pharisee to the end of his apostolic career, I will argue that the evidence of Paul’s own letters, particularly Phil 3:2–11, is far more ambiguous than scholars on both sides of the question admit. Even if Paul ceased to live or identify as a Pharisee, the first principles of this training would have been hard-wired in him. In the final section of the paper, I look again at my 2016 article and chart the vestigial presence, as well as the waning influence, of Paul’s Pharisaic education on his scriptural hermeneutics. I will propose that certain close affinities between Paul’s interpretation of scripture and later rabbinic hermeneutics, present in Galatians, are in Romans beginning to be eclipsed by Greek-speaking currents of an Alexandrian-Platonizing variety, allowing one to speak of an obsolescence or senescence of Paul’s Pharisaism.

The translator of Old Greek Job has a “fluid” translation strategy that makes use of various techniques to produce a translation that has standing as a literary text. These include, for example, the reduction of two parallel lines to one to overcome an integral part of Hebrew poetry, the incorporation of many rarely attested words, the elimination of repetition, and abbreviation for the sake of coherence. Still the translator preserves “Hebraisms” and sometimes introduces them where they do not exist in the source text. This paper examines this dimension of the translator’s work and its intention with respect to the anticipated audience.

Within a growing age of universalism under the Achaemenid and Hellenistic empires, scholars and priests in Judea and Egypt worked assiduously to preserve older traditions that survived from eras of national independence. Yet, at the same time, we also witness a new kind of literary creativity. A noteworthy example is the novella: short works of prose narrative fiction narrated in the third person. They share many common features, such as a preference for historical fiction, complex and entertaining plots, protagonists that are experiencers more than doers, and themes that play with cherished cultural topoi from the Iron Age and before. Five Judean examples have survived intact: Jonah, Ruth, Esther, Tobit, and Judith. In Egypt, dozens of novellas written in Demotic, starting in the early Ptolemaic period, have survived, although fewer are intact enough today to allow close study. The popularity of the novella in both Judea and Egypt points to a unique, shared social form: the ability of a scholarly and priestly class to devote energy to a literature of diversion and entertainment. Most of the ancient manuscripts of these novellas, however, survive from generations, in some cases 20 or more, removed from their original composition. By the first few centuries CE, the authorship and enjoyment of novellas was no longer adjunct to scholarship, but part of it: the novellas themselves had long before begun to be collected, edited, and transmitted as exempla of a traditional culture. A tension developed between what I consider to be the defining feature of the novella in its original context, that of pure storytelling, and the changing circumstances in which the novella found itself. In this paper, I will argue that we can best characterize this development as a process of both classicization and de-secularization, two distinct aspects of a process of canonization. For Judean novellas in particular, this will help bring into focus diverse issues such as the inclusion of Jonah among the Twelve, the placement of Ruth after Judges in ancient witnesses, and the unclear status of Esther as a biblical scroll. Related also are issues of editing and supplementation in the novellas, such as the pious re-orientation of Esther and, possibly, Tobit. The Egyptian evidence provides us with Roman period temple libraries in situ that can help us model the ways that a literate class transmitted and read popular literature amid linguistic changes and, at times, social upheaval. Thus, the novella occupies a unique place in the literary history of antiquity, attesting to an evolving niche that took its place amidst older national traditions, contemporary vernacular culture, and the cosmopolitan sphere of Hellenism.

JOSEPHUS AND NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE AGAINST ROMANIZATION: Between the violent revolts against Rome in 4 BCE and 66 CE, certain Jewish leaders experimented repeatedly with organized nonviolent resistance against specific steps in the ongoing Romanization of Israel. Those nonviolent actions were probably based on eschatological hope and certainly backed by a willingness to suffer martyrdom—if unfortunately necessary. Those took place under the emperors: Augustus (JW 2.118, 433 & 7.253 = JA 18.1-10,23-25 & 20.102); Tiberius (JW 2.169-174 = JA 18.55-59 & JW 2.175-177 = JA 18.60-62); Caligula (JW 2.184-203 = JA 18.261-283; Philo, Embassy to Gaius 225-260; Tacitus, Histories 5.9.2); Claudius (JA 20.97-98; Acts 5:36); Nero (JW 2.258-263 = JA 20.167b-171; Acts 21:38). About nonviolent resistance Josephus writes more defensively (JW 2.118 with JA 18.3-10,23-25) and more pejoratively (JW 2.258) than against even violent resistance but all Roman resistance opposes God’s will (JW 2.391 & 5.367,378) and is eschatologically delusional since Vespasian is the promised Messiah (JW 6.312-313). JESUS AND NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE AGAINST ROMANIZATION: In her 1999 book, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York, NY: Knopf: Random House), Paula Fredriksen took as its generative basis the fact that Jesus was crucified but his closest followers were not even arrested (pp. 9, 11 & 240,255). Her explanation is that Pilate knew Jesus was innocent but wanted to warn off the Passover crowds (pp. 243,253) and she calls Jesus’ program “nonresistance … passive resistance—or, perhaps more accurately, active nonresistance … nonresistance” (p. 243). But Jesus’ program was, quite simply, nonviolent resistance—within those just seen ongoing experiments from 6 to 66 CE. Against VIOLENT resistance Rome arrested and crucified the leader and his closest supporters all together: “a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection” (Mark 15:7). Against NONVIOLENT resistance, Roman civil law decreed that, “The authors of sedition and tumult, or those who stir up the people, shall, according to their rank, either be crucified, thrown to wild beasts, or deported to an island” (The Opinions of Julius Paulus Addressed to His Son, Book V, Title XXII.1). Jesus was executed for sedition or tumult or stirring up the people but his closest followers and most important supporters were not even arrested (JA 8.63-6; Tacitus Annals 15.44). Pilate’ judgment was legally, officially, publicly, and precisely correct: Jesus’ Kingdom Movement invoked nonviolent resistance against the Romanization of Israel—but he did not invent such resistance.

Of all the books of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Psalms hold a special fascination for many Muslims. First, the life and passions of David, as recounted in the Hebrew Bible, are evocative of the life and passions of Muhammad, as recounted in the sīra (biographical) literature. In this sense, Muhammad is very much the Son of David. Second, the Psalms (or zabūr) are not only mentioned in the Qur’an as the revelation given to David, but Q21:105 appears to quote from the Psalter. Third, the Psalms are poems (Heb., shirim). Indeed, many Psalms are similar in length to many Surahs of the Qur’an with many similarities between aspects of their poetics. Fourth, like many Surahs in the Qur’an, the Psalms presume their readers and reciters are already familiar with the history of God’s people and previous revelation. Fifth, when Muslims stand to pray, they recite Surahs of the Qur’an just as Jews and Christians throughout history have stood before God and recited Psalms from the Psalter. In both cases, the words recited have been found to contain many mysteries and, in both cases, the acknowledgement of these mysteries has added to the sense in which this recitation has become an act of worship. The irony of these remarkable similarities is that each one, when sincerely pursued, seem to end in an impasse in which it is hard to see how one could have inspired the other or have been fulfilled by the other.

Carol Newsom articulates the tension in Daniel 1-2 between the author’s conviction that his “own traditions are superior” and his tacit admission of the Other’s (in this case, Babylon’s) “intellectual accomplishments.” This Seleucid-era redactor was not alone: throughout the 3rd-2nd century BCE, his fellow elite members of non-ethnically Greek Mediterranean societies participated, to varying degrees, in educational models which valued a non-native language and literary corpus. Regardless of their political status, these non-Greek elites faced a conundrum: their educational and literary model prioritized, even centered the cosmos upon, the experience of an “Other.” The Homeric corpus dramatized the triumph of Argive warriors over a non-Greek civilization, and this narrative of a Greek coalition versus a non-Greek city grounded elite Mediterranean education. By the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE, the Romans were conquering the Greek homeland, and certain Judaeans believed God would crash the imperial systems to the ground and exalt them as the exemplary ethnos. How then did these Mediterranean communities navigate the dissonance between their education’s exaltation of an Other and their own people-group’s perceived superiority? In this paper, I will first build upon Simon Hornblower’s cataloging of parallels between Lykophron’s Alexandra and Book III of the Sibylline Oracles (henceforth Book III). Beyond similar literary techniques or shared tropes, however, I will demonstrate that Alexandra and Book III evince, to quote John Collins, “phenomena which cannot be explained as simple borrowings but are independent parallel developments in the various traditions, due to similar conditions.” Hearkening to Annette Reed’s suggestion of Book III as “alternate paideia,” I argue that the “similar condition” is an educational system which situates the Other (the Greeks) at history’s center. Thus, while both Alexandra and Book III exalt the authors’ respective Roman and Jewish communities as the acme of civilization, they clearly valorize and appropriate the Greek literary tradition. To “solve” this tension, both Alexandra and Book III portray Homer as possessing incomplete or even plagiarized knowledge. Because his gaze was limited to a specific era, Homer—despite his literary merits—portrayed the Greeks as humanity’s exemplar. Through the prophetic insight of Kassandra (Alexandra) or the Sibyl (Book III), however, one can glimpse the full scope of history and detect that Greek exemplarity is temporary and that another civilization (be it Judaean or Roman) will be the true exemplary people-group. In my paper's final section, I will return to Daniel 1-2 and demonstrate that it provides an excellent, if unlikely, conversation partner for this shared discourse in Book III and Alexandra. Analogous to Homer’s role in Greek education, divination (in its many forms) formed the bedrock for Babylonian intellectual activity. This divinatory activity typically centered the experience of Mesopotamian rulers and cities, however. While affirming this Babylonian knowledge, Daniel 1-2 nevertheless suggests its incompleteness. In particular, Daniel’s divination of the statue dream decenters the Other (Babylon) as history’s acme. Through Daniel’s prophetic insight, one can glimpse the full scope of history of history and see that, in fact, the Judaeans are the exemplary kingdom.

In a recent study, Jacqueline Vayntrub (2018) offers a thesis on why producers of Proverbs depart from traditional ways of introducing didactic instructions. I offer an addendum to her work, as well as two modifications. Vayntrub shows that unlike producers of Shuruppak, Ahiqar, Ptahhotep, and Amenemope, producers of Proverbs provide no real narrative of speech performance. Proverbs is spare, to say the least, in comparison with the narrative information that these other texts provide regarding the reason or occasion for the discourses they transmit, the speakers, addressees, and relationships between them. Lemuel is the only named addressee in Proverbs, and as Vayntrub points out, his speaking mother is not named. Solomon could be conceived as a named speaker, but arguably, we never hear him speak. His name serves an authorizing but not a speech performance function in the book of Proverbs. And this is Vayntrub’s point. She suggests that producers of Proverbs portray speech performance in the ways they do in order to shift the locus of authority in their version of didactic instruction from a famous individual to the text itself. After summarizing Vayntrub’s project, I offer two modifications of, and one addendum to, it. The addendum: not only do speech performance frames in Proverbs authorize texts in a way that is unprecedented in ancient Near Eastern instructions, they also democratize the use of Proverbs in ways that other texts do not. The son of a king is no longer the staged addressee. Anyone can envision themselves as an addressee of material in Proverbs. The modifications that I recommend pertain to speech performance as this materializes in the book of Proverbs. Where Vayntrub sees three speech performance frames, I see two frames of production, two types of staged speech performance frames, and then also implicit frames of speech performance that inhere throughout the book. I ultimately suggest that the latter encompass the former. In order to envision this, we need a cognitive model of communication. Speech performance in Proverbs is a matter of speakers imagining readers and readers imagining speakers. Cognitive theorists argue that imagining interlocutors is a fundamental operation in all language use. The psychological nature of communication requires speakers and hearers (and writers and readers) to imagine “the other”—their intentions, what they know and how they feel (Clark 1996, Gibbs 1999, Verhagen 2005, Dancygier & Sweetser 2012, Dijk 2014). In this paper, I model how we might imagine communication when we think about speech performance in Proverbs, and in so doing, I offer a reanalysis of the performance context of the book.

The desert Christians of the third and fourth centuries continue to fascinate readers of all stripes. How did memory function in the lives of the desert mothers and fathers? The present paper seeks a refined understanding of the role of memory in the desert communities in hopes that such might contribute to contemporary understandings of Christian spirituality, i.e., lived Christian experience. For the desert Christians, memory is not simply a passive recollection, but rather, it is an active remembrance in the sense of a Eucharistic anamnesis that permeates all of daily life. My methodology is chiefly historical and theological. First, I examine anamnesis, defining the term for the present study, with special attention to its import for Jews and Christians in antiquity. Next, I explicitly trace out the Eucharistic character of anamnesis in desert spirituality by examining the “sayings” of the desert mothers and fathers. Additionally, I show how this sort of active remembrance was not simply relegated to formal liturgy but instead pervaded the daily life of the desert dwellers. The early church likely understood the Eucharist as a new Passover meal, and so, Passover themes become Eucharistic for Christians, including those in the desert tradition. Ultimately, the kind of active, empathic, and experiential remembrance found in the desert tradition is the same kind of remembrance that Jews practice during Passover, as well as the same kind of remembrance (anamnesis) that Christians are invited to partake in when the Eucharist is celebrated. While no particular desert saying explicitly correlates the Passover or the Eucharist with remembering the elders, each of these “types” of remembering share common qualities and goals. In all cases, the remembrance is active, engaged, embodied, imperative, and salvific. For the desert Christians, this kind of remembering is also inherent insofar as it is Eucharistic – it is a natural, organic kind of remembering for Christian community. That it carries over into daily life, with respect for elders and their wisdom, ought not be surprising. Similar to the Jewish understanding of anamnesis, Christian Eucharistic anamnesis brings to life all of God's redemptive work as a present reality that demands personal transformation. In a similar way, the “spirituality of memory” of the desert Christians involves not simply pleasant recollection of old friends, but rather, daily active remembrance of a salvific kind, wherein the wisdom of the elders as servants of God is brought to bear on present struggles with the expectation that such wisdom can and will conquer evil. Participation in the Eucharist is meant to transform one into Christ’s Body. Likewise, remembering the sayings of the desert elders is meant to lead to imitation of them, and so, of Christ. Both kinds of anamnesis are ordered to salvation and daily lived experience as a Christian.

This paper compares with their Syriac translations the few letters of Evagrius of Pontus that survive in their Greek original. Such a comparison allows for observations about Syriac translation practices in late antiquity, in the context of developing ascetic practices at the turn of the fourth to the fifth centuries, and demonstrates the absorption, into a different language and culture, of Greek terminology, rhetorical style, and the understanding of contemplation as the goal of the solitary.

It is often observed that the cinema of Christopher Nolan is characterised by nonlinear or disrupted narrative structures, and explorations of time, space, and memory. These interests have shaped his contribution to a range of film genres, such as the disruption of cause-and-effect and memory in thrillers "Memento" (2000) and "Inception" (2010), the more explicit exploration of general relativity in sci-fi epic "Interstellar" (2014), and the overlapping and disjointed narrative timeline(s) of his war film "Dunkirk" (2017). Little is known about his forthcoming espionage thriller "Tenet" (scheduled for release in July 2020) but indications are that this, too, will exploit temporal nonlinearity. Nolan’s manipulation of time and space reflects his interest in exploiting a post-Newtonian understanding of the cosmos for storytelling, but this is not without its ancient counterparts. Second temple Jewish cosmology is sometimes oversimplified as a three-tiered system, the uppermost being heaven which, though exalted, essentially belongs to the same space-time continuum. However, it has been suggested that a more sophisticated framework is operative in at least some texts, notably the heavenly ascent visions of 1 Enoch and the Hekhalot literature. There, heaven is described as something like a ‘parallel universe’ in which earthly laws of time, space, and thermodynamics are disrupted in the seer’s narrated experience. The book of Revelation, I suggest, can usefully be approached in this way. This paper will bring these seemingly disparate discussions into dialogue, arguing that Nolan’s narrative manipulation of time, space, and nonlinearity (and the Einsteinian physics this reflects) offer a powerful lens with which to examine time and space in the book of Revelation. In particular, it will explore how Nolan’s storytelling might offer a new perspective on the enduring question of the book’s structure, which, I will argue, similarly deploys nonlinear storytelling, the disruption of cause-and-effect, and complex depictions of time and space.

Statistical and visual tools have long played an important role in the discussion of the synoptic problem; after all, the data is vast, complex, and open to a wide range of interpretations. Up to this point, however, the depiction of synoptic data, from Griesbach’s synopsis or Hawkins’ statistical collection up to Robert MacEwen’s extensive charts documenting strings of verbatim agreement, has still been limited primarily to the book format, despite the fact that much exegetical groundwork today is, or at least can be, conducted without physical books by means of Bible software or online databases like TLG. Even where synoptic data has been made available online or parallel passages are presented in Bible software, the formats have remained mostly static and isolated. The Synoptic Hub project, currently supported by the Argelander program of the University of Bonn, seeks to engage this situation by offering a centralized location to present data relevant to the synoptic problem online in an interactive and open-access format. As a hub for synoptic research, the site seeks to encourage the evaluation and re-use of raw data made available so as to foster new approaches toward and raise fresh questions about those data. Like most synoptic tools, this project too derives from a particular context: in this case from research being conducted at the University of Bonn on the Old Testament and the synoptic problem. The hub is thus first making available data sets depicting the occurrences of explicit OT quotations and the far more frequent OT allusions in the synoptic gospels in a tabular, color-coded format that the user can search, reorganize according to gospel, and reverse (NT to OT; OT to NT). These initial offerings on the Synoptic Hub demonstrate just a few possibilities for moving synoptic data into the digital world.

A majority of biblical scholars appear to assume that the biblical flood story is ultimately dependent on the Mesopotamian flood story contained in tablet 11 of the Gilgamesh epic. However, in this paper I shall argue that Genesis is rather ultimately dependent on the flood story contained in the Atrahasis epic, which lies behind the account in Gilgamesh. (1) Like Atrahasis, the biblical flood story is a third person narrative, not a story in the first person as in Gilgamesh. (2) Like Atrahasis, the biblical flood story follows on a few generations after the creation. Contrast Gilgamesh, where the flood story has been wrenched from its original context and is narrated to show how it was that the flood hero eventually gained immortality. (3) In J, Yahweh announces that the flood will take place after 7 days (Gen. 7:4; cf. 7:10), just as in the Atrahasis epic the god Enki announced to Atrahasis that the flood will come on the seventh night (3.1.37). Although the flood does occur after 7 days in Gilgamesh, it is not divinely announced in advance. (4) In a fairly recently discovered tablet containing part of the Atrahasis epic (Irving Finkel’s Ark tablet), the animals come into the ark in twos, exactly as in the biblical P and partly in the biblical J account. Finkel also reports that, having re-examined the version of Atrahasis in the British Museum originally published by Lambert and Millard, part of the word for ‘two’ can be detected at precisely the right point in the narrative. Contrast Gilgamesh, where nothing is said about the number of animals entering the ark. (5) After the flood is over in both J (Gen. 8:20-22) and P (Gen. 9:8-17) God promises there will be no more flood in the future, something also proclaimed by Ea in a fragment of a Neo-Babylonian version of the Atrahasis epic published by Lambert in 2005. Again there is nothing of the kind in Gilgamesh. (6) After the flood in P God commands humanity to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 9:1, 7). As others have noted, this sounds like a polemic against Atrahasis, where after the flood the future growth of humanity is rather set to be limited. Yet again, nothing comparable is found in the Gilgamesh epic. I think there are two main reasons why some scholars favour the view that it is rather Gilgamesh which lies behind the biblical flood story. First, the flood story is more fully preserved in Gilgamesh than in Atrahasis. But parallels need to be weighed, not merely counted. Secondly, related to this, the threefold sending out of birds from the ark in Genesis 8 has striking similarities with the account in Gilgamesh. However, it is important to note that the Atrahasis epic is broken at precisely this point, and Gilgamesh’s account is largely dependent on Atrahasis, so it is likely that Atrahasis originally had it.

In a recent article, Tov examined the correlation between the approaches of scribes to the biblical text and their accuracy in copying texts. Tov concluded that generally there is a correlation between the scribe’s approach to the degree of skill and accuracy of his work: a conservative scribe reproduced the manuscript skillfully and meticulously, while a scribe of free approach transmits his work negligently and inaccurately. However, this conclusion does not apply to the pre-Samaritan scrolls: they were transmitted with the same care as the Masoretic text of the Pentateuch group, even though their prototype was of a harmonizing nature. This paper expands Tov’s argument to the transmission process of the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), by examining the variants due to graphic similarity between SP and the Masoretic text of the Pentateuch (MT). I suggest that in regards to variants due to graphic similarity between letters, SP comprises a similar number of preferable readings as MT. This finding indicates the meticulous and accurate work of the scribes that transmitted the texts of SP group. Their work is not completely free of errors, but as the secondary readings are estimated to be almost the same amount as those in MT, which was also meticulously transmitted, this may be in line with Tov’s conclusion regarding the reliable transmission of SP group. The paper will focus on textual variants of two criteria: (1) variants that were probably caused due to graphic similarity between letters, and no further factor were involved in their formation – such as phonological background or interpretive changes; (2) variants that can be textually evaluated. It will detail the interchange of letters between the MT and SP, demonstrate the textual evaluation of some variants, and analyze the data statistically. The innovation in the paper is that it establishes the characterization of the SP transmission process as a meticulous and accurate transmission.

The Copenhagen Alliance for Open Biblical Language Resources is a diverse coalition of organizations, institutions, and individuals with a common interest in making biblical language data free and openly accessible to anyone for research, language learning, translation, and other uses. It was founded during a meeting of scholars in Copenhagen in 2018. This presentation will explain the goals of the Copenhagen Alliance and give a presentation of its achievements and the tools through which the available resources can be accessed. We will also invite scholars from all over the world to join the alliance and work with us towards achieving these goals.

In scholarship on the wisdom tradition, many scholars have found in the paradigms of the mashal form evidence for belief in a divinely inscribed cosmic order. Scholars have disagreed both about the extent to which this order is distilled from observation or accepted as a tenet of faith, and also the role of the divinity in actively superintending this order. Regardless, proverbs tend to be read as general truths about the world, which serve as a guide to human behavior. Against the grain of this scholarly tradition of reading, my paper reexamines proverbs through the framework of narrative theory, using elements of structuralism from Roland Barthes to highlight interpretive dimensions of proverb performance. A proverb does not merely postulate a relevant claim; it suggests an interpretation of events built around the meaning and expectations of a narrative. I then apply this framework to a close reading of Proverbs 1, demonstrating the way in which the juxtaposition of saying and performative context is used to reformulate situations around the outlines of an ethical narrative. Using this new paradigm of proverbs as narratives, I reconsider the well-established tradition of orderliness in the poetics of the mashal. Narrative analysis opens the door to a heuristic comparison with the Greek tradition of literary criticism. Aristotle’s Poetics provides a self-conscious framework for the discussion of narrative ethics through literary analysis. For Aristotle, story must not merely give expression to the probable (to eikos); rather, he argues, narrative must be shaped in such a way as to affirm society’s moral sensibilities (to philanthropon). The insights gleaned from this meta-analysis of Greek tragedy provides a new framework that allows us to understand the narrative logic of the mashal in different terms. The mashal does not describe the world as it is or ought to be, but the world as it makes sense. With this new structure in place, the paper returns to the text for a close reading of Proverbs 7, which shares some literary motifs with the opening of the book. Here, I demonstrate the role that the ethical logic of narrative plays in providing the structure for interpretation. A new account of the ethics and rhetoric of the wisdom tradition emerges, which allows for significantly greater nuance than has sometimes been allowed in scholarly assessments of these aspects of the tradition. The proverbial tradition does not give expression to a naïve or idealistic understanding of the world; instead, through application and performance, the proverb draws out particular threads of meaning, giving expression to and reinforcing received ethical values. In this way, the proverbs’ rigid absolutism and sharp divide between human flourishing and death are transformed into supple narrative arcs, inviting the reader into the process of storytelling as the pursuit of wisdom.

This session will report on a progression of projects that has developed over the last decade in Ethiopian manuscript studies. The Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP) was the foundation project that started in 2005 and has, since then, located, digitized, and created metadata for over 13,000 Ethiopian manuscripts. This represents a first type of project that focuses particularly on digitization, metadata, xml markup, storage, and access. A subset of the manuscripts digitized in the first project have been manuscripts of the Ethiopic Old Testament. A second project, the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) has grown into a substantial collaboration among a group of scholars to map the textual histories of books of the Ethiopic Old Testament. This project represents a second type of project that focuses particularly on transcriptions of texts, a set of computer scripts to convert the textual data about shared readings into statistical data and its subsequent analysis and interpretation, and a host of decisions about the presentation of findings in both print and digital media. Two other projects represent a third type of digital humanities project. One of these has to do with describing chronological and geographic developments in the text of one tale of a miracle of Mary called the Cannibal of Qemer. This project involved the selection and transcriptions of 94 copies of the tale, each carefully selected to form a data set with even distribution of manuscripts across three regions of the country and across six centuries of time. Another project, called the Social Lives of Ethiopian Psalters, is an exercise in quantitative codicology and analyzes statistical data generated from the inspection of variation in secondary texts (e.g., superscriptions, introductory prayers, etc.) and paratextual features (e.g., rubricated text, marking the midpoint of the Psalms, features of a strophe numbering system, etc.) of Ethiopian Psalters. Both of these projects represent a third type of exercise in the digital humanities, involving the harvest of data from manuscripts that is analyzed with increasingly sophisticated software both for statistical analysis and patterns (e.g., machine learning) as well as visualization (e.g., Tableau) of the findings.

The present paper attempts to discuss the image of women in the Acts of Thomas against the wider theoretical background of temporality as it was perceived and construed through the text. More specifically, I will focus on how specific notions of time that emerged in the early centuries of Christian era proved to be a key factor in shaping women’s agency as this is reflected more generally in some of the apocryphal Acts. The nexus between time and the construction of the feminine in these Christian Apocrypha emerges as being particularly interesting because it sheds light on many relevant questions in early Christianity, such as chastity, asceticism, reconfiguration of family ties, social norms and roles. Being dominated by an eschatological perspective, early Christian temporality entails a paradox. The end of times is situated outside history; therefore, it is excluded from the rhythm regulating social life. As a consequence, early Christian ideals of chastity, and more generally asceticism, are to be read against this background. In some cases, the rupture entailed by eschatological time brings about a negation of women’s functions within the patriarchal structures of ancient society. Since the end of times was approaching, a traditional social structure gradually lost importance; on the contrary, the importance of chastity as a means of purifying the body in order to gain salvation entailed a reconfiguration of family ties and corresponding social roles. In this sense, traditional life-rhythms are replaced by a new subversive trajectory, and women can give up the roles of wives or mothers. The Acts of Thomas represent a significative case in this regard, albeit with some variations related to the notions of time construed through the text. The emphasis on chastity, the rejection of marriage as a symbol of an earthly human dimension, the exhortation not to have children in order to avoid the anxieties of this world, the rupture of family ties caused by women who decided to embrace a life of asceticism are all factors that characterize the narrative of the Acts of Thomas and contribute to creating a rigorously ascetic framework. Furthermore, the narrative appears to be characterized by a series of temporal determinations that constantly create a contrast between what is temporary and what instead is eternal. And most importantly, the temporary dimension is associated with earthly life, while eternity refers to a true life. In this sense, although the eschatological expectations had begun to slowly decline, a contrast between the present and the future, with a consequent devaluation of earthly life, is still a key factor in shaping the narrative. Building on this evidence, I aim to identify a set of key features that may define the relationship between different notions of time and asceticism and their influence on the roles and agency of women as they are represented in the Acts of Thomas.

In Qur’anic studies, Muḥammad’s claim to prophecy presents an enigma to modern scholarship. On the one hand, the Qur’an presents Muḥammad as a prophet in the line of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. On the other hand, Muḥammad’s claim to prophethood in 7th century Arabia comes centuries after the prophetic age in both Judaism and Christianity supposedly had closed. I propose that Late Antique monasticism, which portrayed its leaders as prophets, connects Qur’anic prophetology to Biblical prophethood. This proposition utilizes two approaches. First, I argue that the Qur’an aligns Muḥammad’s prophetic functions closely with the functions it identifies with monks. Namely, the Qur’an speaks of both monks and Muḥammad as figures who command the right and forbid the wrong, prostrate themselves to God, and make lawful good things and forbid wrong things. By calling attention to Q 3:113- 115, sīra literature, and the work of Suleiman Mourad, I challenge recent work from Holger Zellentin that expands the Qur’anic concept of rahbaniyya to mean bishops, and from Nicolai Sinai who then casts Muḥammad as an episcopal figure. Second, I present data from the vitae, canons and discourses of monastic leaders that both assert their prophetic character and demonstrate the same prophetic functions attributed to Muḥammad that are not predicated explicitly of monks by the Qur’an. Such functions include bringing a book or wisdom (ḥikma) from God, establishing proper salvation practices (dīn), fighting unbelievers and their idols, and purifying believers. Here, I draw upon the Pachomian Koinonia and the Egyptian-Palestinian monastic tradition, which flourished in deserts south, east, and west of Jerusalem on the eve of Islam. I add to these textual considerations the theoretical work of Caroline T. Schroeder, who has elaborated Foucault’s analysis of asceticism, in order to demonstrate a convergence between Qur’anic and monastic self-presentations of social discipline and coherence. These two combined approaches show that these monks resemble both the Qur’an’s own image of Muḥammad and his community and utilize the same terminology of prophethood. While Jews and Christians of all varieties appropriated, and even re-narrated, Moses and other prophetic figures as archetypes for their own communal authorities, it is the Christian monastic model that presents the most compelling forenarration to the Qur’an’s prophetology. This resemblance implies that greater attention must be paid to how the Christian monastic tradition served as a historical transmission of Biblical prophethood to the Qur’an and why Muḥammad was counted among its members.

Many children in South Africa grow up in townships, where they are exposed to violence, drugs, gangs, and poverty. Difficulties in their home situations result in many of them lacking soft skills that enable a person to thrive (such as self-esteem, self-confidence, and ability to communicate well). This chronic deprivation is an ongoing trauma which requires intervention to promote healing. Using the arts to provide such intervention has been found to be successful, whether it be visual art, music, dance, or drama. In this study, a group of Grade 7 learners participated in a dramatic presentation of the biblical story of Ruth. Over a period of six months, with the learners meeting weekly for an hour to learn the story and find their way of presenting it, it was found that they gained significantly in self-esteem, self-confidence, and in their ability to speak in public before an audience including adult strangers. This study includes two aspects of “popular culture”. First, there is the use of the artistic (cultural) form of drama to promote healing for the losses suffered by disadvantaged learners. Second, there is the learners’ and the audience members’ cultural backgrounds (Xhosa, “Cape Coloured”, and white South African) which impacted the way the various persons interpreted the biblical text. With regard to using drama to present the biblical story, there are two aspects of interest. First, as indicated by Performance criticism, the use of performance to tell the story of Ruth provided an extra dimension to communicate, and several “content elements” from the written text were not needed when the actors could use paralinguistic and extra-linguistic features to give the same detail. Also, performance introduced many questions often not considered in a reading of the text. Ambiguity Theory and Reception Theory were useful in suggesting underlying criteria which determine how actors and audience members interpret such “gaps” (largely in line with their cultural backgrounds). To provide a way of investigating the audience members’ interpretations, a jester asked questions of them at significant moments in the story, to determine their understanding of the motives and emotions of the characters at those points. In this way, the performance stimulated emotional involvement of the audience, thereby also contributing to their “healing”. They were brought face to face with issues such as the death of a spouse, the death of sons, hunger, helplessness (with no family “provider”), the stigma of being an outsider to a community, and other problematic situations. By considering how the characters may have felt, and how they acted, enabled the audience members also to consider options in the situations they face. Cultural values became apparent from the responses of audience members to the jester’s questions and the actors’ interpretations of the text. Their inclusion of prayers and songs at various points in the story also indicated where in their culture it was appropriate to show emotion (for example, joy or fear), and how they would do so.

Paul and Epistolary Ethics

Norman Habel (2008, 3) notes that “[a]n ecological hermeneutic demands a radical change of posture in relation to Earth as a subject in the text.” In the book of Joshua, rocks and stones are often the object of human and divine actions. They are used to kill, to circumcise, to sacrifice… as inanimate objects. However, in Joshua 24, a specific stone (הָאֶ֤בֶן) is the subject of an active verb. It can hear (שָׁמְעָ֗ה) and is presented as a witness (עֵדָ֔ה). Habel and Trudinger’s three-step ecological hermeneutic—suspicion, identification and retrieval—will structure this narrative study of Joshua 24 from the stone’s perspective. Many scholars examine this chapter to understand the history of the redaction of the Hebrew Bible (Römer 2006, 2017; Dozeman 2017; Krause 2017; Mäkipelto 2018). In the only monograph that examines this specific stone, DeGear (2015) brings out the feminine and symbolic nature of an object that functions as a “personification of the gods worshiped by Israelites.” DeGear challenges the traditional patriarchal, and androcentric view on this text. Still, she keeps an anthropocentric bias, which views the stone in the light of the relation between YWHW and Israel. The originality of this paper is to explore this stone’s intrinsic worth by valuing it as a subject in its own right and a member of the Earth community. An ecological interpretation can seek to identify with the stone under the oak tree in a sacred space. Post/decolonial and feminist interpretations have shown that identification with Canaanites can generate critical readings of Joshua (ex. Warrior 1989). However, among scholars, empathy is seldom shown for the land, the sea or the vineyards and olive groves who suffer injustices in the metanarrative that recapitulates Israel’s history in Joshua 24. YHWH gives Israel a “land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant” (24:13). The book of Joshua narrates the conquest of Canaan through military violence in which divine and human join forces. An ecological counter narrative can be developed by recovering the voice of the stone in Joshua 24. Since this stone heard YHWH’s words and is set as a witness against the people of Israel, it offers a unique position to view the broken relation in the Earth community caused by the migration of a group that violently settles in a territory that it conquered based on theological motives. What did the stone hear? It is set as a witness to testify against Israel, but what is the content of its testimony? This paper will recover the subversive potential of the stone’s voice by investigating these narrative gaps. As a member of Earth community, this stone under an oak tree in a sacred space resists exploitation of the land and the violence against parts of creation, both human and non-human of this conquest story.

This paper presents an explanatory account for the existence of the nitpaʕal verbal conjugation in Rabbinic Hebrew (RH) using the methods of diachronic and socio-historical linguistics. Beginning with an investigation of the nitpaʕal’s precursor forms, examples are presented to describe the morphosyntactic relation between the hitpaʕel and nipʕal in corpora from the Second Temple period (Late Biblical Hebrew [LBH], Ben Sira, and Qumran Hebrew [QH]). This analysis presents evidence for a confusion between the appropriate uses of these forms, being realized as both, the equivalence of meaning between forms, and gradual encroachment of the hitpaʕel on nipʕal usage environments. Employing a theory of diachronic language change that understands ambiguity to be a principal motivator for change, this evidence is correlated with the socio-historical circumstances of ancient Hebrew speech communities in order to propose that the RH nitpaʕal originates as an attempt to resolve ambiguity in reflexive-passive morphology in the grammar of bilingual Hebrew-Aramaic speakers. Under these conditions, the nitpaʕal is analyzed as a morphological compromise, or blend, consisting of n- from the Hebrew nipʕal and the -t- known from several conjugations in Aramaic. This conclusion allows for a second-level analysis wherein the nitpaʕal form is discussed in relation to sociolinguistic studies of endangered languages nearing extinction and the sociolinguistic realization of community anxiety. In sum, this paper offers a greater depth of analysis on morphosyntax in the Hebrew language of the Second Temple Period which hopefully provides a template for further in-depth study of socio-historical motivations for diachronic language change in the history of Hebrew.

In light of the recent developments featuring women around the world reclaiming their autonomy and self-respect in the face of male domination, it is becoming increasingly urgent to rethink the ancient “curse” on woman and the way that it has not only allowed but condoned male oppression and domination over women throughout the centuries. Rather than read the text through the traditional Aristotelian lens used by Church fathers to describe woman as the seductress and man as the legitimate authority over woman’s corrupt nature, this paper proposes a radical re-reading of the “curse” of Genesis 3:16 as a redemptive rather than a punitive moment wherein the woman is given back her power as the ezer kenegdo of man, and man is given back his kingdom lost and his reign over the whole of Creation, or mashal, through the woman’s love, or teshuqa. This will entail that the two key concepts mashal and teshuqa be profoundly re-interpreted from a Hebrew inter-textual perspective rather than through a Greek philosophical lens.

More Thoughts on Tafsīr and its Genre(s): Considerations from al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī’s Tahdhīb fī al-tafsīr

This paper will explore issues in studying Jewish texts found only in Christian transmission by focusing on the translation and interpretation of the ambiguous messianic figure known as “nägär” (literally, “word” ) in Ethiopic Enoch 90.38. For readers pursuing a Jewish, pre-Christian originary provenance for the text, this potentially Christian term needs to be explained away, and there are multiple competing explanations as to how an Aramaic term for “lamb” or “ram” was corrupted to the Ge’ez reading we possess today. But this paper will approach the problem differently, exploring the consonance of the text in Christian contexts, with reference to the Ge’ez as found in the Ethiopian Orthodox manuscript tradition, and the Greek tradition from which we hypothesize it was translated. I further reflect critically on the possibility that the attested Jesus-like messianic figure found only in Christian manuscript traditions can or should be retrojected into our estimation of pre-Christian Judaism. First, I will provide a close reading of the Ge’ez text as it appears in the manuscript tradition, and a summary of modern interpretations seeking to correct the perceived corruption. Next, I will present evidence from two different interpretative locations that detect no corruption, and proceed simply with a Christian reading of this passage—some early 19th century scholarship on 1 Enoch (e.g. the work of Friedrich Philippi), and voices from within Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. I will then integrate this specific case study into the broader scholarly conversation on Jewish texts in Christian transmission, guided especially by the work of Robert Kraft, and explore the case for and against classing these verses as a Christian gloss or composition. Finally, I will bring out the historical-critical implications of relocating the text of 1 Enoch 90.37-38 within a Christian compositional history for the study of pre-Christian messianisms. These verses have provided significant purportedly pre-Christian background in secondary scholarship for the kinds of eschatology and messianism espoused in works like the canonical gospels or Pauline corpus. But I hope to use my critical reevaluation of the translation and transmission of these verses as a site to rethink other instances where Jewish pseudepigrapha provide key “background” to Christian ideas or motifs. How do we proceed as historians if crucial sites at which certain “Christian” ideas are anticipated within “Jewish” pseudepigrapha are evidenced in exclusively Christian manuscript traditions? Are we bound to lose evidence for ancient Judaism to the reality of its associated texts’ transmissional histories, or is there another way forward?

This paper is an exploratory work that considers the figures of Pitchy-Patchy and John Bull , historical carnival characters from the English-speaking Caribbean, as pivotal in the articulation of a “patchwork aesthetics,” of culture, language and religion suitable for exploring Caribbean cultural and spiritual expressions. Pitchy-Patchy, as the name suggests, is a mas’ (short for masquerade) figure whose distinguishing characteristic is the multicoloured, patchwork costume assembled from discarded fabric. Pitchy-Patchy’s role in mas’ and Jonkonnu traditions is to maintain the boundaries of the masquerade route for the mas’ players. John Bull plays a similar role of boundary definer. John Bull in this instance refers not to an anthropomorphized England (similar to Uncle Sam for the United States) but to another mas’ figure whose whip and sometimes horned appearance (in Antigua and Barbuda) inspires dread in the crowd of onlookers and maintains a semblance of social order and boundary for mas’ players along the parade route. As figures that emerge out of pieced together homemade technologies of sewing, patchwork and metal and wire construction, Pitchy-Patchy and John Bull embody “patchwork aesthetics” in motion beyond patchwork quilting as metaphor for a stable form of pastiche. This is patchwork which dances, moves, weaves and bobs with the crowd while also maintaining social discipline. They are also a generative source for exploring Caribbean theologies, Caribbean religious history and Caribbean cultural productions. As such this approach decenters Christocentric approaches to both theological reflection and Caribbean religious historiography and cultural production by suggesting that generative moments are multiple beyond the notion of Christianity’s introduction to enslaved and indentured people through European Christian missionizing as the religion of the colonization. Instead a consideration of “patchwork aesthetics” opens the possibility for multiple and simultaneous readings of texts, both literary and visual, and performance traditions as varied as carnival mas’ and music videos. Towards this end, the paper will explore the interplay of three examples of “patchwork aesthetics”: soundings, mappings and sewings which correspond roughly to orality/aurality in Caribbean speech acts and musical genres, spiritual cartographies and bodily movements of carnival mas’ and quilt and garment construction work in writing by Caribbean women writers.

This paper examines embodied prayer in late ancient Syriac monasticism, with particular attention to cross veneration as a means of constructing a specific kind of relationship with God. What difference did praying to a cross (as opposed to, for example, images of Christ) make for monks with respect to (1) how they understood their relationship with God and (2) how they labeled the feeling of that relationship? In addressing these questions, the paper draws primarily on the writings of several seventh-century monastic writers who discuss the practice of cross veneration—including Babai the Great, Shubḥalmaran, Isaac of Nineveh, and Dadishoʿ of Qatar. Three arguments are proffered. First, based on anecdotal evidence from monastic literature, it is argued that crosses were a common and indeed essential furnishing of monastic cells in late ancient Syria and Mesopotamia. Second, based on the instructions provided to monks on how to interact with crosses in their cells—actions such as speaking to the cross, kissing the cross, and eating facing the cross—it is argued that crosses constituted the physical presence of Christ for the monk in the cell, such that virtually all prayer (in the broad sense of communication with God) was mediated through the concrete form of the cross. And third, building on the first two points, it is argued that monastic relationships with God were deeply conditioned by the cross. Material crosses, in other words, helped monks to construct a relationship with God anchored in the relational paradigm of salvation, and to label their own feelings (and God’s feelings) within that relationship with specific emotion terms (most prominently Syriac ḥubbā, “love”). In making these arguments, the paper engages with recent scholarship in art history and religious studies on the materiality of divine presence, as well as with work in the emerging field of history of emotions.

Drawing from an ongoing research project on “Creation in the Book of Psalms”, this paper studies the contextual functions of Psalms 8, 104 and 148, which are the only Psalms in the book dedicated entirely to certain aspects of the Creation. The present study understands by “Creation” not only a divine act of creating but the whole cosmos created by God and its continous relationship to the sphere of the divine. It will procede in three steps. An outline of structure and themes of the three psalms will highlight both points of contact and different theological interests. While Ps 8 emphasizes the position of the human creature in the creation, Ps 104 concentrates on the cosmic structure as a whole and its dependence on God, and Ps 148 is an elaborate exhortation to the creation to praise God. Second, interrelationships between the three texts as well as references to other texts of the Psalter are analysed. In this context, it is notable that Pss 8, 104 and 148, although sharing the theme of “creation”, contain only some connections to each other in terms of vocabulary and motifs. Apart from works of creation to be expected (heavens, earth, etc.), it is interesting that all three psalms use the divine name in a significant manner. In Ps 8:2,10 the cultic assembly praising YHWH seems to play the role of the sanctuary, which is traditionally considered the centre of the cosmos. Similarly, the praise of YHWH’s glory in Ps 104:31a, the mutual joy of YHWH and the psalmist in vv. 31, 34 as well as the five invocations of YHWH as addressee of praise in vv. 31-35 add to the meditation on the creation a cultic liturgy of praise which is the psalmist’s highest destiny (cf. v. 33; see also the twofold praise of YHWH in v. 1 and the admiration for YHWH’s countless works in v. 24). In Ps 148:1,5,7,13 appeals to YHWH / YHWH’s name form a framework seperating the imperatives to heavens from the exhortation spoken to the earth. Apart from such theological parallels, Pss 8, 104 and 148 share above all significant phrases and motifs with other psalms which deal with different themes (see e.g. the royal outfit in Pss 8 and 21; the garment metaphors in Pss 104:2 and 109:19,29; the idea of establishing an ordinance forever in Pss 148:6 and 105:10). This indicates that the theme of Creation is not a separate issue in the Psalter but is linked with certain other theological themes, which in turn also shed light on issues concerning the theme of Creation. Considering the intrinsic connections between Creation and the praise of God’s name as well as the interactions between Creation and other themes, the third part of the paper will draw conclusions on the function of creation-theology in the whole book of Psalms.

This paper describes my experiences writing a textual commentary on 2 Thessalonians in my doctoral work at the ITSEE.

According to the biblical account, God’s rest on the seventh day is the purpose and summit of the creation of the world, an explanation and basis for the Sabbath’s holiness, and an archetype for human observance of the Sabbath. However, readers and interpreters of the Bible found the idea of God’s rest troubling. Why would an all-powerful God, who does not faint or grow weary, need to rest? What is the relation between God’s rest (however defined) and human rest on the Sabbath? What, eventually, is the meaning and importance of resting on the seventh day? These and similar questions are reflected in a broad range of literary sources from Late Antiquity. Jewish writers dealt extensively with the Sabbath’s rest, as a biblical theme, as a theological concept and as an actual practice. Pagan authors as well were familiar with Sabbath practices and commented on what they perceived as strange and sometimes ridiculous costumes. Christian writers of the first centuries CE dealt with the Sabbath, expounding its meaning and importance while in many cases rejecting most of its practical aspects. The give and take between Jews, Pagans and Christians evoked new questions and problems, which gave rise to a vast exegetical and polemical activity. Its literary outcome is preserved in a great variety of compositions, from Hellenistic Jewish writings through pagan authors and Rabbinic literature to early patristic writings. These sources reflect the importance of the Sabbath for different groups in Late Antiquity and preserve traces of the complicated interrelations between these groups, either in the form of overt polemics and apologetics, or as implicit shared exegetical, theological or literary traditions and ideas. In this paper I will discuss the evolution of traditions concerning the Sabbath’s rest within and between Jewish, Christian and Pagan communities of Late Antiquity through a close study of a homily on the Sabbath by Aphrahat, a prominent Syriac Christian writer of the fourth century CE. Aphrahat’s homily, composed as a direct attack against Jewish observance and understanding of the Sabbath, exhibits great literary capability and exegetical ingenuity, as well as familiarity with a broad range of exegetical, polemical and theological traditions. I will examine the broader contexts of Aphrahat’s homily, pointing out its relations to Jewish authors of the second Temple period, Rabbinic traditions and early Christian writers. Thus, through a close reading of Aphrahat’s homily I will shed light on the evolution and development of traditions concerning the Sabbath’s rest as they are incorporated, reshaped and reinterpreted in multiple literary and cultural contexts.

Three qur’anic passages reference a mysterious tree called zaqqum which grows in hellfire. The passages contrast vivid ‘double portraits’ of hellfire’s torments with the splendors of paradise, and they belong to the so-called Meccan Surahs—replete with cryptic prophetic visions and longer priestly interpolations like Q al-Najm 53—primarily addressing the rows of angels at judgment (al-saffat; Q al-Saffat 37), the heavenly smoke of the apocalypse (al-dukhan; Q al-Dukhan 44) and the inevitable last day (al-waqi‘ah; Q al-Waqi‘ah 56). Stories and speculation as to what this terrible and wonderous spectacle may be abound in medieval tradition and modern scholarship, with no clear solution offered—until now. Within the three passages in which the blazing bush is illustrated are numerous symbols pointing back to (a) the torching of the Asherah groves in the Hebrew Bible, (b) the iconography of the Canaanite-Egyptian cult of Asherah-Qadesh, (c) and the triple deity of Q 53. The multitude of damned souls—people and idols—eating from the wretched tree and drinking from its scalding hot spring, narrated in Q 37, 44, and 56, suggests a topography precisely like that of the burning Kidron valley, adjacent to the Hinnom valley (cf. 2 Kings 23:4-14). I argue that the vivid imagery and language of Q 37:62-68, 44:43-50, and 56:51-56 are too precise to be arbitrary, and that these passages preserve echoes of pagan rituals and cultic offerings. The cultic offerings have been deliberately twisted, as the Qur’an frequently does with its interlocutors, to dramatize the torment of hell instead. The dialogue between passages demonstrates that the Zaqqum tree, and indeed the torment of hell itself in the Qur’an, is judgment against and dramatization of cultic offerings to the “queen of heaven,” Asherah, or her Arabian counterpart, Allat. This leaves one critical matter remaining. What is the meaning of the word zaqqum and how does it sprout “heads of demons” (ru’us al-shayatin)? Our analysis takes us back to the cult of Asherah, which influenced the shape and function of Egyptian deities, especially the goddess Qadesh. I argue against the Tafsir literature which forces the meaning “bitter” upon the appellation zaqqum, which I argue is not Semitic, but rather Egyptian in origin.

Few pedagogues in biblical studies began their careers solely or primarily teaching in the online classroom. As the digital modality expands its influence in higher education, more professors are adapting their residential courses into online courses. This presentation offers practical tips and examples for bridging residential and online classrooms. While most of the examples offered in the presentation come from experiences teaching New Testament courses, many of the principles that guide the media adaptation are widely applicable. The first part of the presentation encourages online biblical pedagogues to work with the activities, discussions, and lectures they have already established in residential classrooms and outfit them for the online modality. There is no need to “start from scratch” when planning a new online course that one has already taught residentially. Oftentimes learning management systems and digital technology offers tools that better facilitate engagement with established course content than those tools used in the residential classroom. I offer three such instances where I have found this to be the case: when teaching the Synoptic Problem, the form of ancient letters, and with a generic writing assignment I employ for various kinds of course content. The second part of the presentation engages another manner of bridging the residential and online classroom: connecting students between the two modalities. Many professors simultaneously teach the same course, at the same institution, in the same semester in both online and residential formats. I suggest there is much value in meta-linking online and residential versions of a course and establishing course community across the different modalities, providing specific examples of how I have leveraged meta-linking to establish course community and offer students unique learning opportunities to engage their peers in both physical and digital space.

In an insightful study of metaphor in political discourse, Jonathan Charteris-Black argues that the persuasiveness of metaphors lies in their appeal to pre-existing knowledge. Since people rarely change their beliefs wholesale, metaphors serve an important rhetorical function by causing an audience to reimagine that which is unknown (the Target) in the light of that which is known through common experience (the Source). In this paper, I argue that this principle can illuminate a kind of metaphorical expression in the Hebrew Bible that has not yet been fully appreciated. It is an expression that I call the “recycled metaphor.” Recycled metaphors are conventional metaphors (those that have become naturalized in the culture’s linguistic expression) that have been altered to communicate something different than, or even opposite to, the original metaphor. These surprising uses of conventional metaphors are rhetorically effective because they appeal to a kind of pre-existing knowledge. Because they retain the familiar shape of the old metaphor and may even seem to be a logical implication of it, the audience is more likely to accept them, even if they modify or oppose the meaning of the original. In this paper, I explore in detail two examples of recycled metaphors in the book of Job. In the first example, Job alters the conventional metaphor GOD IS A WATCHMAN in order to accuse God of keeping him under surveillance rather than protecting him. In the second example, Eliphaz places words in Job’s mouth in order to accuse him of taking the position of the practical atheist. In this example, Eliphaz hijacks a conventional metaphor for God’s self-revelation in storm theophany in order to imply that God is in fact blinded by his own storm. With both of these examples, we see more clearly that the book of Job is, to use Carol Newsom’s words, “a struggle over metaphors”—not just a struggle over which metaphors depict reality, but which version of them.

Women’s blessings spoken to God appear in both ancient biblical accounts and contemporary African contexts. This research goes beyond previous intercultural analysis of biblical curses in an African context as well as women’s enacted interpersonal blessings and now focuses on developing the understanding of women’s spoken blessings to God as speech acts. The early settings of the blessing (barukh) formula with God as the subject demonstrate the worshipper’s gratitude in response to God’s gracious providence that are separate from cultic contexts—situations where women’s voices are represented. This project focuses on the examination of women’s blessings—as speech act “expressives”—pronounced in praise of YHWH within biblical Hebrew poetry. Examples include Judg 5:2–31 and Ruth 4:14–15. The discussion identifies distinctions as well as similarities with representative poetic texts containing men’s blessings of God. An intercultural dialogue with African women’s praises that bless God creates a resonance with representative biblical poetry and develops a fuller understanding of women’s ways of blessing God.

The Baker Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words is a new work to be published in 2021 by Baker Books. It will include all Hebrew words occurring more than twenty-five times and all Greek occurring more than ten times. It is designed for pastors, seminary students and interested laypeople and consists of contributions from over fifty scholars. This paper will discuss such lexicographical issues as polysemy, hyponymy, collocational and substitutional relations and hierarchy in composing such word entries as well as the practical issues of being a useful and balanced tool for biblical expositors.

“Do not get irritated about the evildoers! (Ps 37:1) This irritating admonition by an undisclosed speaker to self-restraint opens the acrostic Psalm (cf. vv.7.8). One may ask has anger as a counter reaction and emotion to the humiliation and injustice no place because God acts out the emotion? Or does the process of self-reflection in prayer transform anger and replace it by another emotion, namely joy, as Ps 4:5-8 presupposes. Indeed, prayer as sketched in the Psalms intends a transformative practice regarding the relation to oneself, to God, the other, even the hostile one, and finally the world as a whole. It is dialogical in nature (W. Brueggemann, A. Cotrill, D. Erbele-Küster, B. Weber et. al.). This dialogical dimension serves as key to understand Psalm prayer beyond traditional form-critical classifications. It implies that prayer is formative in the self-understanding, and has a social and theological function likewise. The investigation on the emotion [anger] builds on three pillars: 1. Studies on the emotional and transformative process while reading Psalms in the line of Reception Aesthetics, 2. Rhetorical and Narrative studies (f. ex. Sigrid Eder, Identifikationspotentiale in den Psalmen 2018), 3. Studies of emotion in general in Old Testament exegesis and the new anthropological quest. In line with the methodological approach of Reception Aesthetics I shall first highlight how the text itself speaks about the emotion: How is the emotion [anger / wrath / heat arousal / irritation / rage] expressed and experienced? What does play a role in the conceptualizing of anger (body language, gender; metaphors)? In a second step the paper unfolds the emotive process in the reception of the Psalm. How does reading the Psalm Prayer affect the reader? Finally, the Psalms in their dialogical dimensions shall lead us to redefine prayer and emotion in their interrelatedness as a self-reflective process where cognitive, bodily, and interpersonal dimensions are interwoven.

Throughout its scenes, the Gospel of John reveals a number of rhetorical devices put into use by various speakers: question, riddle, paradox, and prodiorthosis, to name but a few. One major rhetorical device that ties the two scenes together in John 3 is Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s use of antithesis. Between the two scenes, there are six antitheses (3:16–17, 3:18, 3:20–21, 3:30, 3:31, 3:36), three spoken by Jesus and three spoken by John the Baptist. In this paper, I first introduce briefly the purpose of antithesis in Greek rhetoric. Next, I consider the role of each of these antitheses against the larger argumentation strategy of the Fourth Evangelist. In this discussion, I note how antithetical argumentation can be mistaken as a type of “dualism” when read through a modern history-of-religions lens. Finally, I raise the question of how argumentation and dialogue shape character; for example, I ask, “What does it say about the character of the Johannine John the Baptist that uses a similar rhetorical device as the Johannine Jesus?” This question creates a tension over the use of direct speech in ancient narrative. I conclude the paper with a note about how the antitheses in John 3 set up and tie in to the later and greater antitheses in John 5 and beyond.

In the Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, Suzanne Gatzemeier claimed that “[i]n the Reformation, this treatise (i.e., Augustine’s treatise On faith and works) seems to have been widely ignored, probably because of its concentration on the necessity of good works to obtain salvation.” Rather than claiming the treatise was completely ignored, Gatzemeier offered two isolated, but significant, exceptions to this general rule by noting the use of this treatise by Protestant Reformer Caspar Hedio (1491-1552) and the Catholic theologian Johann Eck (1486-1543). Although Gatzemeier notes that for these two theologians Augustine’s On faith and works provided an important point for reflection on the question of salvation by faith alone, these were just two exceptional cases in an overwhelming lack of interest in this treatise. The records of the sixteenth century reception of Augustine’s treatise On faith and works, however, compel me to disagree with Gatzemeier’s thesis. I will instead argue that Augustine’s On faith and works provided a primary point of reference for most Catholic theologians who published on the question of salvation by faith and works during the early modern era. My research has shown me that far from being ignored, Augustine’s On faith and works not only provided an important resource for Catholic explanations of the relationship between faith and works but also the proper understanding of Paul, namely, that Paul’s true meaning concerning faith and works was to be understood through the Catholic Epistles. Augustine, I will argue, supplied the primary historical narrative for sixteenth-century Catholic theologians in understanding the interplay between James and Paul’s statements concerning justification by faith and works. I will prove this thesis in two ways. First, I will show that Johannes Eck’s use of Augustine’s On faith and works was not only not an isolated instance but rather framed the way most sixteenth-century Catholic apologists such as John Fisher, Gasparo Contarini and Robert Bellarmine understood the earliest reception of Paul. Following Augustine’s lead, these apologists believed that Paul’s complex statements about justification by faith and not by the works of the law ought to be understood through the Catholic Epistles. The authors of the Catholic Epistles, argued Augustine, wrote their letters precisely to combat misunderstandings of Paul’s words in the first century. Sixteenth-century Catholic scholars agreed. Second, I will prove the same point by using another sampling of authors, namely, Catholic biblical commentators. I will show that such authors as Tommaso de Vio Gaetano, Gerard Lorich and Marino Grimani utilized Augustine’s On faith and works in formulating their conclusions. These authors followed Augustine’s lead in pointing to the larger testimony of the Catholic Epistles, and especially the Epistle of James, in explaining Paul’s statements which seemingly affirmed justification by faith alone. In the end, this paper will argue that in the early modern era, Augustine’s On faith and works provided a major point of reference for Catholic scholars in their attempts to explain the faith-works statements not only in the Catholic Epistles but also the Pauline corpus.

Use of pistis, pisteuō, and pistos (the pistis word family) grows noticeably in the first century. Frequency of the word is almost three times that of the fourth century BCE, and twice that of the second century BCE. While Plutarch accounts for much of this first-century usage, the other authors using the idea most often include Philo, Paul, and Josephus. Indeed, the three Judeans rank among the six authors using pistis-words the most throughout the century. Statistically, this is significant and suggests that pistis (understood as fidelity, allegiance, trustworthiness; its Latin equivalent being fides) occupies the attention of Greek speaking Judean authors disproportionately. This paper will provide brief examination of how Philo, Paul, and Josephus use pistis-language. I argue that pistis was imagined by Judean authors to be an especially Judean virtue.

For: Art at the Boundaries In retellings of biblical narratives in early Jewish literature, biblical mothers proved to be a particularly rich site to mine for creative expression. Early Jewish communities used biblical mothers to “think with,” narratively deploying them for their own literary purposes. (1) In this paper, I explore the theme of mothers resisting authority, both human and divine, in order to protect the life and safety of their children. I use as a case study a wall painting from the third-century Dura Europos synagogue, “Elijah Restoring the Widow’s Son,” which is based on 1 Kings 17. This narrative describes how an impoverished widow, on the margins of society both socially and economically, provides for the prophet Elijah, but her son becomes ill and dies. Elijah is able to bring the Widow’s son back to life, and the Widow affirms that Elijah is truly a “man of God, and the word of the LORD in [his] mouth is truth” (1 Kings 17:24, NRSV translation). I put Dura’s image of the Widow into conversation with contemporaneous local art, including other wall paintings of women at the Dura Europos synagogue, arguing that the artist used recognizable visual patterns to emphasize the Widow’s connection to her son, her relationship with the divine, and her agency. I also consider the “intertextual pastiche” (2) that was produced by the various retellings of the Widow’s story, such as in 2 Kings 4, Luke 4, and Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 113a, which further contributed to her character’s development as an active agent. These texts, both written and visual, “center” the Widow in their retellings—but at the same time, set her up in conflict with Elijah, an authority figure and representative of the divine. Ultimately, I argue that the Dura Europos painting develops the figure of the Widow, who in the Masoretic Text chastises Elijah for causing the death of her son, into a more active character who enables the prophet to restore him to life. This analysis explores how the personal concerns of motherhood provide mothers the launching point to engage in ancient forms of activism. This could have potentially served as a model for the Jewish community at Dura, themselves on the margins in a multiethnic and multicultural city living under Roman imperial rule, to resist authority in their own small, subversive way. 1. The term “thinking with” is taken from Rhiannon Graybill, Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 19. 2. The term “intertextual pastiche” is taken from Annabel Jane Wharton, “Good and Bad Images from the Synagogue of Dura Europos: Contexts, Subtexts, Intertexts,” in Late Antique and Medieval Art in the Mediterranean World, ed. Eva R. Hoffman (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 30-31.

The rapid switching of grammatical forms of pronouns have been attributed to enallage which is a substitution of one tense, number or person for another tense, number or person. Enallage theory, however, unintentionally dispenses with the proper characterisation of the scene especially the involvement of a group of women who are conversing with the female protagonist. Enallage, at the very least, suppresses their interaction and also weakens the case for the lover being a king. Using a closer analysis of the grammar, the parallel literature, and concepts from narrative theory, this paper will argue that the Song opens with a portrayal of the lover as a king, not just a bridegroom, and that he and his consort are in the company of a group of women. This paper attempts to recover the true portrayal of this leading scene in the Song which incidentally might be orienting the reader’s understanding for later scenes.

On the surface, the story of Susanna and the Elders is about a beautiful woman (1.2) who is accosted by two elders who attempt to coerce and blackmail the protagonist into having sex with them (1.19-21). While scholarship on Susanna and the Elders has focused on interpreting the violence that lies at the heart of the conflict (Reinhartz; Wills; Levine; etc.), scholarship has paid little attention to the motif that connects beauty and sexual violence that is prevalent in Early Jewish works (Susanna, Judith, and Greek Esther). In this paper I will examine the relationship between the protagonist’s beauty and the sexual violence she encounters in Susanna and the Elders. I will question what role sexual violence plays in the text and what this violence can tell us about understanding the culturally defined notions of women’s sexuality during the Second Temple period by bringing the text into conversation with other Jewish novels (particularly Greek Esther and Judith). I will argue that: 1) since these texts are the product of a patriarchal culture, we should understand both the representation of beauty and the portrayal of sexual violence as products of the male gaze, 2) what matters most socially in these texts is the maintenance of male honor and homogeneity of Jewishness, and 3) stories such as Susanna and the Elders provide insight into later views on women, stretching into the period of Early Christianity, as the story of Susanna was adapted into the Early Christian context as an icon of appropriate sexuality and marital fidelity (1 Cor., 1 Tim., Hippolytus’s Commentary on Daniel, and Origen’s Letter to Africanus).

This paper will introduce a newly proposed family of alternating catenae manuscripts containing the commentary of John of Damascus on Paul’s letters and its members. GA 0150, GA 2110, and GA 1506 are connected in several important ways: (1) All share a high level of textual agreement—each one is the others’ closest relative in Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, and Galatians; (2) all share paratextual features; (3) 0150 and 2110 share the same hypotheses written in the same format; (4) the discrete units of biblical text and accompanied commentary match and share the same numbers. Theodora Panella speculated that 0150 and 2110 may have been the product of the same scribe and perhaps one the Abschrift of the other. Examination proves Panella correct concerning the remarkable similarity, but that they are the products of the same scribe is uncertain. Robert Volk included these three and GA 018 in his critical edition of John of Damascus’s commentary on Paul. 018 is not a family member, as Panella has said, it and GA 0151 evidence a recension of the Damascene’s catenae. 0150 is considered a 9th century majuscule on the Kurzgefasste Liste, but research into its provenance may indicate an earlier date in the mid-700s. The biblical text of Paul's entire corpus is written in majuscule and the commentary is written in minuscule. 2110 is structured in the same way as 0150 despite being classified as a minuscule in the Liste. The striking similarity between 2110 and 0150 ends abruptly between Galatians and Ephesians due to a change in scribe and exemplar. 1506 is a 14th century manuscript which is a consistently cited witness in the NA28. If 1506 is important for reconstructing the text of Paul, then how much more the family from which it emerged?

The situation, 1985: Back in the day, seriation methods applied to Biblical Hebrew (BH) spelling data ordered the text portions along a horseshoe-shaped curve, taken to be a timeline. Unfortunately, the inferred horseshoe was disconcertingly “bloated” in that the scattered portions poorly approximated a horseshoe. The current situation, 2020: The thirty-five years since Andersen and Forbes began their BH spelling research have seen significant advances in pattern recognition techniques. I therefore consider here whether inclusion of a subset of innovative methods enhances the rigor and/or interpretability of BH spelling research results, “trueing” the timeline. Along the way, I discuss which machine learning methods are well suited to biblical studies and their proper use.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Emerging Scholarship in Biblical Studies.

One of the most popular and enduring images in ancient Near Eastern art is that of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.). The date palm, תָּמָר (tamar) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible dozens of times, and the date-palm decoration, referred to as a תִּמֹרָה (ṯimōrāh), is mentioned nineteen times: five in 1 Kings 6 and 7, thirteen in Ezekiel 40 and 41, and once in 2 Chronicles 3. These date-palm decorations are specifically linked to the Jerusalem Temple and associated with gateways, cherubim, and lions. It is clear from the text that they were motifs, not living trees, and that they were decorative images, not structural items. This paper will show why the date palm became an important apotropaic device. The date-palm motif first appears in the 3rd millennium BCE; however, this paper will concentrate on examples from the 9th c. BCE onward with examples from temples, palaces, and tombs that help illustrate its protective power.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Linguistics and the Biblical Text.

In 2 Enoch, Enoch writes 366 books which are dictated to him by an angel. When Enoch is teaching his children, these books are treated authoritatively, although the contents of his speeches differs notably from the contents of his books. This raises the question of the significance of the opposition of speech and writing within this work, and specifically the literary function of the creation of an authoritative text within the narrative. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari were greatly interested in the mechanics of speech and writing, particularly the passage from the dominance of the former to the latter in the inauguration of regimes. Their work in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus is particularly insightful for the purposes of understanding the mechanisms of social control under the oral, territorial machine, and the ultimate results of the dominance of writing with the despotic machine. This study uses these two thinkers to interrogate the concepts of speech and writing in 2 Enoch. In brief, the speeches of 2 Enoch show a great interest in marking off illicit relationships, or, in the parlance of Deleuze and Guattari, flows that escape coding. Repression is necessary for this flow of pure desire to be coded, and thus under the control of the socius. The writing of 2 Enoch is heavily concerned with cosmic organization and the destinies of the inhabitants of the earth, which correspond with Deleuze and Guattari’s principles that the state apparatus effects overcoding to allow the sovereign to exclusively possess desire, and that the despot himself is the ultimate signifier that dominates the “pyramid” of the voice, writing, and desire.

Perhaps the greatest struggle in teaching the Bible to undergraduates is giving them a fresh encounter with the ancient writings — and doing so responsibly. It is easy to default to biblical studies “lite,” a scaled-back version of the historical and textual methodology of our doctoral training. But this, in my experience, rarely excites more than sporadic interest from our students. We may instead chase “relevance,” but we risk conforming the Bible to modern modes of thought, whether of contemporary Christian orthodoxies or of a democratic, capitalistic, and globalized society. The best solution, though difficult, is to immerse students in the ancient world. For Paul’s letter to the Romans, a strategy to do this is constructing a house church to hear the epistle. Utilizing the research of Peter Oakes (Reading Romans in Pompeii) and Peter Lampe (From Paul to Valentinus), I developed a plausible makeup for a single Christian assembly in Rome. I assumed, at least for argument’s sake, that there was a Jewish, as well as gentile, readership of Romans — a point disputed by some. At the outset of the semester, each student in this small class constructed both a gentile character and a Jewish-affiliated character. For both, they drew cards for an occupation/social role (e.g., widow of a merchant, unskilled day-laborer) and rolled a die for their income bracket (with different social roles capped at, say, subsistence or relatively secure) and years as a Christian (from 1 = auditor to 6 = 15 years). Additionally, the gentile character drew a card for ethnicity, and the Jewish character drew a card for relation to Judaism (strictly observant, semi-observant, proselyte, or “God-fearer”). The proselyte and “God-fearer” drew ethnicity cards, too, and rolled a die for their years of attachment to Judaism. Students were then required to spend two or more hours constructing each character: picking a name, city or region of origin, precise occupation, and major life events before “hearing” Romans. They turned in a one-page report on each and described their characters to the class. Periodically throughout the semester, students turned in reports “hearing” Romans by their two characters, and the full class time was devoted to discussion. This teaching technique required a substantial time investment initially, but it paid dividends. Students found it fun — one exclaimed, as she drew a card, that she felt like she was playing the board game, “Life.” More importantly, students regularly saw things in the text they had never attended to. The proselyte grew frustrated with Paul’s depreciation of circumcision, a slave was unsettled by Paul’s metaphor of “slavery to righteousness,” and the church’s patron felt the community’s pressure at Paul’s call for generosity. It also forced the students, mostly devout Christians, to consider the biblical text in new ways. The student behind a God-fearer auditing Christianity said that she felt “freed” to engage with Paul’s arguments rather than begin with the presumption that he is right. Paradoxically, she found this fruitful spiritually, as it deepened her appreciation for the logic of Romans.

Some terms used for Jesus’ miracles in the Qur’an may provide us with clues of what the Qur’an is engaging with. In the Qur’an, the term for “blind” is mostly rooted in “ʿ-m-y.” The two exceptions occur when listing Jesus healing the blind using “k-m-h” (i.e., Qur’an 3:49, 5:110). While not used by the Peshitta, the term is used in the seventh century Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel. The Qur’an also uses the Greek rendition of leprosy (al-abraṣ) (i.e., Qur’an 3:49, 5:110), instead of the Semitic equivalent, “j(g)-r-b,” which the Peshitta uses. Sebastian Brock suggests that Hellenization overwhelmed the Syriac churches in the fifth century causing newer versions to emerge that are more faithful to the Greek texts. Originally, the Peshitta did not include some antilegomena, such as some epistles and the Book of Revelation. Around the fifth/sixth century, some of the antilegomena were introduced into the Syriac New Testament, such as the Philoxenian version. The Harklean version was later translated in the seventh century and was more faithful to the Greek New Testament. Isaac Hall had identified peculiarities between the Harklean version and the Peshitta describing how some terms in the Harklean version were not simply translated from Greek, but transliterated instead. If the Qur’an is engaging with some Christian texts or oral traditions, then it may be using the Syriac that are more faithful to their Greek counterparts. The Qur’an was unlikely using a Greek origin and translating it, as it would bring into question why not translate blind to “aʿmā” instead of “akmah,” to be consistent with the rest of the Qur’an. Using “akmah,” which is also used in seventh century Syriac literature, might suggest that the text or oral tradition is more likely Syriac, but a hybrid one that transliterates Greek terms and trying to remain faithful to the Greek texts. Additionally, the Qur’an is more likely engaging with a text instead of an oral tradition, because, orally, the Greek transliterations would not be colloquially used in either spoken Syriac or Arabic, especially when more popular terms exist in the native languages. Therefore, the emphasis of the Peshitta’s impact on the Qur’an in some recent scholarship seems a bit over-rated. The Qur’an appears to have been aware of hybrid Syriac/Greek texts, such as the Harklean version. In addition, the over-emphasis that the Qur’an is most likely engaging with oral tradition instead of literary tradition is also over-rated.

Egypt has captivated readers of the Bible across the ages. Although the Bible usually refers to Egypt as a place of bondage, nevertheless Egypt has played a role as a place of refuge for celebrated figures from Abraham to Jesus. Because Egypt’s role as a place of refuge has been largely disregarded, it will be important to understand the biblical concept of refuge and refugee. We will compare and contrast the figures of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in this paper.

I engage in a close reading of Jotham’s fable (Judges 9:8-15) and argue that the fable functions as a type of wisdom saying within Jotham’s speech (vv. 7-20). Building on recent work defending the non-parabolic nature of the fable – especially that of Jeremy Schipper – I maintain that its most salient ANE literary cousins are the short, suggestive “wisdom fables” found in the fifth-century BCE Aramaic text "The Words of Aḥiqar" and in Jehoash’s tale of the bramble and the cedar (2 Kgs 14:9-10). Based on these parallels, I propose a reading of the passage that accounts for both the fable’s enigmatic plot and its rhetorical function in Jotham’s speech. I argue that, by stating a principle of wisdom, the fable provides warrant and rhetorical backing for Jotham’s curse of Abimelech and the Shechemites, since wisdom sayings – including fables – often functioned this way in ANE political speech. In so doing, the fable of Judg 9:8-15 simultaneously insults and curses Jotham’s enemies by asserting the sapiential principle that the deity enacts vengeance against those who proudly oppress the weak.

When the biblical scholar goes to the principle dictionaries to study the language of colour in the biblical corpus, it is difficult for him/her to find out where the meanings of colour terms originate , since what is usually presented is a chromatic taxonomy (BDB, LSJ, Louw and Nida). The only exception is found in the SDBH, which provides a definition of lexemes. However, colour adjectives also appear in the definition, so the defined element becomes part of the definition. It seems, therefore, that it is necessary to develop a methodology that allows us to determine, for today, the meaning of the colour terms that appear in the biblical corpus. This methodology has to take into account that the concept of color that we have at present, derived from Newton's studies, varies from the one we find in antiquity and specifically in the biblical text. The first step, then, is to study the concept of colour in the biblical corpus. Analyzing the pericopes of the LXX and the Vulgate where χρῶμα/χρόα and colour appear (the Hebrew version lacks a term denoting colour) one can conclude that colour is what 'covers' an object or a person, an aspect of the surface, and in particular the indicator of an internal state, as in one's complexion. Hence, in the biblical corpus, colour is not something abstract, but concrete; in fact, analyzing the colour terms in the three versions of the Bible, we can see that they are intrinsically linked to an entity. Thus, we take a step further: the study of colour terms requires the analysis of the entity in which they are embodied. In this sense, it is useful for the methodology of the language of colour in the Bible, the contribution of Cuenca and Hilferthy who, in their Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics, state that colour adjectives such as 'red' are polysemic terms, as they describe various entities that belong to different cognitive domains. This is precisely what is found in the biblical corpus. Moreover, cognitive linguistics provides a set of epistemological principles and tools that facilitate and explain the change of hue in the same colour term and its different grammaticalization. Based on these assumptions, we have developed a methodology that allows us to study all the uses of colour terms, to define them while avoiding any kind of tautology and to propose various translations in order to facilitate the work of the translator and researcher. Thus, we propose: a) a status quaestionis on the meaning of the colour terms proposed by the main dictionaries; b) a comparative study of how the terms have been translated in the different versions of the Bible; c) a study of the characteristics of the book where the colour term appears; d) an analysis of the context and of the entity that describes the colour term; f) finally, we turn to other scientific disciplines that complete the study of the entity.

Modern scholarship has proposed a deep relationship of the Qurʾān to the linguistic and theological heritage of Syriac Christianity. This paper gives a proposal, how this relationship can be systemized conceptually through a model of intertextuality, which is classified as counterfactual. There seems to be technically a specific type of exegesis in the Syriac tradition, which argues counterfactually for a certain understanding of the Holy Scriptures. It is argued, that the Qurʾānic relationship to the Syriac tradition can especially be linked to this counterfactual exegesis, which is usually inverted. This model of intertextuality in the Qurʾān is exemplified with the announcement and birth stories of Jesus and John in the Qurʾān. They will be compared to the counterfactual exegesis of the birth and announcement stories of Syriac authors like Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug. It is further argued that counterfactual intertextuality in the Qurʾān addresses certain theological motives in the tradition of Syriac Christianity. This motives include especially soteriological and Christological concepts and a Christocentric view on salvation history, which has certain implications regarding liturgical questions and a covenant theology.

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:34). In these words spoken to Peter, James and John before his three-fold prayer in Gethsemane, Jesus alludes to the thrice-repeated refrain of Pss 42–43. This allusion is not merely stylistic or poetic, but rather provides a lens for understanding 14:32–42 as Jesus lamenting. The psalms of lament in the OT exemplify a robust faith in which everything — including fears and uncertainty — can be brought to God in confidence because he is faithful and sovereign. With this understanding of lament as it is specifically articulated in Pss 42–43, the narrative progression of 14:32–42 and its place in Mark’s story are more intelligible. Whereas Jesus’s prayer for the cup to be taken away (v. 36) could be read as an attempt to shirk his vocation, when read as lament, this prayer expresses a confident faith in the Father who hears and is present in every circumstance. When Jesus prays the “same thing” (v. 39), the three-times cycle is reminiscent of the refrain of Pss 42–43, which by its third repetition has changed key, a reoriented perspective of trust. Thus, Jesus rises to meet his betrayer (v. 42). This scene of lament anticipates the evocation of Ps 22 elsewhere in the passion narrative, but also connects with Jesus’s identification with the Davidic king (e.g. 10:47; 11:9; 12:35–37) by presenting Jesus as the one who prays like David did. This paper gives a narrative reading combined with a contextual awareness of OT allusions and citations.

Historians largely agree that Hellenistic kingship was founded, not primarily on heredity, but on military achievement (MacDonald, 2015). The right to rule was then meritocratic in a certain sense and kings felt the need to propagandize by commissioning writings peri basileias. Diogenes Laertius gives evidence that this type of kingship literature was widely produced in this era, though only fragments of these texts survive. The tracts attributed to Ecphantus, Diotogenes and Sthenidas (Delatte, 1942), along with the Letter of Aristeas reveal that Hellenistic kingship was supported by a mythos that viewed obtaining kingship as a kind of moral achievement. The king’s virtues are emphasized as godlike and worthy of imitation by his subjects, as he embodies the law in his person. The choice of Heracles for virtue and against vice exhibits the heroic kingship pattern that Pseudo-Solomon will follow (Xenophon, Memorabilia, 2.21-34). The Wisdom of Solomon reworks this kingship tradition by “democratizing” kingship (Newman, 2004) to all to call his readers to imitate Solomon’s choice of wisdom over folly. Solomon’s search for and embrace of wisdom (7:7; 8:2) takes the place of militaristic emphases and establishes a universalizable pattern for the moral quest of the individual. Drawing on the examples of Enoch and Moses, Wisdom domesticates a Hellenistic pattern of seeking and achieving a probatory divine encounter that then enables a “king” to return to mankind with benefits. Wisdom is beneficent (7:23) and, rather than becoming a god, the wise Solomon benefits others with his wise and just rule (Wis 8:10-15; 9:12). Even the wise Israelites become benefactors to others (19:14). Thus the quest of the king for wisdom follows a familiar outline of the journey of a king from obscurity, to conquest, to rule, to beneficence.

Upon being propositioned to participate in the assassination of their brother and the kidnapping of their sister-in-law by a shameless suitor, two stalwart young men square off against an immoral tyrant. Drawing their swords, they speak out against such an abuse of power. In response, the prince falls to the ground, his eyes darken, and he is seized by trembling. It is not, however, the words of the young men that so deeply affect him—rather, it is the swords, flashing like fire. This scene is an overlooked moment in the Jewish novel Joseph and Aseneth. The embodied reaction of the son of Pharaoh to these flaming swords is the exact response of other characters to other? epiphanies throughout the narratives. In this presentation, I argue that this military epiphany has literary significance within the novel and in its broader context. First, the wielding of heavenly weaponry, which is central to this particular story-arc in Aseneth, creates thematic and theological continuity between the novel’s first and second plot arcs. In comparing the prince’s physical responses to other reactions to divine beings in this novel, I show that the son of Pharaoh’s reaction must be understood as nothing other than a reaction to a divine presence. Moreover, these comparisons reveal the sustained intervention of the God of Joseph on behalf of a single person, Aseneth. This willingness to directly influence the mortal realm is a hallmark of Joseph and Aseneth, and the epiphanic motif sustains this theological claim throughout the novel. Second, this military epiphany connects Joseph and Aseneth’s understanding of divine interventions to broader beliefs. This second point requires comparison with Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian literature more broadly. In contrasting this scene with military epiphanies from Joshua, 2 Maccabees, Revelation, and the Testament of Levi, the context of Joseph and Aseneth’s understanding of God’s interventionism in belligerent moment emerges. A salient feature of these scenes is the use of heavenly weapons. Some texts place these weapons in the hands of mortal men, whilst others draw upon the imagery of divine warriors. This paper thus asks the question: does it matter who wields these instruments of divine warfare? In other words, does it matter in whose hand these divine weapons are placed? I conclude that these ignored military elements are an important means of contextualising Joseph and Aseneth in the corpora of Jewish and Hellenic texts circulating concurrently to its redaction. Additionally, this study draws attention to an otherwise under-studied aspect of epiphany in the novelistic works of antiquity: military manifestations.

This paper presents an online digital database of all scriptural citations, explicit allusions and other topics in Katz, Biderman and Greenberg’s Wrestling with God, OUP, 2009, 704 pp., a comprehensive anthology of Jewish Theological Responses during and after the Holocaust. Other topics include: 1) Whether and how the Holocaust is unique and defined; 2) the questions it raises for the author, 3) the latter’s answers and 4) assumptions; the themes of 5) Revelation, and 6) Zionism. The presentation analyzes the scriptural citation patterns and models for thinking about the Holocaust and invites development by the addition of other base texts through crowd-sourcing.

The Targum of the book of Proverbs has one of the most disputed origins of all the targumim. Scholars have set its composition to dates ranging from the 3rd c. BCE, to the 9th c. CE. In this paper, I will direct my focus away from the fraught question of origins, to its Rezeptionsgeschichte and later proliferation in Jewish circles. By focusing on citations of the work in a broad cross-section of Hebrew and Aramaic literature, and not only at the codicological provenances of the extant targumic manuscripts, we can begin to trace a more accurate map of its spread throughout Europe. Methodologically, the generation of such a map is somewhat difficult. We will deal with such issues as: How do we locate citations? How do we know that what looks like citation is actually that? How do we know when a citation is original to a text and not a later insertion, or a quote from an earlier work? Effective solutions to these obstacles are necessary preconditions to an accurate tracking of this Targum’s meanderings, and could be useful in generating similar maps for other texts, as well. Aside from its intrinsic value for the historiographic aspect of targumic studies, this virtual map could help to stabilize the stemma of the manuscript families, as well as provide potential back-tracking to the point(s) at which the text arrived (or originated) in Europe.

This paper compares the depiction of Moses in both Philo and Flavius Josephus, asking what light such a comparison can shed on the authors’ motives in shaping 'their' Moses the way they did. Philo and Josephus share several characteristics which make such a comparison instructive: they both lived in the diaspora, in the cities with the Roman Empire’s largest Jewish communities. Both of them straddle the Roman, Greek, and Jewish traditions. Both lived roughly around the same time – the gap between them is just one generation. And both witnessed disastrous religious and political events: the pogrom in Alexandria 38 A.D. and the Jewish war, leading to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. Neither Philo nor Josephus could neglect the imperial power structures that shaped their life and work. The writings of both authors can be seen as testimonies to a harmonious merger of the Graeco-Roman and the Jewish traditions. Josephus chose historiography for his undertaking, Philo turned to philosophy. It is consequently unsurprising that the 'philonic' and the 'josephan' Moseses differ, as the genre and nature of their enquiry necessarily shapes their presentation of this legendary figure. Ultimately, emphasis in their works will be laid on different virtues – philosopher king vs. heroic leader of the Jews – but both Josephus and Philo present Moses as paradigmatically virtuous, as Louis Feldman’s work has convincingly shown. Continuing this line of enquiry, I consider where the depiction of Moses in Josephus and Philo overlaps, where it differs and, most importantly, why it does or does not do so. Are Philo and Josephus pursuing fundamentally different ends in portraying Moses, or are they following different routes to the same goal? The existential danger faced by the Jews in both authors’ lifetimes may explain their attempt to establish some form of conjunction between the Jewish tradition and Graeco-Roman values and philosophy, so as to present the Jews as an integral part of the Roman Empire and culture. From this arises the question of audience, since Moses was one of the few prominent Jewish figures known to Greeks and Romans: who did Philo and Josephus intend to educate with their portrayal of Moses? What conclusions were readers supposed to draw, not only about Moses but on a more general level about Judaism and Jewishness?

David Leiter’s 2007 book Neglected Voices: Peace in the Old Testament could easily have had a sequel: Another Neglected Voice: Peace in the Letters of Paul. Despite some recent attention to peace in Paul, it remains a relatively neglected aspect of his theology and praxis. This paper will examine Paul’s letter to the Galatians as an apostolic effort at peacemaking. The paper’s title and thesis may seem ironic, if not oxymoronic, since Paul could be accused of being a troublemaker, as much as a peacemaker, in this letter. He certainly does not seem devoted to compromise, which is often said to be the means to achieving peace and harmony. Moreover, he expresses more raw feeling than one would expect from a peace negotiator. Nonetheless, Paul begins and ends this letter with words of peace (1:3; 6:16) and——significantly——posits peace as a vital aspect of the Spirit’s fruit, or activity in the community (5:22). This connection of the Spirit to peace is reminiscent of the (new/renewed) covenant of peace promised in Isaiah (Isa 54:10) and especially Ezekiel (Ezek 34:25; 37:26). Ezekiel’s promise is linked contextually in Ezekiel 37 both to the activity of God’s breath/spirit/Spirit and to the hope of unity for God’s people: “Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms” (Ezek 37:22b). The paper therefore argues that Paul sees himself as speaking a prophetic, Ezekiel-like word of Spirit-filled, community-uniting peace to the “two nations” of Galatian believers——the circumcised and the uncircumcised. Practically speaking, this means first of all that those who have reneged on what could be called the “Jerusalem Accord” (Gal 2:1–10) must cease their community-destroying, anti-gospel activity. Only then will the unifying, peacemaking work of the Spirit be able to flourish. But Paul’s letter is more than a theoretical remix of Ezekiel in the form of a screed combined with unrealistic aspirations; it is a real-life effort at creating real-life peace and unity. The paper therefore also reads Galatians in light of certain contemporary aspects of intercultural/interreligious and intercultural/intracultural peacemaking principles that attend to the nature and fragility of negotiated agreements, the effect of trauma on peace efforts, and the role of emotion and even conflict during the peacemaking process. These dimensions of Galatians may help us both to empathize with various parties that appear in Galatians and to learn from Paul’s peacemaking effort.

A new kind of synopsis is now available for the study of the Pentateuchal Targums. This electronic synopsis – The Targums WordMap – provides cross-textual searches of equivalents between the Aramaic versions and the Hebrew Torah in a manner that has never been available before in any digital platform. In my presentation I will demonstrate basic features of the Targums WordMap and how they may contribute to research. I will show how it may enrich linguistic studies and provide a novel tool for future scholarship. The principles and opportunities offered by this new tool may be extended to cover other ancient versions of the Hebrew Bible as well.

“Obstetric violence” is an appropriation of the body and reproductive processes of women which is expressed as dehumanization of women and results in loss of autonomy and ability to control her body. Despite its negative impact, women have great power when they give birth and name their children. This “gift” is accompanied with severe pangs and pain as ordained in Genesis 3:16; moreover, it is a dubious gift if she dies in childbirth. If she survives she brings a sin offering (Lev 12:1-6). Concomitant with being victims of obstetric violence, two biblical women are blamed for their own untimely deaths. Their midwives attempt to console them: “Do not fear, you have born a son”—a condescending act. Both Rachel (Gen 35:18) and Phinehas’s wife (1Sam 4: 19-22) survive and give their babies names. Although Rachel’s son’s name is switched to from ben-oni to ben-yamin, the word ason appears three times in relationship to young Benjamin (Gen 42:4, 38; 44: 29). This recalls the discussion in Exodus 21: 22-23 about the “damage” (ason) done if a pregnant woman has been injured and the fetus/mother has died as a result. Is the biblical text hinting that Benjamin’s birth was an ason, in that it resulted in Rachel’s death? Ironically, it is a Benjaminite who brings the news of Phinehas’s death to his wife while she is giving birth. Finally, what are the psychological ramifications for a child whose name has negative associations such as “son of my suffering” or “glory has left Israel”?

Jordan Peele’s 2019 horror film Us, the writer-director’s provocative follow-up to 2017’s Get Out, introduces viewers to the “tethered.” The tethered are a race of humanoids living underground, the result of a government experiment long ago abandoned. Each of the tethered has a counterpart in the world above, a body to whom they are spiritually linked in some mysterious way. As explained by Red, one of the tethered who has gained the ability to speak, they are two bodies with one soul; but all of the privileges go to the bodies in the world above. The tethered are relegated to a miserable subterranean existence, eating raw rabbit and mimicking the actions of their above-ground companion. In Us, the tethered emerge from below to claim the lives that have been denied to them. While Us makes many direct and indirect references to Jeremiah 11:11, a more interesting intertext is found in the sibling rivalries of Genesis, beginning with Cain and Abel. This paper will argue that the fundamental injustice of the sibling rivalries in Genesis is deeply integrated into the text, and is given no sufficient theological explanation. Like the above-ground characters of Us, the favored siblings of Genesis are given their privileged status through no rationale other than that they are, for some reason, favored. As a result, their sibling is relegated to an unprivileged, tethered status. Reading these two texts in conversation with one another helps to raise the issue of justice to the surface, emphasizing the reality that privilege comes at the expense of the unprivileged Other. By pairing each tethered directly with a privileged, above ground human, Us brings to the surface the reality that privilege is the result of exploitation, albeit an exploitation that is most frequently kept hidden underground. Using contemporary theories of audience identification, in addition to Rank and Freud’s exploration of the doppelgänger as an object of horror, this paper will explore the ways in which Us manipulates audience sympathies to construct a problematized and ambiguous structure of identification with the film’s characters. As viewers, we experience the shock of the privileged when they realize they have been marked for death by their doppelgängers, but we gradually come to realize the justice that has been denied to the tethered. As such, audiences experience the tension generated by ambiguous and competing sympathies. In a similar way, this paper will invite the reader to explore their feelings of sympathy for Cain, Esau, Ishmael, and the other tethered siblings of Genesis as they struggle against the book’s arbitrary textual injustices.

This paper highlights many of the ambiguous elements in the description of the religious reforms enacted by Jeroboam son of Nebat in 1 Kgs 12:26–33 and argues that the earliest stratum of the portrayal reflects the politics of the reign of Hezekiah and the merging of Northern and Southern forms of Yahwism in the wake of the Assyrian conquest of the North. The earliest core of the story is established on text-critical and literary grounds, and the relationship to related texts concerning Jeroboam I (and Jeroboam II) in both the Hebrew and Greek traditions is considered, before regional manifestations of Yahwistic worship are explored in the larger socio-political landscape of the 8th–7th c. BCE. The paper concludes with potential implications for understanding the relationship between the historical realities behind the texts and theories concerning the formation of a Deuteronomistic History.

This paper is a response to Edmonds's treatment of alchemy in his new book, _Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World_. Two new manuscripts on Greco-Roman alchemy were published around the same time as Edmond's book (Grimes, Dec. 2018; and Dufault, Apr. 2019), and this paper will be bringing these new works into conversation with Edmonds. Since some forms of alchemy in this period involve astrology and theurgy, Edmonds's chapters on these topics will be woven into my response, along with his treatment of theoretical issues pertaining to science, magic, and religion.

This paper discusses the quotation of Ps 2:7 in Heb 1:5 with a focus on the phrase “today I have begotten you.” Patristic interpreters found in this expression a description of the Father’s eternal begetting of the Son. Modern scholars have generally rejected this interpretation as an imposition of later dogmatic theology on the epistle to the Hebrews. Instead, they have suggested that the word “today” may refer to 1) the birth of Jesus or the incarnation; 1) his baptism and/or transfiguration; 3) his resurrection; 4) his ascension; or 5) the eschatological “now.” This paper takes a fresh look at these different interpretations and argues that the reference to the eternal generation of the Son is the one that is most compatible with the argument in the epistle. The patristic development of the doctrine of the Son’s eternal begetting has important points of contact with the argument of Hebrews.

Matt 21:1-5 explicitly refers to passages in Isaiah and Zechariah yet also contains a potentially implicit reference to 2 Sam 16:1-2. The Davidic undercurrent in Jesus’ triumphal entry makes an intertextual link to 2 Sam 16:1-2 and its larger context, the Absalom Revolt, suggestive. While scholars disagree about a direct intertextual connection between Matt 21:1-5 and 2 Sam 16:1-2, this paper explores an indirect connection via Zech 9:9’s own intertextual link to 2 Sam 16:1-2. This kind of intertextual interplay is often called “double allusion,” “double reference,” or “window reference” following Ruurd Nauta’s “The Concept of ‘Metalepsis’: From Rhetoric to the Theory of Allusion and to Narratology” in Über die Grenze Metalepse in Text- und Bildmedien des Altertums (de Gruyter: 2013). Although no one has yet argued for a double allusion in Matt 21:5’s reference to Zech 9:9, this paper suggests that the direct allusion to Zech 9:9 further functions as a window to 2 Sam 16:1-2 thus bolstering the overall intertextual connection which has been most notably emphasized by J.J. Menken’s “The Quotation from Zech 9,9 in Mt 21,5 in Jn 12,15” in in John and the Synoptics (Leuven: 1992) and by Sandra Hübenthal’s “Wer ist dieser? Mt 21,1-17 in inter-textueller Lektüre” in Der Bibelkanon in der Bibelanslegnng: Methodenreflexionen and Beispiel- exegesen (Kohlhammer: 2007) although they leave the narrative implications largely unexplored. Building upon the work of Menken and Hübenthal, this paper suggests that the proposed intertext and its larger literary connotations, i.e. the Absalom Revolt, are valid and form an intertextual framework for Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus. One of the main reasons for pursuing said intertext is because of the double/window reference in Zech 9:9 which most commentators overlook but which was argued for in Douglas R. Jones’ “A Fresh Interpretation of Zechariah IX-XI” (VT: 1962) and followed by several commentators, most recently in Anthony R. Petterson’s Haggai, Zechariah & Malachi (IVP: 2015). This paper further seeks to investigate the narrative implications of said intertext and since the Absalom Revolt appears to portray David as a somewhat unjust and foolish ruler who does not actually live up to the claim that he rules with justice and righteousness (2 Sam 8:15) it seems that the Matthean Jesus as a new David reverses or redeems these qualities and is characterized as a completely just and wise king. Following Inhee Berg’s Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative (Fortress: 2014) this paper considers the so-called triumphal entry as the beginning a large segment of irony within Matthew, which is at least partially aimed at characterizing Jesus as the greater David and indeed often the typological antithesis of David in 1-2 Samuel. This naturally develops in Matt 21 when Jesus later reverses David’s exclusion of the lame and blind from the temple (2 Sam 5:8) by healing such people on the temple compound (Matt 21:14).

Pistis Sophia is a post-resurrection revelatory discourse of Jesus to his gathered disciples. The text presents a long and complex narrative in which Jesus discloses heavenly and cosmic mysteries along with elaborate ritual instructions. The rich astrological and demonological details of the text are of particular interest and attest to its syncretistic character and especially to its connection to Egyptian, Jewish and Christian lore. In this presentation, I will discuss those demonic entities in the text which may be understood as “demons of the afterlife” and more precisely, those demonic figures, which are described in the text as punishers and tormentors of various categories of sinners in an “infernal” cosmic realm. Interestingly, Pistis Sophia seems to be among the earliest Christian texts that introduce an extensive and systematic demonic punitive system in afterlife. Furthermore, the text serves as a demonological compendium and guidebook through afterlife torments and a demonic cosmography. The analysis will focus on descriptions of this “demonic afterlife” in their relation to demonological descriptions attested to magical literature, Egyptian lore as well as to Jewish and Christian hell visions. Furthermore, questions regarding the Sitz im Leben of this text in the context of specific moral value systems of local communities as well as issues relating to ideas of punishment, retribution and redemption will be addressed.

Commentators have long noted a resemblance between the description in 1 Timothy 4 of certain ascetic prohibitions by teachers whom the author of the letter deems to have renounced the faith and followed the teachings of demons, and the description of Encratite prohibitions as we find them in the later heresiologists, beginning with Irenaeus. Although scholars of early Christianity remain skeptical about the existence of an early Christian group that called themselves “Encratites,” evidence from the fourth century confirms the existence of a group of Encratites, identifiable by their distinctive ascetic avoidance of marriage, meat, and wine. This paper examines the claim that the Pastorals, especially 1 Timothy, opens a window onto the early differentiation of Encratite practice, and that the situation of 1 Timothy in particular sits between Paul’s ascetic tendencies (e.g. in the Corinthian correspondence) and a more clearly defined Encratite tradition.

An ambitious but realistic objective for introductory BH courses is to allow all students to independently read and be able to interpret authentic, straightforward biblical texts after completing a course of 3-4 semesters (100-150 class hours). A BH introductory course should also provide those wishing to continue a wide enough base upon which to build deeper scholarly study. The traditional GTM, with its aloof, linguistically oriented approach, tries to impart too much information with little pedagogical consideration, resulting in courses that attempt to teach much more than most beginners can absorb. Moreover, GTM intensive programs do not usually result in clear, hands-on, practical skills and tools. Students completing these courses often feel unwelcome into the real inspiring biblical text they hope to access. To counter GTM shortcomings, a few programs have been developed in the last two decades that enthusiastically embrace the Modern SL teaching approach. Unfortunately, without enough consideration to its very different, mostly communicative objectives, as well as its longer learning process , this approach also has serious shortcomings. Despite the problems with both of these approaches, together they can serve as excellent resources, with due modifications, for the creation of varied effective teaching programs. In this talk, I address this specifically for the first round of the BH learning spiral. Grammar, in appropriate dosages, is the backbone of a short term language learning (and indeed, as mentioned above, BH introductory courses is relatively short!). However, courses should only impart grammatical subjects that are practically needed in order to access the text at this level, and not for merely linguistic competence. These grammatical subjects should be situated in pedagogically planned curricula. Ttranslation too, can be a valuable component in an introductory BH course. Presenting various published translation solutions for chosen passages can build students’ critical reading of them, and their awareness to translators’ intentions, apparent in the accuracy, style, domestication vs. foreignization, built-in exegesis, etc. of that translation. Students should not be expected to mechanically produce their translations of biblical texts. Rather, when guided to integrate context together with grammar, vocabulary, and even with a pinch of educated guessing, students will be meaningfully engaged in reading straightforward authentic biblical texts. Modern SL teaching/learning research and practice have also much to offer. BH introductory programs can certainly benefit from considerations such as the importance of authentic, comprehensible, meaningful input; frequency vs. learnability; developmental vs. variational grammatical items, as well as the use of audio/visual learning aids; technology for reference and intensive practice; acting-out/singing of texts learned, and more. However, such program components should be thoroughly modified to be compatible with the highly aimed, non-communicative objectives of a BH introductory course and its time constraints. To conclude, examples from the Hinneh program will be offered to demonstrate the valuable possible contribution of both GTM and SL teaching/learning approaches to an effective BH introductory course.

Jesus’s command to the formerly demon-possessed man in Mark 5:19 to proclaim what God has done for him seems at odds with Jesus’s admonitions to silence elsewhere in the Gospel and has been difficult for scholars to explain. My study shows how Jesus’s command and the man’s actions in response function as the culmination of an encomium that the author of Mark has constructed in order to put forth the cleansed man as an exemplar of discipleship. In the process of crafting an encomium of the cleansed man the narrative employs syncrises between the man, the Twelve, and the bystanders, thereby creating three tiers of possible responses to Jesus. The episode’s encomiastic function also serves to clarify the complicated dialogue between Jesus and the demon in vv. 7–10 and the reason Jesus reverses his pattern of admonitions to silence by commanding the man to proclaim what God had done for him in v. 19. To make the case that Mark 5:1–20 functions as an encomium, I focus on the episode’s rhetorical features, which have been comparatively neglected by most scholars. This paper demonstrates how the episode reflects rhetorical elements described in the Progymnasmata, a collection of ancient elementary rhetorical exercises. Though Mark does not exhibit the strong compositional traits of the famed rhetoricians, the Progymnasmata remain relevant since they are elementary texts, reflecting methods that would have impacted the oral and written compositions of even those not highly educated. In particular, I show how the narrative, to the best of the author’s ability, utilizes the techniques of prosopopoeia, narratio, encomium, and syncrisis in order to portray the cleansed man as a model disciple.

This paper examines the role touch plays when Jesus washes his disciples’ feet in John 13. The shocking nature of this act is its humble quality—that Jesus would wash his disciples’ feet is unprecedented. I suggest that the unparalleled quality of this humble gesture is, in part, that it involves the “lower class” sense of touch. Touch uniquely communicates a quality of love that no other physical sense can quite capture. From here I explore how this gesture might tap on the implications of the love expressed through Jesus’ saving act of the cross, which this footwashing prefigures (13:1b). Finally, what is the potential impact these findings have for the secondary purpose of the footwashing? Jesus washing his disciples’ feet becomes a model for the way they are now to follow his directive to love one another (13:14-15, 34-35; 15:12-13). This paper makes use of the findings of Sensory Anthropology and Affect Theory to bring out qualities about the sense of touch often obscured by tendencies to focus on the “higher status” senses such as sight and hearing in their common collocation with faith. Just as sight and hearing can be potent symbols for belief in the Fourth Gospel, how might touch have a powerful effect in its manifestation of the quality of love Jesus was sent from God to embody (1:14)? Moreover, how does touch impact and foster devotional interaction of disciples with the divine, and in the quest to follow the divine call to love others?

In the expanding literature on “rape” in the Hebrew Bible, Judg 19:22-30 has played an increasingly significant role (see most recently Southwood 2017; Harding 2018; Hamley 2019; Paynter 2020). For obvious reasons, the focus has largely been on the fate of the Levite’s pilegesh (“concubine” or “secondary wife”), but recently attention has also been paid more closely to the threat to rape the Levite himself (Harding 2016; Hamley 2019: 224-226). The purpose of this paper is to place the threat to rape the Levite in its wider literary and cultural contexts. In Judg 19:22, the men of Gibeah demand that the Ephraimite householder “bring out” (יצא hiphil) the Levite so that they may “know” (ידע qal) him. In Judg 19:24-25, “a nexus of verbs referring to sexual intercourse and force” (viz ידע qal; ענה piel; חזק piel; עלל hithpael), when taken together, “paint a picture that fits the modern concept of rape” (Hamley 2019: 77), here referring to the sexual violence perpetrated against the pilegesh. One of these verbs (עלל hithpael) is used in other texts that point to the male dread of being violently humiliated by an enemy (1 Sam 31:4||1 Chron 10:4; Jer 38:19), perhaps with sexual overtones (cf. 2 Sam 10:4). It seems clear, in light of texts such as these, that the literary trope of the threat of male rape reflects a construction of masculinity that entails a visceral dread of male effeminacy and feminisation (cf. also Judg 9:54), and leads to the most deleterious consequences, of different kinds and degrees, for both women and men. Texts such as Judg 19:22-30 (and Gen 19:1-11), then, are not to be read as simply depicting a gross violation of ancient hospitality norms, nor as having anything at all to do with “homosexuality” (an anachronistic and unhelpful concept). They are to be read as texts about the threat of male rape, and about the lengths to which men will go to avoid the humiliation of being raped, which in Judg 19:22-30 leads inexorably to sexual violence perpetrated against a woman who was supposed to be under the protection of a man whose fear of his own sexual violation was such that the sexual violation of his pilegesh was the only viable alternative.

The Greek Martyrdom of Mark (BHG 1035/6, sometimes called the Acts of Mark) has been described by Stephen Davis as a “foundation legend,” which, in conjunction with hagiography like the Passion of Peter of Alexandria, helped establish the Coptic patriarch as the head of the Church of the Martyrs after the “Great Persecution” of 303-311/13. To a great extent, this makes sense. In this short narrative, the evangelist Mark founds churches in Pentapolis and Alexandria until he is captured during a festival of Serapis and dragged around the city and dies, at which point his body is rescued from a fire by a hailstorm and his relics are deposited as “the first treasure in Alexandria.” Clearly the narrative displays concern with portraying the apocryphal founder of Christianity in Egypt as a model for martyrdom and persecution. But, while the narrative is set in the first century, close analysis of Mark’s death also reveals striking correspondences to descriptions of the destruction of the Serapeum and the lively Serapis cult statue in Alexandria in 391/2. Both Mark and the cult statue are dragged around the city, for instance, but while the statue is pulled apart, Mark’s body remains whole; while the statue is successfully cremated, Mark’s body escapes the fire; while the demise of Serapis signals the end of paganism in Egypt, the death of Mark establishes his episcopal see and cements Christianity. In this paper, then, I argue that the Martyrdom of Mark rewrites the iconoclastic episode of 391/2, retrojecting it to the first century so that the destruction of the Serapeum became a vengeful imitation, even though the literary martyrdom may itself have been the mirror image. Furthermore, because the Martyrdom demonstrates a consistent occupation with the iconicity of Mark, playing on Greek and Egyptian discourses about the relations between images and bodies, I suggest that this ostensible showdown constituted a spirited iconomachy whereby one living image (Mark) can be elevated above another (Serapis). Since the cult of Mark seems to emerge about the same time, in the early fifth century, with Mark’s feast day replacing that of Serapis on April 25, this analysis ends by raising questions about how this apocryphon worked to reconfigure the religious landscape of Alexandria.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Emerging Scholarship in Biblical Studies.

How does one gain access to the divine? For members of the Qumran movement, access to otherworldly realities, including divine beings, was part of the daily, lived experience. Initiation into the group meant incorporation into an entity with ties to the eternal. Through this association, the sectarian gained present access to otherworldly realities (worship with angels, access to the divine throne room) with the goal of attaining full and permanent incorporation into the otherworldly existence. The present, for them, was a time of living into an otherworldly, eternal reality – a reality that became part of the collective lived experience through participation in the rituals and liturgical practices of the group. This understanding of the present as a type of liminal space sets the Qumran movement apart from other expressions of Judaism in the last few centuries BCE. Drawing on the works of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner in conversation with more recent explorations of liminality and literature, I consider the significance of initiation for the Qumran sectarian’s epistemological understanding of the present as a type of liminal space with present access to otherworldly realities. In what ways does incorporation into this earthly-human organization, referred to in the Qumran sectarian literature as an "eternal planting", provide the necessary conditions for the individual’s experience of the divine-otherworldly in the present? I begin with a discussion of the initiation process through which an individual becomes a member of the sect – a position which joins him to its eternal nature and allows him to enjoy present communion with the divine. Incorporation into the sect grants the individual access to the shared, revelatory knowledge of the group and enables his participation in the liturgical practices aimed to elicit this communion. While the ultimate goal of this activity is the sectarian’s full incorporation into the eternal realm at the end of the age, membership in the group serves a crucial, intermediate role as it facilitates the experience of divine-otherworldly realities in the present, earthly state and prepares the sectarian for future initiation into the divine realm. Considering Qumran notions of the present in this way helps us better understand the group’s perceived purpose and has significant implications for New Testament conceptions of the Kingdom of God as a type of already-not yet liminal space.

In the ancient novel Joseph and Aseneth, the female Egyptian protagonist undergoes a profound transformation to be able to marry Joseph, the Hebrew patriarch. Aseneth separates herself from her Egyptian traditions and cult and becomes Hebrew. This paper explores Aseneth’s transformation using insights from theories on conversion and intersectionality.

This paper will survey symbolic and metaphorical representations of blindness in biblical and Mesopotamian (Akkadian and Sumerian) texts, and compare them in light of theoretical insights from disability and metaphor studies. Particular attention will be paid to the prevalence of symbolism and metaphorization in each cultural sphere as well as the emotional and moral valence each attaches to blindness. While biblical and Mesopotamian texts both reflect a negative emotional valence, biblical texts exhibit a stronger negative moral valence, as well as a greater tendency toward figurative portrayals in general. The differences in how—and how often—blindness functions as a metaphor in these two environments raises important questions relevant to metaphor theory, specifically the streams that locate the foundations of metaphor in universal embodied experience. The final section of this paper will consider briefly the complexities of blindness as a metaphorical domain, balanced precariously between the lived experience of the blind and the imagined experience of the sighted.

The goal of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of “emotional merit” in a selection of midrashim on the Aqedah in Genesis Rabbah. I use the term emotional merit to refer to a particular midrashic motif in which Abraham’s ability to control his emotions and enable himself to carry out God’s command to sacrifice Isaac is portrayed as accruing merit for himself and his descendants. In these midrashim, it is not Abraham’s obedience to God as much as the effort expended controlling his own emotions that has enduring significance. Midrashim that thematize emotional merit synthesize two interpretive trajectories that are repeatedly found in Genesis Rabbah’s treatment of the Aqedah. The first is a marked focus on the emotions and inner thoughts of the biblical characters. Since Erich Auerbach’s groundbreaking analysis of the biblical Aqedah narrative, it has been commonplace to note that the characters’ emotions are left hidden beneath the surface of the text. The midrashic authors, on the other hand, bring these emotions to the foreground and often evoke vivid imagery in presenting them. The second trajectory is an expansion of the concept of “zechut avot,” or merit of the fathers, in the Aqedah narrative. In the biblical text, it is explicitly stated that Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son will lead to the perpetuation of God’s promises. In Genesis Rabbah, however, nearly every individual action taken by Abraham is seen as a source of merit for his descendants. To give just one example, Abraham’s splitting of the wood for the sacrifice is portrayed as causing the splitting of the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14. In this way, even the most mundane action has the potential to be transformed into a mythic act with enduring significance for the patriarch’s descendants. Emotional merit operates in a similar way. The midrashic focus on Abraham’s ability to control his emotions and follow God’s command becomes a mythic that benefits future generations of Jews. Interestingly, midrashim that present the theme of emotional merit do not portray the patriarch as an exemplar. There is no explicit suggestion that readers of the midrashim are meant to see Abraham as a model of proper emotional conduct and emulate him accordingly. While it is certainly possible that the midrashim make this claim implicitly, I find another interpretation more interesting. By focusing on emotion as a source of merit, the midrashim I examine present the significance of the Aqedah in a register that is readily comprehensible to the midrashic audience. Any reader of the midrash would be familiar with the power of emotions and the difficulty of controlling them. By presenting the Aqedah as a challenge of emotional control, the midrashim close the distance between the biblical past and the present of the rabbinic audience. This, in turn, enables the audience to more easily imagine the reality of Abraham’s heroic acts, and their enduring significance in the audience’s own lives.

This paper presents a literary analysis of the encounter between Aqhat and the goddess Anat in The Tale of Aqhat (KTU 1.17 VI). As a pivotal scene in the narrative, this encounter highlights the larger themes present in the narrative. One of these themes, the contrast between life and death, is entrenched in the narrative portrayal of gender roles. Therefore, the gendered presentation of Aqhat and Anat, along with their reversal, will be considered in its relationship to the theme of life and death.

The Iron Age period has been relatively unknown in the southern Jordan Valley (from Wadi Farah in the north to the Dead Sea in the south), because few substantial archaeological excavations of Iron Age sites have been conducted there. The main source of information so far has been the Manasseh Hills Survey, led by Adam Zertal from 1978 to 2015, and from Shay Bar from that time to the present. This paper will describe a new excavation project at Khirbet ‘Aujah el-Foqa, a large well-preserved Iron Age II site identified by the survey some 8 km north of Jericho, and explore its relationship to the historical geography of the region. The site was intensively surveyed in 2003-2004 but had remained unexcavated. It is a well-preserved fortified city on a high hill isolated by steep slopes, and pottery collected during the survey had already suggested that its primary period of use was in the Iron Age. Its material culture suggests an identification with Israelite culture, and the site plan indicated that it was military in nature. It was of special interest because of its possible appearance in the Manasseh-Ephraim boundary description in Josh 16:6-7. In the summer of 2019 and the winter of 2020, the Jordan Valley Excavation Project (JVEP) conducted two seasons of excavation at the site. The paper will provide an overview of the excavations, propose an identification for the site, and reflect on its possible function in the Jericho Valley in the Iron Age II.

For the ERC Project "The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls," we are applying computational intelligence to the task of scribal identification. Scribal identification is a tricky task for palaeographers due to the inevitability of variability in the handwriting of an individual scribe. How can variability be quantified? Computer scientists have developed neural networks and feature extraction methods for the systematic processing of handwriting on historical documents. This paper introduces the particular feature extraction methods being applied at the University of Groningen for scribal identification in the Dead Sea scrolls. Specifically, to ninety of the Qumran manuscripts said by Ada Yardeni to be the work of one scribe. The paper explores avenues opened up by Artificial Intelligence for overcoming challenging aspects of scribal identification, including variability and variation, and subjectivity. The paper concludes by introducing a scribe, not as prolific as Yardeni first suggested, but prolific all the same.

Theological Interpretation of Scripture and ressourcement of Scripture’s reception history have been two of the most interesting and promising developments in the last few decades for the constructive task of theology. A recurring question in these conversations has asked what such work looks like in practice, as opposed to mere meta-level reflection or prolegomena, and this study represents one such instance of applied theological interpretation. Though the doctrine of simplicity fell on hard times in modern theology, simplicity has received fresh and invigorated attention over the last few decades among theologians variously interested in retrieving classical theism, such as the late John Webster, and more recently by Duby, Levering, Sanders, Sonderegger, Swain, Wittman, and others. However, it is common for simplicity to meet at least three significant objections. First, some biblical scholars raise concerns that the metaphysical considerations entailed by simplicity can only be read anachronistically into biblical texts rather than historically substantiated. Second, some theologians likewise suggest that simplicity represents a philosophical abstraction that is less exegetically straightforward than other theological loci, object to simplicity as conflating all of God’s attributes into one, or reject the ontological entailments of simplicity out of preference for dynamism in theology proper; last, communities of faith might find simplicity more abstractly speculative than relevant or practical to the life of faith. To aid with these three questions, this paper contributes a close reading of Hebrews 6:13–18, attuned to its theological logic within its historical context and reception history. In this passage, an attribute no less pastoral than the trustworthiness of God is described in terms of God’s swearing an oath “by himself,” there being none greater by whom to swear (6:13). My argument is that in Hebrews 6:13–18 God’s trustworthiness is not a component part of God, nor some yet greater and extraneous reality that God participates in, but uses a logic that later interpreters appropriately described in terms of simplicity. The first part of this paper recaps the current state of discussions of simplicity in theological interpretation of Scripture. The second part exegetically explores the relationship between God’s being and attributes in Hebrews 6:13–18, read in conversation with texts on God’s self-oath in Gen 22:16; Isa 45:23, 62:8; Jer 22:5, 44:26, 49:13, 51:14; Amos 4:2, 6:8, 8:7; and Philo Alleg. Interp. 3.203. Part three briefly probes how Hebrews 6:13 has factored into historic discussions of simplicity by Aquinas, Thomas Boston, and others. The final part of this paper draws out the constructive value of the logic of simplicity on divine trustworthiness in three ways: first, the value of this reading for projects of theological interpretation and/or retrieval of simplicity; second, the questions this passage poses against biblicistic rejections of simplicity; and third, the pastoral value of divine simplicity and divine trustworthiness for insiders and outsiders to communities of faith, who might dismiss simplicity as overly abstract, impractical, or even harmful and toxic.

Biblical scholars have long attended to Zoroastrianism and its influence upon the biblical text. Much less attention has been paid to the influence of the other traditional Iranian deities. Zoroastrian scholars and Persian period historians agree that the worship of many such deities thrived throughout this period alongside the teachings of Zoroaster. A fuller appreciation for the religious context has great potential to help illuminate biblical texts that are otherwise obscure. In this paper I explore the implications of the broader religious context upon one such biblical text: the obscure identification of the lampstand with “the eyes of YHWH” in Zechariah’s fifth vision (Zech 4:1-14). The reason for a connection between YHWH’s roaming eyes and a lampstand is ambiguous. Petersen provides the most substantial discussion of the relationship, drawing upon ancient Hebrew traditions in which God’s shining eyes denote God’s favor. Because of the apparently benevolent character of YHWH’s eyes in Zech 4, Peterson and others reject the suggestion of Tur-Sinai and Oppenheim that “the eyes of YHWH roaming in all the earth” are analogous to the “eyes and ears of the king,” a network of royal Persian spies referenced by Greek historians. Such Persian spies were feared entities, which does not appear to fit well with the encouraging context of Zech 4:1-14. Indeed, few Zechariah commentators have accepted Tur-Sinai and Oppenheim’s suggestion for this reason. Cues abound, however, that Persian influence is in play in a manner akin to the suggestion of Tur-Sinai and Oppenheim. I examine the uncommon language that the text uses to describe YHWH’s eyes in Zech 4:10, the immediate literary context of this vision, and the iconographic imagery of the vision in relation to the broader religious context of the Persian period. Through this examination it becomes apparent that the vision in Zech 4:1-14 draws upon imagery associated with Mithra, a traditional Iranian deity associated with fire, light, and eyes that roam throughout the earth for the sake of seeking out injustice. Mithra’s eyes function on a divine level in a manner similar to the political eyes of the king, but they are only fearful if one wants wickedness. Such eyes bring comfort those longing for a just world. The literary context of Zech 4:10 similarly draws a striking connection between YHWH’s eyes and the promise that God will remove wickedness. For God to seek to eliminate sin is indeed desirable, and it fits neatly within the hope expressed in Zech 4:1-14 that Zerubbabel will complete the temple. When viewed in this way, the Persian context surrounding the roaming eyes of YHWH does not inspire terror. Rather, the author repurposes Persian imagery to encourage the people that YHWH, the Emperor of the cosmos and maintainer of justice, is at work to bring about a hopeful, purified future.

Previous scholars have examined the prevalence of Elijah-Elisha imagery in the gospels, such as Thomas Brodie, Dale Allison, Joseph Fitzmyer, and more recently John Poirier and Anthony Ferguson. But research typically focuses on its application to John the Baptist and Jesus, with only a nod towards the disciples. Yet this thrice repeated use of Elijah imagery warrants its own consideration, especially since Elijah seems to be a figure that had a definite position within Israel’s eschatological timeline. Why does Luke present Elijah not only as having come again, but again and again? This paper the answer lies in more than Luke’s fondness for Elijah and stems from his theological framework. The argument comes in two sections – the existence, then the explanation of repeated Elijah imagery. Establishing the existence of this multiple fulfillment of Elijah requires briefly summarizing the work of previous scholars regarding Elijah/John and Elijah/Jesus typology, but we will particularly focus on Elijah/disciples typology since it is underappreciated. The second section, explaining this phenomenon, requires three moves. First, the “fountain head” of 1-2 Kings provides precedent for viewing the “spirit” of Elijah as needing to be being passed down and requiring succession. Second, the reception history of the Elijah-Elisha narratives as well as key texts in Luke reveal the function of this role: not only signaling the identification of the messiah, but also calling the people to repentance so as to prepare for the imminent day of judgment. Third, a broader Lukan theology of imminent judgment and the coming kingdom compels seeing the succession of eschatological Elijah as due to the constant need for repentance in light of still imminent judgment. In other words, in Luke-Acts, Israel continues to be unprepared, so the role of the “preparer” must go on. Thus, Elijah’s mantle is passed from John to Jesus to the disciples.

The paper reassesses the historical and literary-historical classification of the so-called Ark narrative(s) 1 Sam 4-6*/ 2 Sam 6*. By focusing on the Travels of the Ark in 1 Sam 5,1-7,1.2a it will be asked: What role does the itinerary play in the overall intention of the Ark narrative? Here, the possible connection with 2 Sam 6 (which is highly controversial in recent research) will also be examined. In order to understand the intention, the historical context and the literary development of the Ark Narrative(s), the paper will explore a certain cultural historical and religious-political background of the travel narrative, that has not been done yet, or at least not to its full consequence - but which is defining for the purpose of the narrative and will give the discussion a new spin: the practice of “Godnapping”. This practice of deportation of cult statuary is well testified in especially Assyrian literary and visual sources, and has been identified by recent research as a powerful tool for asserting hegemony, demonstrating power over the powerless people (represented in the deportation of its seemingly powerless deity) and for demoralizing subjugated peoples, who were thereby deprived of their gods and divine protection. The paper will discuss the literary and iconographic evidence of the available Assyrian sources.

Among the most well-accepted ideas about Ehud ben Gera is that the term itter yad-yemin in Jdgs 3:15 describes Ehud as left-handed, whether by biology or by training. Readers enjoy the irony in reading about a “son of the right hand” who is more adept with his left. Yet there is a fierce debate about the precise meaning of itter yad-yemin in Jdgs 3:15 and 20:16 as scholars variously argue in favor of possibilities such as natural left-handedness, ambidexterity, a defective right arm, and special training to promote use of the left hand. This debate highlights serious problems with each of these positions. Building on this discussion, this presentation will show that if we do not assume that itter yad-yemin indicates that Ehud is left-handed, it becomes impossible to show that the author had any of the above possibilities in mind. The irony of the passage is not that Ehud has a preference for his left hand, but rather that he unexpectedly uses his left had to assassinate Eglon. Within this paper I will address the major arguments in favor of his left-handedness. I will explain that the most obvious reason that no one in the story expects Ehud to use his left hand is that Ehud is, like everyone else, right-handed. My paper incorporates the work of Niditch and Guest about the positioning of Ehud’s dagger on his right thigh (a strong phallic symbol, easily accessible by either hands). I will also show that Halpern’s popular theory regarding elite Benjaminite warriors specially trained to assault cities and/or fight with swords does not fit 20:16, as that verse refers to stone-slingers who gain no advantage in the open combat of Judges 20 by using their left hands. The best translation of itter yad-yemin is “saving right arm” as suggested by Walter Kornfeld more than forty years ago. Ehud ironically parallels the mighty Benjaminite warriors of Jdgs 20 by surprisingly using his left land to deliver the fatal blow, just as in 2 Sam 20 Joab (presumed to be right-handed) catches his victim Amasa unaware by killing with his left.

The recent publication of John Lee’s excellent study entitled The Greek of the Pentateuch (OUP, 2019) appears to have inspired some reviewers to question yet again whether it is legitimate to talk in terms of linguistic interference by the Semitic source text on the Old Greek translation of Jewish Scriptures. In this paper it will be argued that, although papyrological and inscriptional evidence from the Hellenistic period has unquestionably helped to situate the language of the Septuagint in the vernacular of that time (as G. A. Deissmann was saying over a century ago), there is nonetheless incontrovertible evidence as well of the influence of the source text on the product of the translators’ efforts.

Malachi 3:22-24 (Eng. 4:4-6) has received a great deal of attention in scholarly treatments of the Book of the Twelve. Not only does this text bring the prophecy of Malachi to a resolution, it also occupies final position in the anthology of the Twelve and, with its message of “turning” (šwb) before the “Day of YHWH” (yôm YHWH), encapsulates the Twelve’s theme. Furthermore, with its dual appeal to Moses, the mediator of the Torah, and Elijah, the quintessential prophet, Malachi 3:22-24 places a canonical capstone on the “Law” and the “Prophets” as emerging corpuses. But the promise in Malachi 3:24 that YHWH will send Elijah to “turn the heart of fathers to children, and the heart of children to their fathers” is cryptic, and its meaning is disputed. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to apply the magnifying glass of grammatical analysis to the constructions of Malachi 3:24 in order to bring its meaning into sharper focus. Two key questions are examined: First, what does it mean that Elijah will cause the heart of fathers and children to turn ʿal each other? And second, to whom do the “fathers” and “children” refer? Regarding the first inquiry, analysis of the construction šwb (hifil) + lēb/lēbāb + ʿal yields the very probable conclusion that in Malachi 3:24 ʿal is roughly equivalent to ʾel and thus means “to, toward,” rather than “as well as, along with,” as some scholars have proposed. The resulting idiom “to cause the heart of A to turn toward B” probably connotes a positive “change of heart” or inclination toward someone (cf. Ezra 6:22). In the second place, all 14 biblical texts that collocate “fathers” and “children” in the absolute state have in view fathers and children in the nuclear family - not “ancestors” and “descendants,” as the terms are often taken to mean in Malachi 3:24. Therefore, judging by the best grammatical parallels, the primary mission of Elijah is to revitalize the father-child relationship. At the same time, the two-fold turning of fathers and children is also a microcosm of what will happen in “all Israel” (Mal 3:22), throughout the “land” (3:24). Elijah’s “open heart” surgery of the father-child relationship, in other words, is the eschatological key that unlocks Israel’s restoration to YHWH.

I plan on revisiting my arguments in chapter 8 of Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory concerning intersectionality, science and religion. My analysis of intersectionality and science is quite developed. In contrast, my analysis of intersectionality and religion is provisional and tentative and I want to extend it. I see intersectionality as situated in between science and religion, influenced by both but standing in a different relationship to each area.

Students enrolled in university level religion courses tend to be instructed in and assessed on their course content knowledge. In some instances, a focus on spiritual growth would be completely inappropriate; in other cases it can be an important component of the course. When appropriate, can spiritual outcomes take place in online classes equally well as in face-to-face classes? This presentation reports on the results of a multi-semester study using a validated instrument the measures the impact university religion courses have on specific-student religiosity/spiritual outcomes. A survey of 20 items (four scales) was administered to approximately 500 students, half of whom took an online religion course, with the other half taking the same course from the same instructor in a face-to-face environment. In this presentation I will explain differences in spiritual outcomes in online versus face-to-face classes and offer concrete suggestions for increasing the spiritual impact of online courses.

In this paper, I argue that Paul reshapes the social identity of Christ-following communities from innocent victims to the grace-giving community. In order to achieve this purpose, Paul employs two strategies. First, Paul redefines justice as grace-based and results in transforming and renewing their minds: categorizing themselves as a group of grace-giving showing indebtedness rather than a group of victims demanding payback. Repeated uses of the “ὀφειλ-” word group in 13:7-8 will be analyzed. Second, Paul endeavours to identify the governing authorities as “neighbour” of grace-giving community and reminds them of the practice of a core Jewish civil law “love the neighbour as yourself.” The ‘oppressor’, in particular to the Jewish Christians, is identified as the object of love for Christ-following community in Rome, where the governing authorities were their neighbours in real terms. It demonstrates how the just requirement of the Law may be fulfilled in “us” (8:4). The church no longer follows the steps of self- victimization of the Jews (demanding vindication) but instead follows the steps of victory over evil with goodness (offering grace and love). This paper takes serious consideration of the Claudius’ Expulsion of the Jews from Rome in AD49 as an interpretive context of Romans 13. I may reference the theory of the belief in a just world(BJW proposed by Lerner 1980) and the experimental studies of the correlation of BJW and ingroup victims (Correia 2007; 2012) to explain further the benefits of Paul’s rhetorical purpose to the Roman church. It entails the resolution of the tension between Roman Christians who believed in a just world achieved by the Roman Empire and the Jewish Christians unjustly expelled by the Roman Empire. As a result, a common theme of Romans 13 and Romans 14-15:13 is more apparent.

In this paper, I argue that the Qur’an betrays a knowledge of the concept of herem, rendered ‘ban’ in the Hebrew Bible where it usually designates total or partial annihilation and destruction of people, animals, and things. Furthermore, the Qur’an attempts to align the concept of herem with the concept of God’s wont/practice (sunnata llāh; cf. Q al-Ahzab 33:38; Q Fatir 35:43; Q Ghafir 40:85; Q al-Fath 48:23), especially in Q 33:60-62, which describes how the Medinan hypocrites, “heart-sick” and rumourmongers, will be annihilated in the near future: “Accursed, and they will be seized wherever they are found and will be slaughtered.” Hence, I argue that this verse (and its Sitz im Leben) should be interpreted as a qur’anic adaptation of a herem discourse. As part of the argument, I call attention to the conceptual affinity between the notion of herem and the punishment narratives (Straflegenden) with their focus on the total annihilation of selected communities or nations. The concept, however, is not only affiliated to the punishment narratives, but also applies to an apocalyptic future: “A ban is upon any town which we have destroyed that they should not return [wa-haramun ‘ala qaryatin ahlaknaha annahum la yarji‘una]” (Q al-Anbiya’ 21:95; Bell’s translation). The argument will proceed in three steps: 1) identification and analysis of selected words, idioms, and verses from the Qur’an; 2) contextualization and juxtaposition of the Qur’an vis-à-vis the Hebrew Bible, but also other Near Eastern texts, including a South Arabian one; 3) a social-historical contextualization of the umma and its internal enemies in the Medinan period. The paper takes an important cue from Andrew Rippin’s article “Qur’ān 21:95: ‘A ban is upon any town”, in which he briefly entertains the idea that the verse could be related to herem, but then stops short of this endeavour with the words: “It is not proposed to enter into a full discussion of herem here…” This paper is therefore an attempt to follow up on Rippin’s early hypothesis.

Thecla’s embrace of virginity at the start of the “Acts of Thecla” is primarily associated with her theological devotion to Paul’s preaching. Captivated, Thecla devotes her life to God, which—according to the particular sermon given in the text—blesses virgins and virginity. Thus, according to text and its interpretation, it is Thecla’s theological devotion that prompts her (pious) chastity. But what if it is actually the other way around? What if Thecla’s asexuality orients her toward theological devotion? In other words, theological devotion provides an avenue to fulfill her desires that do not include having sex. I consider Thecla’s story as an example of what Przybylo and Cooper term “asexual resonances” that can be found in a variety of texts and contexts, including before the advent of asexuality and its contemporary meanings. The Acts of Thecla can be part of the assemblage of Pryzbylo and Cooper’s “queerly asexual archive.” Furthermore, taking Thecla’s asexuality seriously opens space to consider her story as a beginning on an ancient asexual archive (that is also quite queer). This paper focuses on three asexual resonances in text. The first is the moment when Thecla hears “the word of the virgin life” and “rejoices exceedingly.” Analyzing Thecla’s emphatic embrace of this message, I consider how Thecla’s asexuality works as an orientation that motivates her and her actions. In the story (as in reality), asexual orientation in not entirely innate nor immutable. Although the story focuses on Thecla’s particular experiences, the text also gives us glimpse (in Paul and in other young wo/men who flock to him) into the existences of multiple asexual embodiments. The second resonance considers how, throughout the story, Thecla’s asexuality comes in tension with the “compulsory sexuality” (Emens 2014 and Gupta 2014) of the Roman world: Romans were supposed to have “natural” sex, but “natural” sex requires having some sex. Thus, both Thecla’s family and her city deem asexuality abnormal: it is “a new desire and a fearful passion.” Finally, I consider how some of the erotically charged moments in the text also represent asexual resonances—as moments of what Pryzblyo (2019) lays out as a feminist and queer “asexual erotics.” In particular, I analyze Thecla’s longing for Paul, especially her being found “bound with him in affection” in prison (alongside the issue that Paul does not seem to reciprocate these asexual erotics) and Thecla’s affectionate relationship with Tryphaena. Here, my reading converses with Burrus’ work on the erotics of asceticism in early Christianity (including Thecla) and Kotrosits’ highlighting Thecla’s “erotics of the mundane.” Both Burrus and Kotrosits implicitly gesture towards the erotics of asexuality, so I make these connections explicit while drawing out further dimensions of asexual erotics. The paper concludes by tying these different resonances together and gesturing towards how Thecla’s story participate in a wider ancient asexual archive and how these ancient asexual resonances might participate in contemporary queer and feminist politics of asexuality.

The mezuzah, perhaps the most common iconic material scripture in Judaism, traditionally resides on the doorposts of every Jewish home, and contains a scroll with the words of Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21. Previous scholarship on artifactual and iconic use of sacred texts within Judaism describes the iconicity of the mezuzah’s particular script, the tactility of its being kissed daily, and the performative element of its ascribed magical qualities (Schleicher 2011, 2018; Watts 2017). However, scholars have yet to consider the experiential and often performative quality of writing an iconic sacred text. As a Hebrew Bible scholar, I am undertaking a course of training in sofrut—the writing of sifrei Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot—which included calligraphy, halakhah, quill-cutting, and other scribal skills. The preliminary results of my practice in creating iconic texts suggest a rich interplay of the semantic and the somatic in creating material scripture. At first glance, it would seem that writing a mezuzah would immerse the scribe in the meaning of its words, which are the main biblical source for the practice of mezuzot. In the actual act of writing, however, focus shifts from the words’ meanings to the letters’ shapes. The intense concentration required for properly writing the mezuzah’s specific and subtle script demands the scribe’s full attention to the rhythm of breath and hand. I elaborate how the semantic drops out in favor of the somatic—focusing on the body of the scribe and the bodies of the letters, themselves a fertile ground for midrashic elaboration in Jewish tradition. Finally, just as Jewish tradition surrounds writing and instituting a scripture with ritual practices, I reflect on how the writing itself may carry a ritual dimension for the scribe.

As a contribution to the CNAC session “Prophets and Prophecy in North African Christianity,” I would like to examine a Donatist exegetical work known as the Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae. Likely composed in the late fourth-early fifth centuries CE, the text attempts to pair all known biblical prophets (and prophetesses) with their most significant prophecies. After beginning with an explanation of the seven ways in which divine revelation may be mediated to humans, the Prophetiae proceeds to list in chronological order first every male prophet mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, beginning with Adam and ending with Malachi, before doubling back and cataloging first all female prophets and then all those listed in the New Testament before concluding with the testimony of the prophet Cyprian. Much could be said about the uniqueness of this text. The issue I wish to discuss in this session, however, revolves around a prophecy that the Prophetiae attributes to Joshua, the son of Nun. The figure of Joshua had been revered as a prophet as far back as the deuterocanonical book of Sirach (46.1), and Joshua’s status as a divine spokesman was firmly established within the Christian tradition. But what, exactly, did the “prophet” Joshua prophesy? The lack of a specific prediction about the future in the biblical texts encouraged much creativity among later Jewish and Christian writers. Unlike any text before or after it, however, the Prophetiae offers a specific prophecy allegedly spoken by the mouth of Joshua: “Then Joshua son of Nun, who was called Hoshea,” it tells us, “prophesied, saying: Because the testimony of the law is not only for the Jews, but also for you nations.” In this paper, I wish to probe the origin, rationale, and ultimate fate of this apocryphal prophecy attributed to Joshua as it is preserved sui generis in the text of the Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae, and in so doing, to shed more light on a vibrant period of exegetical activity in North African—and specifically Donatist—history.

Nifalization in Ancient Hebrew: A Perspective from the Samaritan Tradition A well-known example of ancient Hebrew historical development involves the realignment of verbal stems. Over time many G-stem (qal) verbs were replaced by synonymous cognate verbs in other stems. The present study focuses specifically on the substitution of G- with the N-stem (nifʿal). This process of nifalization is especially common with semantically stative and/or medio-passive qal verbs, including internal passive forms. It often resulted in suppletive paradigms, sometimes with only vestigial qal representation. The phenomenon is characteristic of Second Temple chronolects—such as Late Biblical Hebrew, Qumran Hebrew, the Hebrew of Ben Sira, Rabbinic Hebrew—as well as in deviations of the Tiberian reading tradition from the consonantal text in classical biblical material, though it must be emphasized that it is also evidenced in presumably early consonantal biblical material. As a biblical tradition strongly influenced by Second Temple linguistic conventions, it is no surprise that the shift in question is also documented in Samaritan Hebrew. Indeed, compared to other ancient Hebrew traditions, Samaritan Hebrew presents a relatively advanced stage of nifalization. But this does not do justice to the complex Samaritan picture. First, like the Tiberian biblical tradition, the linguistic testimony of the Samaritan Pentateuch is composite, being comprised of related, but partially independent, written and reading components. Crucially, these present different stages in the process of nifalization. Second, while Samaritan Hebrew both confirms and exceeds the nifalization seen in other Second Temple traditions, it has been claimed that it also preserves certain proto-Hebrew features. This claim merits scrutiny, as it touches not just on the nature of Samaritan Hebrew, but on that of Hebrew traditions more broadly, as well as on methodological issues related to linguistic research on transmitted ancient written and oral traditions.

This paper contextualizes Mulla Sadra's (d. 1635) Tafsir on the Light-Verse (Ayat al-nur, Q 24:35) through a comparative analysis of his commentary with respect to the Isma’ili, exoteric Twelver, exoteric Sunni, esoteric, gnostic, and philosophical exegeses of the Light-Verse. I argue in this paper that Sadra's exegesis is closer to the Ismaili and esoteric (al-Ghazzali and Ibn al-Arabi) exegeses than the major Twelver exegeses before and during his time. Before laying out this conclusion, I compare Sadra’s Quranic Hermeneutics and method in his commentary of the Light-Verse with his predecessors. I then proceed to the content of Sadra’s exegesis on the verse and identify his sources. Some of the sources I use to compare the content of Sadra’s exegesis with include the works of Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani (fl. 971), the Brethern of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa, c. 10th century), Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani (d. 1021), Nasir-i Khusraw (d. 1088), al-Suhrawardi the Illuminationist (d. 1091), al-Ghazzali (d. 1111), al-Tabarsi (d. 1153), Abu al-Futuh al-Razi (d. ca. 1159-60), Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210), Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), and Neoplatonic-Peripatetics such as Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 1037) and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274). Indeed, Sadra’s hermeneutics ties directly to his criticism of traditional thought, where, he usually associates his hermeneutic theories with his criticism of his opponents, that could be an indication of his intellectual tension with traditional Shi’ism and the early stages of the Akhbari movement that were becoming dominant during his time in Safavid Iran. The absence of such traditional exegetical discussions in the foreground of Sadra’s Tafsir on the Light-Verse along with the overwhelmingly expansive philosophical and gnostic discussions there, neither follows the common structure of thematic exegesis nor does it allow the reader to focus on the structure and order of the quranic verses. Thus, the work almost shifts its controlling factor from the exegetical structure of the Quran to a philosophical structure that bends the quranic stream in order to satisfy its philosophical flow.

Paul’s speech to the Athenian Areopagus is among the most debated portions of Acts. After decades of research, questions of both narrative logic and source material remain. One question posed by C.K. Barrett almost forty-five years ago has yet to be answered satisfactorily: why does the author only mention Stoics and Epicureans as Paul’s philosophical interlocutors and neglect other prominent schools like the middle-Platonists? And is Paul’s speech an appeal to these interlocutors, or a rejoinder? This paper is an attempt to bridge the gap between the search for the speech’s source material and investigations surrounding Paul’s characterization. Ultimately, I suggest that the Areopagus speech can be read as an allusive exegesis of the famous Platonic dictum found in Timaeus 28c: “Now to discover the Maker and Father of this Universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible.” I argue that this saying, immensely popular in middle-Platonism, is subtly alluded to throughout the address in order to validate Paul’s message and situate him within the Platonic tradition. While one occasionally finds a footnote to Timaeus 28c in discussions of the Areopagus address, a careful comparison of Paul’s speech with the extant exegetical traditions surrounding the celebrated phrase has yet to be undertaken. My argument begins in uncontroversial territory, suggesting that Luke includes narrative features reminiscent of Greek philosophical settings. Two distinct philosophical schools (Stoics and Epicureans) are explicitly mentioned, and are portrayed as disputing (συνέβαλλον) with Paul, where συμβάλλω evokes the type of interlocution favored by Socrates (c.f. Plato’s Cratylus 384a). But arguments that see Paul as a Socrates redivivus need to be qualified by the speech’s narrative and historical setting. Paul is in debate with two of the largest philosophical schools in the first century. If Luke is crafting a “speech in character” to depict Paul as a philosopher in disagreement with first-century Stoics and Epicureans, we are justified in questioning the thesis that Paul is being characterized specifically as Socrates (whom the Stoics also claimed as their founder). In the narrative context, it is more likely that Paul’s affinities with Socrates are employed to characterize him as the key philosophical alternative to his interlocutors: an interpreter of Plato. After introducing these issues, I situate Paul’s speech alongside allusions to and commentaries on Timaeus 28c found in Plutarch, Philo, Alcinous, and Justin Martyr. The middle-Platonists invoked Timaeus 28c to address such diverse themes as humanity’s familial connection to the divine, ethical theory, and the (im)possibility of knowing God. Each of these themes is prioritized in the Areopagus speech, especially insofar as Paul claims to be the special revealer of the unknown God. Though isolated phrases within the speech might resonate with known Stoic or Epicurean sources, the speech as a whole reflects striking thematic consonance with the reception of Timaeus 28c, and suggests intentionality on Luke’s part. In dialogue with the Stoics and the Epicureans, Paul supplies the missing ingredient for Athens’ philosophical environment: Platonism.

The earlier chapters of the book of Isaiah have received renewed attention over the past decades from biblical scholars and Assyriologists interested in the text’s portrayal of the Neo-Assyrian empire, and especially the king, from the point of view of an outsider. Given the now sizable number of persuasive studies (from Machinist to Aster) of Neo-Assyrian influence, one is justified in asking what type of Egyptian influence might be detected in Isaiah’s oracles relating to Egypt. Is it of the same type or scale as the Assyrian? Was the author then equally conversant with both Egyptian and Neo-Assyrian literary (and oral) traditions? What about cases where the author draws on Assyrian idiom in his portrayal of Egypt or its king? A number of scholars have argued for Egyptian influence, assuming some (and at times, a great deal of) knowledge of Egyptian texts and religious practices. But must Egyptian influence be tied to the 8th century only? What about potentially relevant Egyptian literary themes and motifs dating from later periods, the existence of which might then point to a later date for some oracles? This paper provides a brief survey and evaluation of some recent scholarly studies, while offering some comparative perspective vis-à-vis assumed Neo-Assyrian influence. By way of conclusion, I suggest that, while the biblical author(s) did possess some knowledge of Egypt, when compared with that demonstrated in studies of Neo-Assyrian dependence, that knowledge is most often (but not exclusively) more general in nature and less easily linked to any specific Egyptian literary tradition.

This proposal is for an interdisciplinary collegial presentation by a Biblical Scholar and a Practical Theologian. The presentation will focus on how a biblical reading of the Fourth Gospel yields practical theological insights to a nonprofit ministry in the area of mental health. The Fourth Gospel will be read through a hermeneutical lens that is influenced by trauma theory. The goal is to suggest practical theological insights for serving underprivileged females with mental health needs. In particular, the reading offers biblical concepts and practical theological strategies that inform integrative care to racially diverse women who are seeking help for emotional, spiritual, and economic distress at a nonprofit in rural North Carolina. The presentation begins with delineating several methodological insights for how to apply a clinical understanding of PTSD and trauma to a reading of the Fourth Gospel. The methodological section will conclude that a trauma-informed reading of the Fourth Gospel is possible because: a) there may be some historical grounds to conclude that traumatic event(s) shaped the experience of the Johannine community; b) as a result, us/them dualistic thinking, especially between outsiders and insiders permeates the narrative matrix of the Gospel; and c) the Fourth Gospels offers the Johannine community such therapeutic elements as embodiment, a community-shaping narrative, and a theological interpretation of the central trauma of the Gospel—Jesus’ crucifixion—that places it into squarely into a coherent past narrative, while generating healing in the present experience of a traumatized community. The second part of the presentation offers a practical theological reading of John 13:1–17, with the goal of drawing practices of integrative care for women and their families who are experiencing different forms of psycho-social trauma. The focus of the reading will be on the praxis of Jesus and the activities that he does before his imminent death. In the passage a dialectic between death and life plays out through juxtaposing the nearing reality of traumatic experience with more peaceful rhythms of life such as having a meal in the context of fellowship or cleansing. In so doing, Jesus Christ leaves his disciples life-preserving and life-sustaining practices. These spiritual practices also constitute liturgical rhythms that revive the human spirit from paralysis and bind people into a distinctive body and way of life. By synchronizing these practices within the group, this action enables sufferers of PTSD to synchronize their minds and bodies with a less threatening world than that in which their trauma was initiated. The presentation will then spell out specific therapeutic implications for women suffering from PTSD in a rural setting, including: providing a feeling of safety and belonging to a tribe; experiencing reciprocity by being heard and seen by others, being prayed for and being held in heart; engaging in communal rhythms and synchrony in a safe space; and retuning one’s body physically and spiritually through the liturgical reenactment of spiritual practices in communal worship.

In this paper, I propose to look at five nursing metaphors. Each conceptually integrates time differently. In 1 Thess 2:7, the time under consideration is that which the mother invests in feeding. A snapshot is taken of this ongoing commitment, and the endpoint of this stage, weaning, is not considered. Thus, Paul, Silas, and Timothy map the night and day self-giving of a nursing mother onto their own ongoing commitment to the Thessalonians. In 1 Cor 3:2, by contrast the time until weaning is mapped onto the time for the Corinthians to mature, and they are found wanting. Hebrews 5:12–13 seems similar at first. However, in this metaphor time seems to have moved backwards. Young children have been presented with solid food, but Paul describes them as having rejected that food and turned back into babies again. In the Epistle of Barnabas, there are two expanses of time implicit in the growth of the child. The first is the time it would take for a baby to die without nourishment, and that undesired end is counteracted first by honey and then by milk. These regular feedings are mapped onto the regular meetings in which faith is declared and the word is read. However, if the baby lives, she grows to adulthood, and this time period is mapped onto the time before the eschaton (6.19). Regular meetings are emphasized, and the last days are far, but approaching. First Peter 2:2 uses time in both similar and different ways. The slow but predictable growth of a baby is mapped onto the time and progress of Christians in maturity in salvation. In the context of suffering in which the whole letter is set, however, we may discern another time period. Babies crave milk and suffer until satiated. This period, short within the baby frame, may implicitly be mapped onto the time until the end of the Christian addressees’ suffering. In this way, the metaphor is used to comfort them, as in the Epistle of Barnabas but even more so, by bringing the expected end to their suffering no further away than the time it takes to nurse a baby. The mapping of these metaphors demonstrates the variety of ways similar metaphors can be used, and the analysis necessary to determine the way time is presented in each. The challenge, however, is to ask to what extent each of these reconstructed mappings might cohere with the universe of discourse of the text. Some are clearly described, such as in the reference to “night and day” in 1 Thess 2:7. Others, however, form a part of the extended mapping project engaged within this paper, and whether Peter’s Christians would have looked for the eschaton as a form of satiation from pain, is perhaps a more tenuous suggestion.

It has been extensively argued that the explanation for the chaos and violence within the book of Judges can be found in the refrain “In those days there was no king in Israel” (Judg. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). It is thought that this refrain, along with the events of Judges 17–21, form a narratological argument for kingship, an argument which sets up the reader for the events of 1 Samuel. However, it has also been argued that many of the events of Judges 19-21 bear striking resemblance to the later actions of Saul––a point that seems to suggest that kingship, or at least Saul’s kingship, is not a remedy for the chaos in these chapters but its principal cause. Furthermore, as Judges 17–21 (and particularly 19–21) are typically seen to be a later addition to the book of Judges and the so-called Deuteronomistic History, it is difficult to see why a generic argument for kingship would be made here. How then is one to understand the relationship between the ending of Judges and its larger literary-canonical context? In this paper, I will argue that Judges 17–21 exemplifies the underlying issue of Judges: the priesthood (and Israel’s religious identity with it) has been corrupt from the start. Thus the argument being made in these final chapters is not so much about which type of leadership is preferable (i.e. a king over a judge), but that Israel’s leader must exhibit a particular quality (i.e. a proper cultic relationship with YHWH). If their leader lacks this quality, Israel can expect to experience similar amounts of chaos and violence. I will argue that this reading fits better with the overall narrative of Judges which depicts Israel and her leaders struggling to relate properly to God. Idolatry, illicit behaviours, and misuse of cultic objects run rampant throughout the book, just as they do in chapters 17–21. Additionally, by shifting from a generic argument for kingship to a call for Israel’s leaders to return to proper Yahwistic worship, one can better understand the place of Judges 17–21 within the so-called Deuteronomistic History. I will argue that the underlying issues of the beginning of 1 Samuel (Ch. 1–15) are identical to those of Judges. The thematic link between the rejection of Eli as priest, Samuel as dynastic judge, and Saul as king is the very problem exemplified by Judges 17–21. Israel’s greatest need is not for a change in governance, but that its leader, whether a prophet, priest, judge, or king, must appropriately worship YHWH.

The foundational narrative of the early Israelites, their exodus from Egypt, their national formation in the Sinai wilderness, and their conquest of the Transjordan and Canaan is commonly viewed as traditional more than historical. Archaeologist Amihai Mazar states: “All that can be said is that the Exodus story is based on some remote memories” and “Most scholars of the last generation regard the Conquest narratives as a literary work of a much later time, designed to create a pan-Israelite, national saga.”* Contributing to this conclusion is the fact that few of the wilderness toponyms can be identified, and the itinerary data seem to be inconsistent. Since 1983, paleoethnology professor Emmanuel Anati has advocated for Har Karkom in the Central Negev as the biblical Mount Sinai, documenting a vast body of cultic remains as evidence. Scholars are unconvinced, however, as the remains are considered to be too early and the location does not appear to meet biblical indications. Starting with the location of Har Karkom as Mount Sinai, I investigate the possibility of integrating all the geographical data of the wilderness era into one coherent itinerary. This historical-geographical investigation adopts a hydrological method for defining the biblical regions and takes a systematic approach to the wilderness itineraries. A successful reconciliation of text to terrain would have significant implications regarding the authenticity of the received text and the study of the Pentateuch as history. [footnote] * “The Patriarchs, Exodus, and Conquest Narratives in Light of Archaeology,” in The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel, by Israel Finkelstein and Amihai Mazar, ed. Brian B. Schmidt, vol. 17, SBL: Archaeology and Biblical Studies (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 61, 62.

One important aspect of moral formation in 1 Peter is his goal to encourage believers to continue in their trust in God amidst suffering, and narratives play a key role in achieving this goal. While several scholars have reconstructed 1 Peter’s underlying metanarrative, none have explored the specific narrative underlying a single concept within 1 Peter. In this paper, I argue that a narrative of trust (πίστις) made up of three events—the choice of trust, trust through suffering, and the outcome of trust—underlies 1 Peter. Understanding this narrative highlights both the relational nature of trust in 1 Peter and its backward- and forward-looking orientation. Both the relational nature of trust and its dual orientation contribute to strengthening his readers’ commitment to God as they continue to trust in God. First, I outline my narratological method. Second, I exegete the relevant passages where the πίστις word group is prevalent. Third, I reconstruct Peter’s narrative of trust based around these three events, drawing implications for how this narrative reinforces commitment to God and encourages continued trust in him. As Peter’s audience reads his letter, they begin to see themselves within this narrative, looking both backward toward their redemption through Christ’s death and resurrection and forward toward Christ’ revelation. They see both the foundation and the outcome of their trust in Christ, and they are thus motivated to stay the course amidst suffering, firm in their relational trust in God and fully committed to him, knowing that just as God has been faithful to fulfill his promises in Christ, so he will be faithful to fulfill all his promises to them in the end.

King Asa’s funeral description is the longest in the book of Chronicles and the most unique with its number of specific details. Scholars generally see Asa’s funeral in 2 Chr 16:14 in a positive light despite the negative tone in which the author writes the preceding verses. Certainly, the Chronicler is not afraid to portray a Judean king in both positive and negative terms (e.g., Manasseh). However, using an adapted synchronic and diachronic methodology for assessing inner-biblical connections, incorporating the work of scholars in the disciplines of biblical studies and literary theory, this study identifies and evaluates the shared language in Exod 30:25 and 2 Chr 16:14. The study reveals that there is an allusion to Exod 30:25 in Asa’s burial description. This allusion is an indictment against the practice of using a special anointing oil for honoring the dead instead of honoring God. This allusion does not change the Chronicler’s overall positive assessment of King Asa (2 Chr 20:32 and 21:12) but does show how his burial contradicted Torah and adds further to the mixed moral character of Asa’s life and death.

“What is your name”? This is one of the initial questions that freshman students and teachers ask on the first day of class. It is followed by sharing other general information about one’s self (former school, course or major, etc.). I propose that using the Knowing Me, Knowing Thou Game based on the Joharis Window on the first day of class will transform the initial encounter and dynamics in the classroom into one that introduces not only the students and the teacher to each other, but also the Scripture course content and one simple method of biblical interpretation: characterization (narrative criticism). In this presentation, three functions of the Joharis Window’s squares of “open”, “blind”, “hidden”, and “unknown” will be explored. The first is Knowing Me or intra-interpersonal mapping. As the students complete the three “known” squares based on sharing the general information about themselves and some impressions that a new classmate has of them, they are asked to make an initial conclusion about who they are and share it with the class. To level up the game later in the course, the teacher may also use the free digital game Joharis Window (https://kevan.org/johari) to check the level of trust, socialization and team building in the class in a fun way (Chien, 2012). A second function of the game is its important and easy segue way to introduce the course on the first day, as well as to invite students to examine the characters of the Bible, especially God (Knowing Thou), which will lead them to learn how to characterize biblical characters. David Rhoads’ (1982) simplified description of characterization could be summarized and presented like the Joharis Window, too: “what the character says”, “what the character does”, “what others say to or against him/her”, and “what others do to, for or against him/her”. Conclusions may also be drawn from these questionnaires which facilitates deductive theological learning. An emerging third function of Joharis Window which can be complemented with Knowing Me, Knowing Thou Game is to make the game more socially relevant by applying it to the design process of advertising a brand, product, or service (Loschinin, 2015) and how this process affect one’s relations with self and others, and with biblical characters and God, thus moving the course content from personal to social to biblical-theological levels. Appreciation or critique of society or the church can be introduced at this level. At the middle or at the end of the semester, it is hoped that the question of “What is your name?”, with the help of sustained Knowing Me, Knowing Thou Game which will eventually evolve as a method, will transform the student’s self-knowledge, intra-interpersonal relationships and social-ecclesial dynamics into a personal-social-theological journey. Micah 6:1-8 serves as a sample text for this game-to-method strategy of biblical interpretation.

This paper advances that one of the ways biblical scholarship can help respond to the embodied communal trauma of tens of thousands of victims of the ongoing War on Drugs in the Philippines is to deepen the popular ways of interpreting the traumatic episodes of the Matthean Gospel, as shown in the short documentary film, “Huwag Kang Papatay” (Thou Shall Not Kill, 2017), by means of combined critical biblical hermeneutics. As one of the first documentaries of the so-called War on Drugs, the film shows theatrical presentations and songs on the massacre of the innocents (Matthew 2) and the crucifixion of Jesus (Matthew 27) as a critical recontextualization of the embodied communal trauma in Matthew’s gospel and how it relates to the criticism and resistance to the extra-judicial killings of suspected drug personalities. Using narrative-critical (Powell, 1995), empire studies (Warren, 1995; Carter, 2001), archaeological findings on the spectacle and trauma of crucifixion (Cook, 2012, 2013; Muir, 2014;) and insights on the stages of trauma and healing (Herman, 1992; Ballaban, 2014; Ibita, 2018) and the need for communal lament (Standhartinger, 2010; Carlson, 2015), this paper will analyze how the anti-empire message of the Gospel of Matthew reflects its community’s possible response to their own traumatic experiences. Then, the paper will show how the embodied, theatrical interpretations of Matthew 2 and 27 is deepened by the use of the combination of the abovementioned hermeneutics on these Matthean passages in order to empower the traumatized surviving families and communities of the so-called War on Drugs in the present context of the Philippines.

Over the last three decades there have been a dizzying array of intertextual studies. The number of books, articles, and monographs engaged in the discussion, in whole or in part, is difficult to quantify. Perhaps more startling than the sheer volume of work is the transcendence of the approach, which has seemingly infiltrated every nook of the interpretive landscape. Unfortunately, there has been relatively little reflection on the subject from a performance perspective. As an avenue into this complex discussion, this paper will consider the subject of intertextuality through the lens of performance and memory. Although it is often assumed that the relative ease at which intertexts are interpreted in the reading process is equally applicable to the oral arena, it will be argued that the dynamics of performance are sufficiently more complex due to the inherent challenges associated with the oral arena. The paper will focus in particular on Mark’s passion narrative as a test case for the broader discussion.

Precipitous recent changes in the earth’s climate makes the reality of the Anthropocene impossible to ignore: humans are the primary source of planetary change. But this is of course a modern idea, and it stands in tension with the world as the Psalms imagine it—a world whose unpredictable climatological fluctuations are attributed to the deity and remain resolutely beyond human control. At the same time, the Psalms have traditionally been read with a striking anthropocentrism. This is possible because the themes of many if not most Psalms imply a kind of mild anthropocentrism manifest in a preoccupation with the human subject. I will consider several ways that various Psalms navigate the tension between this anthropology of human uniqueness and the idea of human contingency. One place this tension is especially visible is in exhortations to and acclamations of praise. In some texts, praise is the special province of humanity; in others, praise is taken up by many creatures of the more-than-human world. As we shall see, this dialogue embodies poetry’s capacity as an art-form to mediate knowledge of the animate world. Ultimately, I will suggest that a sufficiently rich understanding of poetry as an art-form is a necessary step in enriching our ecological engagement.

My review of Drawing Down the Moon will focus on two intersecting points, one from Chapter One and one from Chapter Four. Edmonds’ careful review in the first chapter settles on the notion of magic as a “discourse” about “non-normative ritual activity.” One of the many values of “discourse” is that it avoids the conflict James Rives has outlined between nominalist and realist definitions of magic (Rives, 2003). Rives opts for a polythetic definition, relying heavily on legal sources for coherence. Have either of these two models solved the problems that both writers are aware of, that is, the tremendous problem with finding both specificity and continuity in what “magic” denotes? To what extent do they posit a too-stable picture of “non-normative” harmful ritual activity. These issues re-appear in Chapter Four, a rich analysis uniting a wide range of practices and literary anecdotes into a general category of “love charms and erotic magic.” Clustering this range of evidence does not recognize how bounded and over-determined female agency was (both deficient in contrast to male agency and inherently suspect). Some of the texts included in this category explore mysterious and powerful manipulations of eros that men imagined women deviously engaging in. This simultaneously narrowed and exaggerated vision of female agency is easily picked up from ancient texts and repeated in contemporary scholarly analysis because they are woven into the fabric of many texts. Female agency is highly restricted in a social schema that is both plastic in regard to sexuality and relentlessly rigged against females. Rives, J. (2003). Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime. Classical Antiquity, 22, 313–339.

On December 3rd 2019 Netflix dropped The First Temptation of Christ by the Brazilian sketch comedy group Porta dos Fundos. The film and the backlash it provoked demand careful scrutiny and critical response. They provide a window into broader contemporary cultural trends. The news is not so good for the project of queering biblical stories in film and interpretation, which remains implicated in an immense network of discursive and institutional power. The First Temptation started as a holiday special dramatizing Jesus’s return home for his thirtieth birthday party after forty days in the desert. A cast of characters from the birth narrative of Matthew—Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, and God—reunite to throw Jesus a surprise party. The real surprise turns out to be that Jesus brings home a friend named Orlando, whom he met in the desert and who happens to be especially flamboyant and effeminate. Subsequent dialogue makes it clear that Orlando and Jesus are lovers and have been sexually intimate. Soon after the film went live multiple on-line petitions denouncing it garnered massive support. Then a Brazilian extremist group claimed responsibility for bombing the offices of Porta dos Fundos in Rio de Janeiro with two Molotov cocktails on Christmas Eve. After the New Year the backlash continued when a Brazilian judge ordered Netflix to remove the film. Netflix filed a complaint arguing that this constituted censorship and likened the court’s decision to “the bomb used in the terrorist attack.” Soon the president of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil overturned the lower court’s order. Netflix never removed the film. The Foucauldian analysis of power remains as relevant as ever. Homophobia here finds its locus in a vast network of discursive and institutional power. The film’s opponents make homosexuality the constitutive issue, focusing on the portrayal of Jesus's sexuality to the near exclusion of many other possible offenses in the film, which, for example, portrays God’s (heterosexual) desire to have sex with Mary and other provocative acts by revered gospel characters. The film itself, moreover, even as it attempts to queer Jesus, is hardly free from sexuality’s discursive regime, strongly re-inscribing, as it does, stereotypes about gay men in the portrayal of Orlando. Most troubling, moreover, the film dramatizes violence when Orlando turns out to be Satan. After Jesus literally enters into Orlando he explodes and leaves Jesus dripping with Orlando’s blood, evoking earlier film portrayals of Jesus’s crucifixion. The film, ironically, thus re-inscribes what it purports to upend. The film’s opponents and creators thus verge together in their messaging. The not so good news for the gay Jesus is that the Foucauldian analysis remains the correct one: homophobic discourse encloses all—the film’s opponents, Netflix, and Porta dos Fundos—with the suffocating last word. (This presentation will include clips from relevant scenes of this and other Jesus films and analyze the way the film interprets characters and motifs from the birth stories in Matthew and Luke and the synoptic gospel accounts of the Temptation, Transfiguration, and Crucifixion.)

Can we really encapsulate the wide range of usage for a conjunction within a single core constraint? The lexica present so many definitions and glosses as would suggest such a task to be impossible, and yet more recent approaches to conjunctions (Heckert, 1991; Levinsohn, 2000; Blakemore, 2002; Runge, 2010) would argue that we can do just that. This paper uses as a test case the times where BDAG allows for ἀλλά or γάρ to have an inferential sense—a sense which pushes far outside their assumed typical corrective and explanatory constraints, respectively. Through an examination of the times where such exceptional inferential usages are said to be possible, it will be shown that in every case the standard corrective sense of ἀλλά and standard explanatory sense of γάρ persists. This serves as impetus to reject as unfounded the inferential senses alleged for these conjunctions, and also provide corroboration for the accuracy and conceptual clarity of the “core constraint” approach to conjunction lexicography.

Tat-siong “Benny” Liew in What is Asian American Hermeneutics? cautions against limiting one’s entire concern to one’s ethnic group (for Liew, it is Asian American) particularly in biblical interpretation. Focusing rather on marginality and alterity, Liew encourages race and ethnicity based biblical interpretation to be open for other options and possibilities in deconstructing stagnant ways of being, becoming, and belonging. Such re-focusing exposes hegemonies that are un(fore)seen with one’s group identity, politics, and ethics. Here, Liew proposes an “opening up” with the ontology of being Asian American. He suggests that Asian American identity has to be fluid because “it is not only unstable and subject to history but also more like a phantom that always eludes one’s grasp (6).” Liew speaks of “forces and practices both of and beyond human plans and wills (6)” that shape and re-shape identities of Asian Americans. Although Liew does not explicitly engage “beyond human” perspectives, the spirit of his work opens options and possibilities, I argue, for a nonhuman intervention in understanding Asian American identity and biblical interpretation. This paper then participates in opening the ontological possibilities of minoritized bodies by challenging their anthropocentric tendency. Liew challenges minoritized biblical interpreters (Asian Americans in particular) not to be trapped by the “tyranny of authenticity, or to be trapped by the tenet or dictate to ‘tell the truth (16).’” If becoming and being Asian American, in Liew’s words, is “performative (16),” then Asian American biblical interpretation should not be trapped by the tyranny of performing anthropocentricity. To read as Asian American is to challenge anthropocentricity, to find our liminality on how the nonhumans have already affected who we are and how we read the Bible. With this in mind, this essay re-reads Acts 9:43, 10:5-6, 32, Simon Peter’s sojourn with Simon the tanner, not just as a preamble or backdrop to the Cornelius narrative (Acts 10:1-48). Rather, in its own right, the encounter between the two Simons, read closely, invites an imaginative, imperial, and philosophical reading in which Simon Peter’s sojourn with Simon the tanner evokes usurpation of an industry by an empire as its ancillary machine. This usurpation, though, is not just simply a colonial endeavor. The proximity of nonhuman skins (tanning industry) to the colonized skins of Peter’s community invites a new materialist interpretation in which the “touching” of these two skins provoke a “perverse ontology” or an assemblage of emerging human and nonhuman bodies. This assemblage blurs the boundaries of human-nonhuman binarization, an emergence that transgresses the affect of animalization experienced by both nonhumans and minoritized bodies.

Readers of Acts have long pondered over the possible background of the description of the early Christian community as one that had “all things in common” in Acts 2:44 and 4:32. Does this phrase reflect the topos of friendship (φιλία) in Hellenistic philosophy? Does it portray the community as an ideal state as described by Plato and Aristotle? Or is it perhaps an allusion to a “Golden Age” myth in Greco-Roman literature? Most studies have approached this question by considering lexical and conceptual parallels, of which there are many. However, some evidence closer to the time period of Acts has generally been left out of the discussion. In addition, studies on this passage often appeal to lexical or conceptual parallels without considering the functions these topoi play in parallel literature and in Acts. In my paper I will show how Luke’s use of this topos situates Acts within the political discourse of his day concerning ὁμόνοια (concord) and στάσις (civic strife) in a πόλις, as in the speeches of Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides. In addition, like other early Christians, Luke applies this political language to his description of the church and thereby portrays the early Christian community as an ideal πόλις or πολιτεία. While we find similar rhetorical strategies in Christian texts such as 1 Corinthians and 1 Clement, however, the narrative shape of Acts allows him to tell the story of the growth of this ideal πόλις alongside the spread of στάσις through the πόλεις of the Roman Empire. This narrative portrayal functions not only paraenetically to exhort Luke’s audience to imitate the concord of this community, but also apologetically by situating the ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ in opposition to the ἐκκλησίαι of the Roman Empire. In this way, Luke tells a tale of two cities, one (the early church) which embodies the ideals of an ideal πόλις, and one (the various cities of the empire) which is characterized by στάσις, the “sum of every evil” according to Aristides and others.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Asian American Interpretation.

This study seeks to examine the visual interpretations of the Spirit found in the Beatus tradition. The image of the seven Spirits is one (of many) interpretative conundrums that interpreters have long struggled. The Beatus illuminations offer substantial attention to depictions of the Spirit including the first artistic illumination of John being ‘in the Spirit’ in history (Rev. 1.10; 4.2; 17.3; 21.10). The Beatus tradition is a significant interpretative stream that has been ignored among biblical scholars when reflecting on many interpretative issues such as pneumatology. This study will investigate visuals in the Beatus tradition that offer attention to the seven Spirits, the Spirit, and ‘in the Spirit’. This study seeks to reveal that the Beatus tradition portrays the Spirit as an essential character in the visual narrative. Visual interpretations complement the visual imagery that permeates the Apocalypse; thereby, visual criticism, located within the larger discipline of reception history, is a clear choice for Apocalypse studies. The Beatus illuminated manuscripts – ranging from the 8th through 13th centuries – represent a unique artistic tradition of the Apocalypse from the Iberian Peninsula.

In 1835, David F. Strauss’s novel application of the concept of myth to the gospels signaled a new epoch in the critical study of the life of Jesus (Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet). The passing generations of gospel scholarship have only shown the perduring strength of Das Leben Jesu’s fundamental proposal. Most recently, M. David Litwa has further rooted the Straussian tradition in the ancient world by arguing that the gospel writers presented Jesus’ life in a “historiographical form” representative of a broader rhetorical tradition of “mythic historiography” (How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myth, 2019). However, the present essay challenges Litwa’s conclusion that “for early Christians, virtually nothing the evangelists related about Jesus was considered to be overly fantastical or impossible” (ibid.). Strauss himself introduced his mythical view with the astonishing claim that no prior understanding of the gospels more nearly approximated his own than Origen of Alexandria’s. In broad agreement with Strauss, I will argue that, in historical- and literary-critical terms, Origen understood the gospels in a way hospitable to Litwa’s presentation of “mythic historiography.” The first part of this essay will offer a new account of crucial passages in Origen’s oeuvre on gospel genre (especially from On First Principles 4 and Commentary on John 10). In Origen’s view, the evangelists made free use of the traditions they received concerning the events of Jesus’ life. For their own purposes, they interwove things that happened historically with things that didn’t (“τὸ μὴ γενόμενον”) or even couldn’t have happened (“μηδὲ δυνατὸν γενέσθαι”) so as to portray what they perceived in their own understanding “under the form of history [ἐν ἱστορίας σχήματι].” In other words, as a matter of literary judgment, Origen anticipates a great deal of both Strauss and Litwa’s respective positions. Nevertheless, a number of scholars (including Litwa) have rightly noticed that Origen resists applying the language of fiction (“πλάσμα”) and myth (“μῦθος”) to the gospels—however closely the Alexandrian’s criteria conceptually approximate, and perhaps appropriate, the literary terminology of the rhetorical handbooks in his intellectual milieu. Is this a distinction without a difference, as R. M. Grant argued (Earliest Lives of Jesus, 1961)? Should one conclude that, actually, Origen does (in spirit, if not in letter) agree with Strauss that “the Christian religion, like all others, has its mythi”? The second part of this essay will offer an alternative reading of Against Celsus 1.42, where Origen introduces the question of historicity in the gospels by comparing them to Homeric epic and Attic tragedy. I will conclude that Origen’s position is too nuanced for him to call the gospels either “histories” or “myths.” Instead, he proposes that the evangelists did not concern themselves merely with “what really happened,” but rather with presenting the life of Jesus in figures—or, as Strauss would say: “an idea of Jesus invested with imagery.”

This paper is part of a larger project that argues that that Christians invented a household cult in the second, third, and early fourth centuries that shared many of the characteristics of traditional domestic devotional practices. These daily devotions included prayers, offerings, or gestures that both preserved and adapted traditional practices. These practices were not organized, universal, or even necessarily intentional; yet Christians, like everyone else in the ancient world, interacted with the divine in ways that made sense in specific times and places. To do so, followers of Christ incorporated the vocabulary and gestures of households in the Roman empire, which was conveniently flexible and various. Through supplications, offerings, and gestures, people interacted with the myriad powerful beings that influenced their health, families, and livelihoods. In this text and others like it, Christianity emerges in the spaces of the household: bedrooms, dining rooms, hallways, and courtyards.

Most translators and commentators render Psalm 8:5b as “and the son of man that you care for (פקד) him.” Unfortunately, it is often unclear what scholars understand ‘care for’ to mean. Some (e.g., Jacobson and Jacobson 2013, 9), however, are quite explicit that v.5a “what is man that you are mindful (זכר) of him?” and v.5b have “virtual synonymity.” In such an interpretation, פקד is connoting cognition. Other translations, such as ‘attend to’ (פקד), are less opaque than ‘care for,’ but still remain imprecise as to how פקד is disambiguating זכר, if at all. This paper thus explores whether פקד is functioning as a verb of cognition due to its parallel זכר or whether it might be better understood as a verb of movement entailing spatial proximity with the syntactical object. Applying cognitive linguistics and verbal valency, this paper builds on the recent theoretically driven lexicographical advances of Thompson and Lyle (2019) and Mueller (2018). The results from this paper in turn test the linguistic validity of B. Janowski’s claim that “JHWH gedenkt nicht nur von ferne, d.h. vom Himmel her des Menschen [v.5a], sondern er kommt ihm helfend nahe (פקד), wenn er dieser rettende Hilfe bedarf [v.5b]” (2008, 24).

In this paper, I reflect on the analogy between the vagueness in meaning of the figure in the winged symbol in Achaemenid Persia, and the vagueness in meaning of audience halls in the same historical period, with the seemingly absence of temples. After providing some background in an introduction, I will start with a very brief summary of the arguments surrounding the winged symbol. Thereafter, I will proceed to provide a discussion on the seeming absence of temples in Achaemenid architecture and the prominence of audience halls, before formulating an analogical argument as a possible contribution to the debate on the winged symbol.

Both biblical literature and cuneiform sources show the wish to have offspring. This constant appears explicitly or implicitly throughout the texts that both corpora offer us: mythological stories, poems and proverbs, adoption contracts, etc. Juxtaposed with this are the many references expressing the intention of getting rid of the children, even from their early ages. Infanticide, child abandonment or abortion are also issues stated in the Bible and cuneiform literature. The objective of the presentation is, on the one hand, to thematically gather the different biblical and Syro-Mesopotamian cuneiform data that refer to the welcome and rejection of the child, especially in a family context. On the other hand, it compares the Hebrew and cuneiform texts, analyzing the degree of continuity and discontinuity between both corpora.

The paper will deal with the well-known description of Sennacherib's war against Judah (2 Kgs 18:13-19:37/ Isaiah 36-37) in 701 and the miraculous defeat of the Assyrians by the Angel of God. A Demotic story about a griffin attacking the Egyptians has some similarities.

In the third century CE rabbinic commentary on Exodus, the Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael (Beshallach 1), Serach bat Asher, the granddaughter of the patriarch Jacob, is described as living from the generation of her grandfather until the time of Moses and the exodus. Serach endures for this extended period, according to the Mekilta, in order to reveal the burial place of her uncle Joseph to Moses. This revelation ensures that Moses could fulfill the people of Israel’s oath and transport Joseph’s bones to the Promised Land (Gen 50:25; Exod 13:19). Notably, in Luke 2:36–38, during the description of baby Jesus’s presentation at the Jerusalem Temple, Anna the Prophetess publicly attests in Jerusalem to Jesus as the advent of divine redemption for Israel. Luke notably describes Anna as being “of the tribe of Asher” (v. 36). This detail has received minimal attention in Lukan scholarship despite the fact that the tribe of Asher had ceased to exist as a discernible tribal entity in the eighth century BCE. In this paper, I argue that the description of Anna in Luke 2 as being of the tribe of Asher is more than just an instance of Lukan verisimilitude. Rather, when viewed in comparison with the legend in Mekilta, this detail draws the reader’s attention to a number of other important similarities between the passages, including the long lifespan of Anna and Serach and both of their roles in disclosing unique knowledge at a seminal moment in the history of the Jewish people. These similarities suggest, that both texts may be extant examples of a lost ancient Jewish literary topos of connecting the genealogy of a long-lived Israelite or Jewish woman with the tribe of Asher in order to signify her as the bearer of special revelation or knowledge.

The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate Dibekulu Zewde’s monograph on the Ethiopian Biblical canon, entitled “The 81 Biblical Books, their sources and canons of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church”. Being a comparative study, the book situates the Ethiopian position on the biblical canon within the larger context of canons in other Ancient Churches. Particular attention is given to evidence in ancient documents like Synodos, Fetha Nagast, and the writings of various church fathers. Written in Amharic, composed of an introduction, eight chapters and a conclusion (296 pages), this book has not been taken into consideration in most of the international discussions and studies on the Ethiopian Biblical Canon.

The latest collections of the remains of the Hexapla for 2 Samuel are Field’s Origenis Hexaplorum and the bottom apparatus of Brooke-McLean (The Old Testament in Greek 2,1). Additional material can be found in new editions of patristic authors, most notably Theodoret of Cyr, and in the margins of the Septuagint manuscripts. The forthcoming SVTG edition of 2 Samuel will report all the extant Hexaplaric remains in its second apparatus. The material will be gathered in connection with the Hexapla Project (hexapla.org) that aims at producing a New Field for the 21st century. Whereas the SVTG mainly seeks to report what is found in the witnesses, the Hexapla Project seeks to establish a critical edition of the Hexapla. In the latter, the validity of the attributions to the Three (or other witnesses) in the manuscripts margins must be evaluated. In addition, Hexaplaric readings in the main texts of the Septuagint manuscripts, particularly in A O L, provide additional material that may derive from the Three via the supposed Fifth column of the Hexapla. This paper will demonstrate how working simultaneously with both the SVTG and the Hexapla editions of 2 Sam benefits both project. In particular, it will examine the hypothesis that significant portions of the L text in 2 Sam 14–15 are borrowed from Theodotion, and assess the implications of such possibility for the future critical edition of the Hexapla of 2 Sam as well as for the textual history of the Septuagint.

This paper challenges the unspoken but pervasive assumption that race finds its way into the scholarly discourse of scholars of color while it is not present in the objective, racially neutral discourse of white scholars. My argument will open by briefly identifying some of the ways that formative biblical scholarship was thoroughly but invisibly racialized. Attention will be paid to racialized aesthetic categories and racialized historical narratives which have often been uncritically assumed within the discipline. I will then illustrate this phenomenon by looking at scholarship around one particular example, drawn from Acts of the Apostles, where racial categories are explicitly thematized by scholars of color while a very different set of racial assumptions were furtively smuggled into mainstream analysis. While the author of Acts explicitly draws parallels between these two scenes, the scholarship goes in very different directions. Recent scholarship has paid a great deal of attention to the racial and gendered nature of the Ethiopian Eunuch. It may be tempting to contrast this scholarship, where race and gender are explicitly thematized, with the earlier deracialized analysis of the gentile convert Cornelius produced during the reign of redaction criticism. I shall demonstrate, however, that formative scholarship on Cornelius, which defined him as the first Gentile convert, was itself equally racialized albeit in a very different direction. The Peter/Cornelius scene is central to two sets of highly influential claims: that the Lukan saga is a specimen of Early Catholicism and that this scene is essential to Luke’s domestication (i.e. re-Easternizing) of the free (i.e. Western) Pauline gospel. The widespread use of these categories shows that formative scholars were as preoccupied with racial categories as are current scholars of color. The question is not whether to employ racial categories in scholarly analysis but how racial categories function socially and in the scholarly discourse.

In this paper I shall examine two cases of how a study of the Karaite Arabic transcriptions of Hebrew Bible and the early Karaite grammatical texts can cast light on the pronunciation of dagesh in the Tiberian reading tradition. (1) Dagesh in ʾalef In the Standard Tiberian tradition consonantal ʾalef in the middle of a word between vowels is marked with dagesh in four places Gen. 43.26, Lev. 23.17, Ezra 8.18, and Job 33.21. The motivation to mark the dagesh in the four canonical places in the Standard Tiberian tradition was to ensure that the consonantal ʾalef was pronounced correctly and was not slurred over. The question arises as to whether this dagesh in ʾalef marked gemination or not. Some modern scholars have interpreted it as sign to distinguish the consonantal realization of the ʾalef from cases where it does not have consonantal realization (e.g. Morag 1959, 218–19, 1960, 208 n.6, 1963, 5–6). It would, therefore, be equivalent to a mappiq on the letter he, which distinguishes final consonantal he from final he that is a vowel letter, rather than a marker of gemination. I shall present evidence from early Karaite sources, including Ibn Nūḥ’s Diqduq and Arabic transcriptions of the Hebrew Bible, that the dagesh in the ʾalef in these places, in fact, marked gemination of the consonant. (2) There is no consensus in modern scholarship as to the pronunciation of the dagesh in the 2fs pronound אַתְּ. I shall present evidence from the Karaite transcriptions that this should be read as dagesh lene. An explanation for why the tav has dagesh is also offered.

There is a broad view that care for the poor began with the early Christian church (Faherty, 2006). However, Greek cities throughout the classical and Hellenistic periods took steps to care for impoverished children. Greek cities, in the classical period, offered benefaction for the children of heroes, who had died fighting for the state (Pomeroy, 1982). Upon maturity, sons were equipped with military regalia while daughters were supplied with a dowry. In Athens, an inscription dating from the late fifth century BCE makes provision for the sons of the men who had died under the oligarchy (either in 411 or 404/3 BCE). A similar law can be found in Ephesus (Syll3 364, c. 297/296 BC). City officials in Ephesus were concerned about the dowries of daughters of deceased landowners so they passed laws concerning the repayment of loans made against the dowries by the girls’ guardians (Syll 3 364). Plato in his Laws goes into go detail about the funding for a city’s orphans. However, it appears that cities did not actively seek to fund orphans belonging to citizens during the Roman period. Care for orphans and children without guardians, who are called foundlings, seems to be taken up by families, especially in rural Asia Minor in the Roman period (Gregory, 1997). But there is evidence that associations also cared for their deceased members’ children out of their funds (IHierapJ 227). The New Testament points to the care of widows and orphans; James calls the care of orphans and widows “pure and undefiled religion” (1:27; NSAB). In 1 Timothy it is assumed that there is a fund for widows (1 Tim 5: 3, 16), but there is no mention of orphans. However, there is evidence that the younger widows (Tim 5:11) are in fact women who have not been married (Kidson 2020), while the “real widows” (1 Tim 5:3) are those women left with dowries that cannot support them in their old age. There appears to be a growing fashion within the church of the late first and early second century for girls (virgins) of Christian parents to remain unmarried (Ign. Smyn 13.1; Methuen, 1997). Thus, if the widow of 1 Timothy 5:11 is a virgin, it appears that such girls and their families expected that the church would financially care for them. Indeed, if these “young widows” or virgins felt a desire to be married, abandoning their pledge, then they would need a dowry to do so. This paper will consider the possibility that this scenario is what is behind the instruction to only place “real widows” on the list. It will also consider what insight this gives into the limits of benefaction within the early church in the economically prosperous Roman Asia Minor.

In San Francisco today, Nike, the Greek goddess of victory (Roman equivalent: Victoria), can be seen atop a high pedestal with outstretched arms holding a trident in her left hand, symbolizing naval success, and a laurel crown in her right, symbolizing triumphant victory. In downtown Mexico City, an even larger Nike overlooks bustling traffic to commemorate Mexico’s War of Independence. More Nikes stand in cities throughout Canada, England, Germany, India, and China, just to name a few. Not to mention the fact that, since 1896, the victory goddess has shone brightly on the medals of hundreds of Summer Olympics winners and been a source of inspiration for modern-day businesses like the Nike athletics company and the iconography of the Rolls Royce luxury car company. What is it about this goddess that compels societies all over the world today to regard her image with such frequent commemorative significance? The answer to that question is found through the material culture and Greco-Roman literature that illuminate her importance. Nike is intriguing in that she does not appear to have any prominent mythology or distinct personality traits of her own. Yet, writings from Hesiod and Pausanias and extant material culture demonstrate that Nike is placed in connection with other powerful deities such as Zeus, Artemis, Ares, and Athena, all in the context of Greco-Roman competition and conflict. The goddess seems to function as a portent, much like fate or destiny; she is a warning to enemies that they will lose any battle against those she favors, and she is a boost of confidence to those she has chosen. Though Nike may not appear to have active agency, her very presence is believed to make a defining difference. The importance of Nike’s presence is particularly apparent in the ways in which both Roman generals and emperors perceived the goddess. Plutarch and Dio Cassius reveal that Nike was consistently acknowledged as the reason for military victories. Her image was carried into war, and after a significant victory, statues were erected in her honor. Nike was not said to have been angry and thrown arrows or cast down lightning; she herself was what made the difference between victory and defeat. Material culture and Greco-Roman literature reveal that Nike had a more significant role in antiquity than many may realize today. Despite the paucity of her defining characteristics, Nike was simultaneously feared and revered because she was believed to define the victor, regardless of a person’s skill or strength. Consequently, her choice affected the morale and behavior of those in the Greco-Roman world. Nike may not be venerated today as she once was, but the persistence of her image more than two millennia later indicates that there is something quite remarkable about what she represents. Nike provokes a message of success that is still deemed highly in the world today, and she inspires a necessary belief and confidence that a person can be victorious in the face of conflict.

The historical and paradigmatic relationship between the book of Daniel and the collective trauma of Israel is unambiguous. Based on the hermeneutic lens of trauma, the entire book can be seen as a response to Israel’s traumatic wounds. As a literary recollection, the first six chapters were written in relation to Israel’s collective trauma, the Babylonian exile. As a historiographical revision, the apocalypse in Dan 7-12 was written out of actual distress, the Hellenistic persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes IV. In brief, the first half is a narratological response to fantasize the past traumatized memories, while the latter is an eschatological response to the problem of theodicy. From the viewpoint of trauma, the scribes of Daniel tradition seem to demonstrate ways in which diasporic Jews in the Babylonian and Hellenistic periods are strengthened to embrace a sense of hope. Nonetheless, a trauma theorist Cathy Caruth’s “double telling” of trauma literature brings a constructive challenge to re-read the canonical structure of Daniel. In Unclaimed Experience, Caruth defines the post-traumatic composition as “the oscillation between a crisis of death and the correlative crisis of life: between the story of the unbearable nature of an event and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival” (7-8). Concerning the predominant scholarly attention to human suffering that is more concentrated on the past event rather than its unending impact of it in the present, Caruth’s insight shed new light on our understanding of the repeated confrontation of posttraumatic event and the realities of radical suffering, especially the belated uncertainty that survivors encounter after a latency period. In brief, she finds the paradoxical act of survival in a repetitive intrusion of the past event through the language of trauma survivors used in their testimonies. The paper demonstrates ways in which Daniel functions as a scribal “double telling” of the collective trauma of Israel. Readers would encounter both the destructive effect of a traumatic event in their lives and the enigma of survival in the aftermath of atrocity through the apocalyptic language in Daniel. In relation to the belated uncertainty, it is a scribal protestation against the annihilation of the traumatized past and present. On the other hand, the literature is an intellectual expression of the resilient model living of the diasporic Jews in the traumatized world while embracing this ongoing irony of traumatic past and triumphant future. Re-reading Daniel as trauma literature, the surrealistic narration, apocalyptic imagination, and eschatological vision of Daniel shift its readers' attention to what actually happened in the past and how that past traumatic wounds still remain in their present lives. From the site of a traumatic event, where the victim’s autonomy and dignity were destroyed, and from the place where there are more things that victim does not know of traumatic past, the survivor’s narrative begins. While the second-gen diasporic Jews remain uncertain with a temptation to forget their past suffering, this survivor’s narrative becomes the main resource for re-signifying their traumatic origin (i.e., departure) and for continuing their resilient journey.

The narrative of the encounter between the Samaritan woman and Jesus at the well is well-known to scholars as well as ordinary Bible readers. Traditional interpretations have revolved around Jesus, spiritual/living water, eternal life, and true worship. The Samaritan woman and the water from Jacob’s well have been downplayed. The Samaritan woman is interpreted in terms of the superior-inferior disparity between Jesus and her. The water of Jacob’s well is regarded as a backdrop for the encounter and conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. In this paper, I would like to pay attention to both the Samaritan woman and the material water from Jacob’s well. In an eco-feminist reading of John 4, I attempt to explore the relationship between the woman and the water from the intersectional perspectives of gender, class, race/ethnicity, economy, and ecology. I will present the association of the Samaritan woman with the physical water of Jacob’s well using the concept of Identification, the connection between the social reality of the woman and the social reality of the water, and the liberation of the woman and the water. In doing this, I argue that the Samaritan woman and the physical water are subjects who are degraded and victimized in their social reality. In the boundaries of gender and race/ethnicity, the woman and the material water from Jacob’s well are treated as inferior and impure compared to Jesus and the spiritual living water. Also, the woman and the water are utilized and controlled as property, and even they are imprisoned in the social and economic structure of patriarchal society. As victims, the woman and the water lose their own value and their own right. Furthermore, I claim that the narrative does not end with the denigration and depreciation of the woman and the water; rather it reveals the liberation of the woman and the water. Although their oppressive situation is never changed, they recover their own value and their own right in the interaction between Jesus, the Samaritan, and the water. Jesus’ thirst, his dependence on water, leads him to cross the boundaries of gender and race/ethnicity. Through the conversation with Jesus, the Samaritan woman becomes free from gender and racial discrimination. The free woman’s act of leaving a water pitcher behind brings the liberation of the water. Water begins to flow again like living water.

In 2 Cor 1:2-13, 7:5-16, which is called the "Letter toward Reconciliation," Paul explains his goodwill for the Corinthians to complete the unifying process. In this letter, Paul appeals to various emotions such as pity, anger, zeal, and grief. What is striking is that Paul considers grief as a positive emotion. Paul repeatedly uses expressions of grief (λύπη) to describe the anguish he had when he wrote the previous letter (2:3-5) and to portray the Corinthians' sorrow that the letter has caused (7:5-11). Paul considers the Corinthians' pain constructive, for it led them to repent. This is quite abnormal in the Greco-Roman world, where understandings of emotion were shaped by Stoic emotional theory. Roman Stoics urged ordinary people not to be driven by negative emotions and to get rid of the emotions. Where did Paul's understandings of the grief come from? I argue that Paul creatively uses the early Stoic emotional theory of “εὐπάθειαι (good emotions).” I argue that Paul suggests grief as one of the good emotions assuming that Corinthians' status has transformed into noble ones like the wise people in the Stoic tradition. Although there is no good emotion corresponding grief in the Stoic ‘εὐπάθειαι,’ Paul's understandings on God and the World, which was attested in Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection made an inventive recognition of grief. Paul believes that Corinthians' grief is a good emotion which is in accordance with God (7:10), for it led them into repentance and salvation.

Even without recalling the Roman Ingarden’s well-known statement, “Every literary work is in principle incomplete,” readers of the dry bone vision report (Ezekiel 37:1-14) would agree that the story needs further accounts to internalize for the application. Of course, emphasis on the incompleteness does not suggest its inferiority. Instead, it confirms that readers start their reading journey by taking “the wandering viewpoint” in concretizing the images or seeking the coherence of the text. As Paul Ricoeur and Wolfgang Iser respectively point out, it is the invitation for readers to take action of determinacy on the spots of indeterminacy. What are, then, the lacuna of the dry bone vision report? I recognize three factors: the first-person narrative form of the vision; the subtle incongruence in the metaphorical language among the prophet’s perception, the quotation of the exiles’ complaining, and YHWH’s explanation; and the indeterminate holes in the text for the explicit meaning-making. To appreciate the dynamic power of the vision or to consider the application at any level, from the individual to the national, there should be the reader’s active role. A modern state of Israel anthem, “Hatikvah” (“the hope”), would give an excellent example for this discussion. The poem shows the audience’s application of the theme of the dry bone story by using the reverse allusion of 37:11, “Our Hope is Not Yet Lost.” How can we verify this statement, not only for the Jewish people in particular but also all the readers who want to adopt the hope of the vision in general? When the time seems to become a serious matter, i.e., when the time of the fulfillment of the vision would surpass the audience’s lifespan, this strong metaphor has lost the listener’s enthusiasm and remained dry bones as the symbol of the lost hope. As if it answers the question, the Hatikvah poem begins with the subjunctive mode, “As long as within our hearts the Jewish soul sings.” Thus, the full statement asserts that singing the song within the heart is the condition of keeping hope. This study aims to help theologically motivated readers to attach themselves to the text by asking what kind of song would be appropriate “to sing within the heart” and in what condition. I set up two challenging tasks, one for humans and one for the divine. Several contemporary approaches for this task will be employed, including the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the Blending Intertextual reading, and Emmanuel Levinas’ encountering the Other.

In their new book Zev Garber and Kenneth L. Hanson look at the historical Jesus in the context of first-century Jewish life. But they also consider their own twenty-first century context, and the controversial synthesis of Judaism and Jesus proposed by recent Messianic Jewish authors. In this engagement with their contemporaries Garber and Hanson respectfully scrutinize my writings, focusing especially on my treatment of the divine identity of Jesus. Responding to the concerns they raise, I will reflect upon the challenges posed by this topic, and examine their contention that any mode of affirming of Jesus’s divine identity is inherently incompatible with Judaism.

The lecture will deal with passages in rabbinic literature and elsewhere in which there is tension between “deeds” and “God’s mercy and benevolence” taking into account human sinfulness. I contend that Paul’s ideas of “works of the law” and “grace” granted gratuitously is a radical intensification of the tension discernible in the Jewish passages. Paul’s thought displays both continuity of the Jewish religious conceptions and patterns and, at the same time, radicalizes them in a unique and revolutionary manner. The integrative study of the diverse texts is of profound importance for revealing the inherent dynamics within contemporary Jewish piety.

In this paper we will probe and problematize Paul’s claim to have been a Pharisee through a variety of lenses, each of which may shed light on a question that will nevertheless prove unanswerable. We begin with the lens of pseudepigraphy, not to claim that Philippians is falsely attributed, but simply as a reminder that the vast majority of self-referential identity claims in first century Jewish literature are either outright false (e.g., authorial claims in pseudepigraphs) or widely questioned (e.g., Josephus’s and Paul’s claims of Pharisaic allegiance or background). The second lens is provided by Josephus, who, it can be argued, was indeed a Pharisee by the way he defines Pharisaism. This may provide a model for how to approach Paul. A third lens is the rabbinic one, which cannot be ignored though it is problematic: even if “halakhic” reasoning can be found in evidence in Paul, does that support his claim to have been a Pharisee? A fourth lens is the mystical one: can Paul’s heavenly recollection be compared to proto-rabbinic “chariot” mysticism? A fifth lens is provided by the remarkable identity transformations—and knowledge accumulations—illustrated by the post-Pauline generations of Christian leaders and writers, including Ignatius, Justin, and Clement: figures who acquired enormous amounts of knowledge in cultures and literatures foreign to their birth—by comparison, does Paul’s diaspora origins really preclude his taking on a Pharisaic identity? Finally we turn to the lens that, we will argue, matters most of all: the depiction of Pharisees in the New Testament. Is the Pharisaism that Paul claims to reject at all like the Pharisaism decried in much of the New Testament? And if so, what then? We will, in the end, never be able to know whether Paul was in fact a Pharisee, but we will suggest that most arguments against the claim fall well short of precluding the possibility, both because (1) Pharisaism was probably a looser phenomenon than any given definition and (2) evidence for identity transformations among ancient Jews and early Christians illustrates the wealth of possibilities. But suspicion will remain, if only because the evidence of, and motivations for, falsifying or exaggerating identity claims are all too prevalent in our sources from that time and place.

Genesis 6:1-4 are some of the most difficult verses to interpret in the entire Tanak. Their exposition has led to a diversity of readings in the ancient, medieval and modern contexts. The perplexity of these verses emerges from the uncertainty of the meaning of several terms and phrases. In vs. 2, the phrase “sons of God” (bĕnê-hā’ĕlōhîm) has been understood either as angels who take on corporeality in order to marry the beautiful daughters of men, and thus become fallen angels, or as heroic mortals or giants who, with almost divine-like characteristics, are also attracted to these daughters. These “sons of God” (bĕnê-hā’ĕlōhîm) are referred to again in vs. 4 where the statement of their liaisons with the daughters is repeated and it is added that their offspring are “the mighty ones which were from old, men of renown” (haggībōrîm ’ăšer mēʽôlām ’anšê haššēm). Vs. 4 also introduces us to “the fallen ones” (hannĕpilîm), a term which has been translated frequently as ‘giants’ (LXX, Vulgate and KJV) and now is often transliterated as ‘Nephilim’ (RSV and NRSV). Whoever these various entities are and whatever they do, they cause divine displeasure. Following vs. 2, the text says that God’s spirit would no longer abide with mankind because he is ‘flesh’ (bāśār), which results in the shortening of human life. Following vs. 4, we are told that “God sees the wickedness of mankind is great upon the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually,” which results in the flood. What is the reason given in these texts for these condemnations? Is the problem a matter of fallen angels? Is there an extreme of asceticism depicted here such that even marriage among mortals is wrong? Or are there other solutions? H. Gunkel concluded that these verses are the remnant of an ANE myth that was imperfectly turned into legend by the narrator. The purpose of this paper is to explore Targum Onqelos’s understanding of the passage through a study of his Aramaic translation. Onqelos translates bĕnê-hā’ĕlōhîm, “the sons of God,” as bĕnê rabrĕbayā’, “the sons of the mighty ones.” Onqelos’s translation is derived from the equivocal usage of the Hebrew term ’ĕlōhîm, that is, that it can be used in the sense of ‘deity’ or ‘deities’, or ‘angels’ (Psalm 8:6), or ‘rulers’ (as in bĕnê ’ēlîm in Psalm 29:1 and 89:7, MT). Moreover, at the beginning of vs. 4, he translates hannĕpilîm as gîbārayā’, “the mighty warriors,” and later in the same verse he translates the Hebrew usage of haggībōrîm as bĕnê rābrĕbayā’, “the sons of the mighty ones.” Onqelos does not understand the passage as referring to fallen angels, heroic humans or giants from a mythic past. The bĕnê rabrĕbayā’ and the gîbārayā’ are powerful rulers, even warriors, whose infamous control has spread over the face of the earth. His translation is political rather than mythological or cosmological, and it depicts the tyrannical rule of powerful warriors as widespread upon the earth.

A primary theme in the first story in Joseph and Aseneth is the incorporation of a gentile (i.e., Aseneth) among God’s people. As classicist Tim Whitmarsh observes, Joseph and Aseneth is one among many ancient novels to explore intercultural identities by means of a story about intermarriage, in this case the marriage of a Jew to an Egyptian. Part one of this paper proposes that the second story (Jos. Asen. 22–29) attests to another literary strategy for expressing an intercultural identity: imitating literary models from two different cultural domains, the Septuagint (the rape of Dinah; the slaying of Goliath) and Greek mythology (the abduction of Helen). The focus of the paper turns to the book of Acts in part two. Although devoid of romance, a major theme of Acts is likewise the incorporation of gentiles among God’s people. This theme comes to the fore in the story of Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10:1–11:18), a story that imitates literary models from two different cultural domains: the Septuagint (Jonah) and Greek mythology (Homer’s Iliad). All of the literary models proposed above can be interpreted as opposing intercultural relations; yet the narratives of Joseph and Aseneth and Acts both seem to subvert this purpose, arguing in favor of at least limited inclusion of individuals from other cultures. Part three of this paper reflects on the rhetorical implications of these brief analyses. Here I appropriate George Kennedy’s term “radical rhetoric” to describe how a text appeals to cultural sensibilities in a way that may be difficult to detect for those possessing different sensibilities and competencies. My proposal is that modern readers can glimpse the radical rhetoric of ancient narratives by attending to their use and/or manipulation of literary models. In this case, it may also suggest something about ancient compositional sensibilities——that some, at least, found it appropriate to imitate literary models from different cultural domains when narrating a story about cultural hybridity, especially when those stories are themselves about intercultural relations.

In my previous work (Koepf Taylor, 2013) on the divine marriage metaphor in the biblical prophets, I have argued that the divine paternal figure offers mercy to the son in that metaphor but not the wife. In this paper, I will expand my argument to focus on the contrasting attitude toward the wife when constructed as mother of a son rather than sexual partner of the husband. The rhetorical application of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to the divine marriage metaphor in Jeremiah 3 makes it a particularly powerful example of the contrast between spousal and filial imagery in the metaphor, where Jeremiah 31 presents no such contrast, rather offering mercy to both but describing the woman as a bereft mother rather than an unfaithful wife. I will begin by reviewing my previous work on the divine marriage metaphor with particular attention to Jeremiah 3 before exploring examples in which the woman in the metaphor is not categorically rejected but rather shown compassion. After examining the rhetorical potential in the use of the root rhm (for both mercy and womb) in the metaphor, I will draw connections to the patrilocal context of the ancient Israelite family to argue that it is not just the father-son relationship but also the mother-son relationship that is sufficiently binding to be sustainable after acts of rebellion in contrast to the fragile spousal relationship within the ancient Near Eastern family in general and the divine marriage metaphor in particular.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 speaks of the futility of the actions of the streams running endlessly into the seas, as the sea is never filled. This view of water is based on the premise that the oceans are just seamless masses of water. But to Pacific Islanders, the Moana is anything but seamless. They are serene and peaceful, but they are also rough and unforgiving. To Westerners, the Moana is the post-card backdrop waiting to be explored, but to Pasefika, the Moana gives life and must be treated with respect. The Moana also takes life, with respect to the harsh realities of climate change. In this paper, I re-read Ecclesiastes 1:7 from a Pasefika lens that draws back the celebratory and utopian notions of Moana. Firstly, I provide an alternative perspective of Qohelet’s idea of futility through a Pasefika perspective that perceives the Moana as the connection between lands. In addition, I highlight the changing ocean-face of the Moana in light of rising sea levels in Pasefika in response to Qohelet’s idea that “the sea is not full.” Lastly, the Moana is an avenue for migration for Pasefika, and as a second-generation Australian Samoan I consider implications of this reading of Qohelet for Pasefika migration and diaspora.

Biblical texts and religious traditions can collude in negative ways by encouraging individuals and communities to keep secrets. This paper considers the harm done to individuals, families, and communities when secrets are kept and forthright communication is stifled. Pastoral theologian Emma Justes remarks, “Kept secrets can deeply and negatively affect all the people they touch.” A healing alternative is offered. By paying attention to their own actual bodies and the interaction patterns among people in systems, spiritual seekers and care providers can take steps toward soulful presence that allows for honest speech that honors silence when necessary. In particular, this paper examines the practical theological function of the motif of keeping secrets by taking into consideration the “messianic secret” in the transfiguration text in Mark (9:2-13) and its synoptic parallels (Matt 17:1-13; Luke 9:28-37). Each passage conveys a variation of the message to “tell no one” or “keep silence.” It makes sense on an intuitive level that spiritually illuminative moments cannot always be adequately captured in words and should not be shared prematurely. Such experience can be difficult to express and prone to misinterpretation. There are good reasons for respectful silence. However, honoring the experience and respectfully keeping quiet can unwittingly translate into enforced silence and keeping secrets.

The focal point for this paper will be an episode in the book of Ruth that has been notoriously problematic for both ancient and modern scholarship, i.e. chapter 3 which involves the uncovering and touching (!) of a man’s genitals by a young woman late at night in a secluded location. Analyzing this story alongside other ‘prostitute narratives’ in the Hebrew Bible, C.J. Sharp summarizes the general scholarly opinion on Ruth 3 well, ‘Ruth uncovers Boaz’s feet and lies down—the euphemism for a sexual overture is clear—and stays the night. She leaves surreptitiously at dawn with a payment of barley. These would seem to be the actions of a woman who has traded sex for economic security’ (2009, 117). Against this and similar readings of Ruth 3, this paper proposes to re-consider the ‘scandalous’ scene by placing it in a broader context of oath-taking ceremonies in the ancient world. It will analyze the episode in light of the procedures that either include reproductive (and other) organs in their ritual elements or target them through the accompanying curses. Additionally, using studies on genitals as sensory organs, i.e. organs that participate in epistemological processes of the body, it will be argued that by engaging these vital parts in an oath-making ceremony the ritual actors in Ruth 3 are able to make claims that would be difficult to communicate otherwise. Furthermore, in regard to the sense of touch, which is key to the ritual gesture in Ruth 3, scholars argue that nowhere is “tactility more important than in elaborating religious beliefs.’ Hence, it will be suggested that if modern (and at times ancient) sensitivities around the body are set aside, the episode in Ruth 3 can be viewed not as the Moabite widow’s “sexual machinations with a man she barely knew,” (Sharp, 2009, 120) but as a ritualized quest for economic security and thus survival, i.e. a ritualized marriage proposal sealed by an oath.

Despite the elaborative nature of Theodotionic Susanna, it is not merely an expansion. Theodotion makes many subtle, nuanced changes to the earlier text of the Old Greek version at an ideological level. One notable difference is the near elimination the material synagogue as a place of assembly, and instead speaks of a more generalized, associational assembly that meets in Joachim’s house. Specifically, in the Old Greek, the perverse elders ‘sojourn’ (παρῳκοῦσαν) in an assembly building, which is at one point designated as ‘the synagogue of the city’ (τὴν συναγωγὴν τῆς πόλεως, Sus 28). Another demonstrable difference is the external spiritual impetus on Daniel in his empowerment and verbal inspiration in the Old Greek version, which contrasts the internal guidance of Daniel’s own spirit in Theodotion. Finally, the Theodotionic version makes clearer reference to other texts from the Greek Scriptures. In this paper, I will argue that the cumulative force of these textual variants betrays consistent ideological differences. In particular, the Old Greek emphasis on a civic synagogues and external pneumatological inspiration that grants knowledge and understanding are closer theologically to Palestinian Jewish texts such as Qumran apotropaic texts, Josephus’ accounts of Galilean synagogues, or the extant Danielic works in Aramaic and Hebrew, despite the exilic setting of this story. Conversely, the Theodotionic version’s exegetical practice, internalized spirit, and associational community formation are closer to so-called Hellenistic Jewish texts such as the Wisdom of Solomon or Philo of Alexandria’s exegetical works, and the notion of a collegia assembly would fit with a date between the First Jewish Revolt and the Rabbinic standardization of Jewish institutions, especially in a Diaspora setting. While such designations are more of a spectrum than a binary difference, such difference in outlook offers increased clarity regarding the context of the two versions of this Danielic composition.

The New Testament contains various stories about women suffering and in need of relief, be it that they are specifically mentioned like the sick woman in Mark 5:25, Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5:23 or Simon’s mother-in-law in Mark 1:30, be it that they are included in summaries such as “the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, the dead” (e.g. Luke 7:22). The specifics and reasons for the diseases are not always given and may as well have been unknown. The paper focuses on health issues, diseases and disabilities of women as they are preserved and presented in documentary papyri from Graeco-Roman times. Next to analysing the medical information given in the text and the remedies that were chosen for treatment the paper addresses the social implications of being sick and – successfully or unsuccessfully – treated, including fatal conditions. Special attention will be given to typical contexts and patterns of addressing diseases in everyday communication from the past. Parallels and differences between biblical and papyrological accounts will be discussed. In addition, the paper reflects on the way in which health issues, diseases and disabilities are presented in documentary papyri as contemporary sources of the New Testament. As they also contain direct evidence from women themselves, they are of inestimable value for analysing healthcare in antiquity. [The paper refers to the call for the open session, type 1.]

This review of and engagement with Patricia Ahearne-Kroll's forthcoming monograph on Aseneth(SBL, 2020) concerns especially the work as a Jewish narrative among the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt.

As it is widely accepted in research, cultural memory works like a huge storage containing branches of past. Past events are reported in Chronicles as a writing with a particular view on the history of Judah in its surrounding world. The Levites as authors of Chronicles present a selection of past events by deleting and reusing material available to them. Furthermore, they interpret the reused material by adding their own worldview upon society of their present times. Due to such processes of selection and interpretation they decide which parts of history to remember and which ones to forget. Their interpretation of history forms the hermeneutical key developed in cognitive processes responsible for the presentation of past in Chronicles. This paper will analyze in which way the Levites create a model of past to be presented to contemporary cultural memory. Beyond recognition in their present times, the Levites convey the collective memory of their own times as well as of future generations to come.

In the enigmatic text about women in 1 Timothy 5:3-16, the phrases “the first faith” (hē prōtē pistis) in 5:12 and “believing woman” (pistē) in 5:16 deserves a closer examination. The terms pistis and pistos in 1 Timothy denote a range of meanings, including one’s faithfulness to or trust in the teachings (e.g., 3:9, 4:12) and one’s trustworthiness in relationships (e.g., 1:12, 5:8)—both of which manifest in one’s actions—and a denotation of boundaries (who is “in” the group and who is not; e.g., 4:10). I would like to suggest that the opponents—those who had “different teachings” (1:3, 6:3)—were using this term for their own purposes (4:1, 6:21), so that the author of 1 Timothy was attempting to reclaim it as the rightful legacy of Paul and his way of understanding the truth (2:4, 4:3). Timothy himself is put forth as an example of faithfulness in contrast to the opposing teachers; his faithfulness was to be admired and emulated by the author’s hearers (4:1-16). The “believing/faithful woman” in 5:16 was apparently a woman of means, since she could support widows in her care. The designation of a “believing woman” highlights her faithfulness to the teachings but also draws attention to her responsibilities as a trustworthy member of the group. The author appealed to these women because they were influenced by the opponents, and he hoped to sway them squarely back to his way of thinking, exhorting them to be truly faithful and trustworthy (as he understood it). This involved the younger widows. The result of the young widows’ desire to marry was one of judgment, but who was judging them is not clear. If the opposing teachers were using pistis and pistos for their own purposes, perhaps the phrase “the first faith” relates to rhetoric used by the opposing teachers (who forbade marriage; 4:3), to discourage young widows from marrying again. That is, the opponents were accusing the younger women of not following “the faith” (5:12) and letting their sensual desires lead them away from Christ (5:11) because of their desire to be married again. Thus, the author of 1 Timothy is quoting the opponents who were judging them for this desire to marry (5:11-12); by contrast, he himself wants them to marry and take on traditional roles (5:14). Furthermore, if the believing woman (5:16) was influenced by the opponents, perhaps these young women were also incurring judgement from the believing women themselves who were discouraging them from marrying on the basis of the opposing teachers’ instruction not to marry (4:3). Thus, the author is prodding them in 5:16 to care for the younger widows, in part by helping them find marriage partners. The rhetoric of faith and faithfulness in 5:12 and 5:16 gives us a glimpse of the complexity of relationships among women in this early Christian community.

The reception of Luke 16:19–31 is ancient and variegated. It is ancient in the sense that commentary for this pericope appears as early as the patristic era (mostly in the form of homilies) and variegated in the sense that the interpretation of Luke 16:19–31 has been hotly debated throughout church history. One recurring point of departure seems to emerge to the foreground: the question of genre. Currently, there’s no scholarly consensus regarding the exact parabolic species of Luke 16:19–31. However, an investigation of the reception history reveals that, for the first sixteen centuries of church history, the scholarly majority viewed Luke 16:19–31 as historic narrative and not as parabolic. Thus, questions arise: What brought about the radical interpretational shift in the adoption of the parabolic/fictive view for Luke 16:19–31 between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? What are the benefits and risks of such a radical interpretational shift? While some held to the fictive view of Luke 16:19–31 prior to the sixteenth century (so Cyril of Alexandria, et al.), this was a minority position until the Protestant Reformation—during which there was a surge of discovery/rediscovery of biblical MSS and introduction to variant readings within the sundry Greek New Testaments being published. This essay’s primary thesis is that this paradigmatic shift of interpretation appears to have gained momentum after the rediscovery of Codex Bezae in 1562 by Theodore Beza, which contained the variant reading in Luke 16:19—ειπεν δε και ετεραν παραβολην. This argument shall be made by examining Codex Bezae more closely and surveying the reception history of Luke 16:19–31 up to the sixteenth century as well as the subsequent influence that Codex Bezae’s variant had regarding the reception of 16:19–31.

The present paper considers the question of whether the Bible was invariably read as a form of ethical instruction in Jewish antiquity and, therefore, more specifically, whether its narratives were read for the purposes of subject formation. According to James Kugel, the assumption that Israel’s ancestors were perfect and, hence, worthy of imitation was one of several that together constitute the Hebrew Bible as Scripture around the turn of the Common Era. John Barton sees such ethical readings as resulting from the Bible’s emerging status and its inevitable application to the needs of the present. But should we assume that there is indeed one constitutive moment (or even a series of moments) in which the Bible comes to be the singular textual object—albeit, one framed by a series of interpretive assumptions and traditions—that we know today as Scripture? Or would it be more accurate to say that the very construction of the Bible as Scripture remains open to continual reshaping and definition? Recent work of Hindy Najman and Annette Yoshiko Reed has helped to shed light on the dynamics of exemplarity among certain readers of the Bible, such as Philo, particularly in light of Hellenistic and Roman models. However, such work has also highlighted the specificity of exemplarity as a technique of the self and, in my view, its relative absence in the textual practices of the vast majority of early Jewish texts. We need to move away from the assumption that the searching of Israel’s ancient narratives for lessons was basic to the reading of biblical literature and to recognize that such a construction of the Bible only receives expression in specific communal, class, and cultural contexts, and only achieves its dominance in much later periods, where it continues to hold sway as seen, for instance, in contemporary literary approaches to the Bible. In short, we need to delineate what constitutes a practice of subject formation from what does not, and to clarify the contexts in which it occurs. The present paper will attempt to do so by comparing a range of ancient Jewish texts including the Genesis Apocryphon, the Book of Jubilees, Ben Sira, Philo, Josephus, and the rabbinic collection, Bereshit Rabbah.

Exodus 23:4 requires the finder of a lost animal to return it to the owner; while Deuteronomy 22:1-3 adds that under certain circumstances where this is not feasible, the finder must hold onto the lost property in their home until the owner comes to claim it. This paper explores the responsibilities and rights of the finder of lost property, as well as the rights of the owner, examining these biblical laws in conjunction with Mesopotamian and Hittite law and in light of post-biblical Jewish texts that implicitly or explicitly relate to them. In particular, this paper considers issues including how the discovery of lost property might be publicized, means of committing fraud with respect to such property, and the limits of a finder’s duties.

John 3 contains two passages—3:16-21 and 3:31-36—wherein the speaker is not clearly identified. In both instances, the dialogue turns into a reflective monologue. The author does not indicate, however, if the character in the story continues to speak or if the narrator interjects his own reflections. Current scholarship leans toward identifying the narrator as the speaker in both passages, but several scholars use the same methodology to argue for the characters of the story—Jesus and John the Baptist—as the speakers. Because the same methods offer contrary results, an alternative approach is necessary to give a decisive answer to the question, “Who says that God loves the world?” (John 3:16). My project explores the texts throughout Christian history which explicitly identify a speaker in John 3. The resulting data reveals two key facts. First, the overwhelming majority of authors attribute both passages to the characters in the story. Of the 176 texts examined, 151 identify Jesus as the speaker of 3:16-21 and either John the Baptist or Jesus as the speaker of 3:31-36. Second, authors tend to correlate the identity of the speaker with a specific Christological focus in their own writings. When authors identify the narrator as the speaker, they focus explicitly on the crucifixion. Those that identify characters in the story as the speaker focus on the incarnation and divine identity of Christ. This correlation is consistent among authors up until the 17th century. Indeed, not a single author before 1600 attributes the words of 3:16-21 to Jesus when discussing the crucifixion. The data indicates that authors throughout Christian history understood the theological significance of the identification of the speakers. If Jesus is continuing to speak to Nicodemus in 3:16-21, then the text is discussing the incarnation as the act by which God “gave” his only son. Similarly, if the Baptist (or, indeed, Jesus) is speaking in 3:31-36, then the testimony which one must believe in is that Jesus is the divine son of God sent to earth. Only from a post-resurrection viewpoint does the narrator understand these passages to be discussing the crucifixion. The first half of John’s Gospel focuses on the signs which point to Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. Only after these signs are rejected does the focus shift to the crucifixion. A brief discussion of the crucifixion in John 3 would be out of place within the larger motif of John 1—12. If, however, Jesus is the speaker and his words correlate to a focus on the incarnation, the theological tension of the passage is resolved. Thus, God’s great display of love for the world is in giving his Son to the world in the incarnation. The testimony one must believe is that Jesus is who he says he is. The historical argument results necessarily in the conclusion that the characters in John 3 are the speakers.

The intertextual relationship between Deutero-Isaiah and Lamentations has been broadly recognized, with most scholars agreeing that the direction of influence runs from Lamentations to Deutero-Isaiah. Following the literary methodology of Ziva Ben-Porat, the allusions to Lamentations invite a reading of Deutero-Isaiah in which the broader thematic issues of Lamentations are brought to bear on the newer text. Therefore, when Deutero-Isaiah opens with the exhortation to “Comfort, O comfort my people” (Isa. 40:1), the supplied comfort should address the complaints raised in Lamentations as the female personification of Jerusalem, Daughter Zion, laments the loss of her children. Accordingly, Deutero-Isaiah attempts to comfort Daughter Zion over the loss of her children. The scholarship of L. Juliana M. Claasens, Sarah J. Dille, Knud Jeppesen, Maggie Low, Christl Maier, and John J. Schmitt has recognized that one primary way that Deutero-Isaiah has tried to achieve this comfort is by positioning YHWH as the surrogate of new children for Daughter Zion. This image of YHWH as a mother appears initially in Isa. 42:14 and fully develops in 49:14-21. Through Deutero-Isaiah’s attempt to comfort bereaved Zion, “female” characteristics and biological processes are then assigned to YHWH, breaking down the gender binary. YHWH’s surrogacy allows him to give birth. This paper argues that Deutero-Isaiah’s attempt to comfort Zion through surrogacy is unsuccessful. The new children born from YHWH’s parentage do not erase the memory of those children, written about in Lamentations, who starved, were killed, or were kidnapped. Furthermore, YHWH’s assumption of maternity attempts to erase the root protest of Zion in Lamentations, that YHWH’s unjust punishment has violently caused the children’s damage and death. The inadequacy of YHWH’s attempts to “comfort” Zion over the loss of her children becomes especially apparent through Zion’s response of skepticism to YHWH’s surrogacy. She protests, “Who has borne [masc.] me these?...Where are these from?” (Isa. 49:21). YHWH’s surrogacy, though it raises exciting possibilities about divine gender fluidity, glosses over the pain of Zion’s child loss, as if the addition of new children can erase the memory of the old ones and the pain of bereavement. The shortcomings of divine surrogacy as comfort also emerge through the re-introduction of Zion as a mother in Trito-Isaiah. Zion’s maternity is restored particularly in Isa. 66:6-13, which includes Zion’s miraculous labor and delivery. YHWH fills the role as midwife, while also still holding a co-parenting role. This shift in the imagery suggests that Trito-Isaiah takes seriously the inadequacy of the “comfort” supplied in Deutero-Isaiah. The unaddressed complaints in Lamentations shape the re-presentation of Zion as a mother in Trito-Isaiah.

This paper asks how the usage of physiological terms, especially leb (“heart”), in Proverbs 1–9 might supply a window into scribes’ views of the material world. The study attends to similar usages of physiological and other object-related terms within the broad intellectual context of Second Temple Judaism. Within this context, a number of sources suggest symbolic or allegorical conceptions of the world as a domain of multiple meanings, where the meanings of objects were reflected secondarily in the use of written words. When early-modern interpreters rejected allegory, they were participating in hermeneutical shifts that redefined not only texts, but also the material world, in ways that reoriented people’s expectations of both. This contrast accentuates notable differences between the world of Second Temple wisdom and that of modern biblical scholarship, differences which bear import for philological research.

On the first day of class I minimize discussion about the syllabus and assignments in favor of introducing them to the subject and to the kind of discussions that will happen throughout the course. I also try to include some material that can be confusing or surprising, especially for those students who may think they already know a lot about the Bible. I start by asking questions from the Bible Content Exam I had to pass in seminary to see how much they know about the Bible. Many students look concerned over the difficulty of these questions until I tell them that this is the last test they’ll take in my class – we will have many writing assignments, but no more tests! I do, however, point out to them that they may have detailed knowledge of other canons even if they don’t know much about the Bible. Many students can tell me which volume of the Harry Potter series contains Harry and Ginny’s first kiss, even if they do not know who Methuselah was. I then start a discussion about why they’re taking the course and why it might be useful. Students sometimes seem hesitant to give the obvious answer, that they’re taking the class to satisfy a religion requirement, but even that can prompt further discussion about why the college requires students to take a religion course. After talking about why learning about the Bible can be important, I then turn things around and share a video that is critical about the Bible and questions why we should treat it as important. The Bible Content Exam questions also introduced the idea that there can be additional learning goals beyond acquiring content knowledge. In all of this, I try to show my students that they will be confronted with challenging and surprising ideas and that they can entertain these ideas and interact with classmates holding conflicting ideas without creating conflict. I do provide a brief summary of the syllabus, assignments, and course policies but I direct them to the information in the course website rather than reading each part of the syllabus. I usually have a short online activity, usually ungraded, for them to complete before the next class so that we can find out if anyone has technical issues with the website. At the end of the first day, I hope they have a sense of class expectations and assignments and some curiosity about what will happen in the next session and throughout the term.

This paper suggests the possibility of reading 1 Cor 7:21-23 in light of the practice of self-sale enslavement that existed and was well-known in the Roman Empire. Either with or without the physical presence of self-sale slaves in the original audience of the letter, Paul in this passage uniquely uses slavery language simultaneously in both an institutional and metaphorical sense. He refers to two different shifts of social status in Roman slavery: (1) from a literal slave to a metaphorically manumitted person (belonging to the Lord) (v. 22a) and (2) from a literal free person to a metaphorical slave (of Christ) (v. 22b). Considering this unique integration of institutional and metaphorical use of the slave language, the original audience would have heard Paul’s slavery metaphor based upon their understanding of institutional slavery. Among the eight ways Orlando Patterson identifies as the known pathways to slavery in that period, “debt” and “self-sale enslavement” are the only plausible ways Paul’s metaphor, “slave of Christ,” would have made sense. Previous scholars, however, either have not fully paid attention to the various ways that people could become slaves or have understood Paul’s slave metaphor mostly related to “debt slaves,” which connotes that Christ has paid people’s debt of sin and saved them. Further, the majority of previous research on 1 Cor 7:21-23 was conducted by focusing on the practice of manumission. By focusing on the practice of self-sale enslavement, this paper expands the meaning of 1 Cor 7:21-23 beyond its surface-level, which is requesting slaves to maintain their current status by resetting their values based on imminent eschatology. Self-sale slaves are the ones who voluntarily abandoned their civil rights. In making such a decision, they had to face personal “risks” of physical violence, sexual exploitation, physical restraint, and hard labor resulting from following orders as well as structural “risks” of dishonor, legal restrictions on testimony in court, and the loss of kinship ties. However, some also received “opportunities” of not only being manumitted after entering into slavery but also upward socio-economic mobility as a freed person; there was a tension between “risks” and “opportunities” for those who sold themselves into slavery. Receiving an opportunity for slaves was dependent on whether or not they were sold to a “good” master. If we are to understand Paul as referring to self-sale enslavement in 1 Cor 7:21-23, this reading: (1) emphasizes the importance of “abandoning one’s right,” which is one of the most important themes in 1 Corinthians for the faith community in grave conflicts, and (2) draws a theological implication that becoming a “slave of Christ” results in great “risks” of persecution, and “opportunities” of receiving the eschatological benefit of God’s children, the heirs of God. Although in the perspective of 1 Corinthians there is a similar tension living as a slave of Christ in the Roman Empire, the opportunities are guaranteed because becoming a “slave of Christ” is synonymous with joining the household of Christ, the “good” master.

When it comes to effectiveness in preaching, Christian homiletics asks how to effectively engage contemporary audiences with the meaning and significance of a selected pericope. This paper discusses the effectiveness principles that Peter’s sermon provides. The response to Peter’s Pentecost sermon reflects a biblical ground for developing a contemporary conversion and transformation model. Luke’s specific polemical approach, which appeals to Scriptures (common ground) effectively explains the significance of what happened on the day of Pentecost (common-sense). In a contemporary setting, this point is crucial, because the common sense-common ground approach can provide an effective hermeneutical-homiletical bridge between the eternal Word and a changing World. Homiletical effectiveness is fundamentally a problem of motivation, or encouraging the audience as Imago Dei to pursue Christlikeness. The Imago Dei embraces the transformation of the whole person into the likeness of Christ through progressive sanctification (Eph 4:24; 5:1; Col 1:28; 3:10). Thus, the human nature of the incarnate Christ is the infallible base model for all subsidiary Christian transformation. This research proposes a threefold application principle for God’s divine communication of the Imago Dei: a rhetorical telling, poetic showing, and realistic motivation. Spirit-led preaching emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in application. The Holy Spirit, who is the primary author of Scripture, illuminates truths from all Scriptures in the ministry of the Word. Therefore, the efficacious empowerment of the Spirit of God is indispensable for the ministry of proclamation. That is, the Spirit must play a vital role in the poetic showing of the context, the rhetorical telling of the text, and the realistic motivation of the hearers. Successful bridge-building always requires the combined work of Word and Spirit. Imaginative expository preaching connects the preacher with the imaginative capability of the audience. In this case, a contemporary common sense-common ground approach, such as Bryan Chapell’s, can be a tool for effective communication. Contextual homiletics includes both human elements and listener-oriented illustrations, which are the materials for illustrative poetic showing, rhetorical telling, and realistic motivation. Applicatory expository preaching also provides a practical methodology for a biblically-defended sermon design. Jay Adams’ telos-focused (purpose driven) application, Daniel M. Dorian’s design of application, and Daniel Overdorf’s application principles are concisely discussed. In redemptive-historical homiletics, applicable knowledge and the language that overlays the entire sermon enable the preacher to effectively motivate listeners in the culture of their day. Indeed, when application begins the sermon begins. Hence, this paper suggests that the self-attesting Christ of Scripture (Lk 24: 27, 44) is a biblically defensible homiletical paradigm, which places Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, as not only the most eminent Preacher but also the ultimate telos of all sermon applications. In all genuine Christian homiletics, both objective biblical propositions and subjective personal convictions work together for accurate and effective preaching. Peter’s sermon (Acts 2:14-36) clearly demonstrates both intellectual persuasion and experiential effectiveness.

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the second-century medical writer and doctor Soranus of Ephesus, in particular his connection to the infamous diagnosis of “hysteria.” I aim to reconsider the ways in which men read women’s bodies as sites of disease and pollution, which have broader religious and cultic implications. What is most troubling is that recent translations still (mis)translate the Greek term “hysterikos” as “hysterical,” thus associating the womb as a sick creature, a “wandering animal,” which has been mythologized as moving in and out of the female body, most notably stated by a medical contemporary of Soranus, Aretaeus of Cappadocia. Recent scholarship, however, has argued that there is no “wandering womb” in the Hippocratic corpus, Galen, and Soranus, that this is anachronistic and reflective of 19th and 20th century cultural and medical attitudes towards women. In other words, “hysteria” as a medical diagnosis has successfully been exorcised from Soranus. My argument is threefold: to deconstruct “hysteria” in Soranus by arguing that one should translate “hysterikos” literally as “of or relating to the womb.” Second, I note various instances where Soranus maintains his assertion that women are fundamentally disabled: through menstruation, through his understanding of women’s basic role as procreators, and through “uterine suffocation.” Lastly, I argue that the womb becomes an index for health and wellness for women by considering the term “sympatheia” and its possible biological and emotional meanings. My analysis leads me to conclude that while Soranus himself disentangles the womb from “wandering animal,” and therefore the female body from “hysteria,” he nevertheless states that women are susceptible to emotional and mental disturbance by virtue of their anatomy. The womb “feels with” the body because women are too porous and “sympathetic.” By having disability and crip studies in conversation with Soranus and his medical counterparts, I argue that the female body becomes a site of contestation and pollution that is being re-negotiated and controlled during this period.

This paper focuses on early Christianity under the Roman empire, and in particular the emergence of Christian social networks and helping/care behavior exhibited by Christians during the Antonine Plague (165-180) and the Plague of Cyprian (251-266). This case study of religious pro-sociality illuminates the possibility of prestige-driven cooperation, in that followers were motivated to imitate the cooperative and virtuous behaviors practiced and taught by central Christian figures (Jesus, Paul). This example stands in contrast to "Big Gods" theories about religious cooperation, which claim that religious cooperation is mostly motivated by fear of supernatural punishment. Such examples of apparent prestige-driven cooperation and the subsequent success of religious groups have thus far been neglected by scholars of the evolution of religion, yet these examples are important for understanding how human cognition (i.e., prestige psychology) drives cultural evolution.

Nicodemus’ role in the Gospel of John is different and far greater than scholarship has previously perceived. With the exception of a few scholars who maintain that Nicodemus does not believe because Jesus would not entrust himself, scholarship consistently places him in the role of the hesitant, but ultimately, devout believer in Jesus. However, this does not understand the significance of Nicodemus for understanding John’s thoughts on early Jewish-Christian relations. The reasoning for placing Nicodemus in the role of hesitant believer is often predicated on dubious textual evidence and traditional readings. When the evidence from John is examined without the conclusion that Nicodemus ultimately becomes a believer in Jesus, the answer is quite the reverse. From the reader’s initial encounter with him, Nicodemus is clearly not a believer during the dialogue with Jesus. At the second mention of him, the reader is again assured that he belongs with the Pharisees and not the group who follows Jesus. While neither of these encounters are ever presented as evidence for Nicodemus’ belief, the readers’ final encounter with Nicodemus also lacks evidence to demonstrate his transition from his position within the Ioudaioi to the Jesus following community. For the most part, scholars argue that his presence alongside Joseph of Arimathea and his gift of burial fluids is enough to suppose he is a believer. However, as this paper will demonstrate, neither of the reasons, when read contextually, provides evidence for Nicodemus’ belief in Jesus; and reading them as such actually works against John’s literary purposes. The significance of understanding Nicodemus’ lack of belief in Jesus is pivotal in understanding John’s relationship with Judaism. Under the present interpretation, there is a strong division between Jews and the believers of Jesus. However, Nicodemus represents the type of Judaism with whom John encourages his community to associate, celebrate festivals, and even to mourn. This lack of a sharp divide between the new Christian movement and Judaism might actually help scholars to glimpse the lived reality of the earliest Christian communities’ relationship with their Jewish brothers and sisters.

Recent years have seen a surge in scholarly interest in the onomasticon of Judean exiles in Babylon. This is mainly due to the publication of the (Al-)Yahudu texts, which has more than doubled the extant corpus. Scholars quickly noticed a repeated and distinct pattern, which was previously attributed only to the mid-late fifth century BCE Judean onomasticon (from the Murašû archive); namely, that Yahwistic names were more prominent within the younger generation in the archive than amongst their parents. This new realization deflated E. Bickerman’s (1978) YHWH-alone theory, which contextualized the increased use of Yahwistic names during the mid-fifth century within the activity of Ezra and Nehemiah. While scholars quickly identified the problem resurfacing with the new sources, answers are still sought by looking at social aspects and processes within the Judean exile community. Yet if the differences between patronyms and protagonists are not chronologically confined, and thus cannot be explained by mere cultural-historical developments, the solution must lay elsewhere. This paper approaches the issue from an archival perspective to present an alternative hypothesis that is rooted in two major aspects in the study of ancient archives: the arbitrariness of surviving records and the administrative rational that created the archive in the first place. I argue that a solution may be found by examining patterns of participation of household members in various administrative and economical settings, as well as by borrowing a theory regarding Babylonian naming patterns.

This paper will attempt to outline what we know about the administration of Idumea as it developed from a territory on the margins of Iron Age Judah to a Hellenistic Hyparchy, though epigraphic and historical sources.

In many and various ways, scholars have illuminated the way Israel’s Scriptures function as divine discourse in Hebrews. This paper examines one specific instance of divine speech in Hebrews: “I will never leave you or forsake you” (13:5), and assesses several potential scriptural sources. Although the citation does not match exactly any extant passage in the LXX/OG, commentators have nominated various sources, including Genesis 28:15, Deuteronomy 31:6-8, Joshua 1:5-9, and 1 Chronicles 28:20, though they devote little attention to defending any of these choices. This paper will explore each of these potential sources, noting themes within their literary contexts that might connect to the situation in Hebrews. After assessing the merits of these possible scriptural quotations, we will argue that the author of Hebrews may not have had any one text in mind but rather invoked an often-repeated divine promise from Israel’s Scriptures as a word of assurance to his audience, living as they were in uncertain circumstances.

Jeremiah refers to the ideal, future king of Judah as a “sprout” (ṣemaḥ; Jer 23:5; 33:15). For Jeremiah, this king is a member of the Davidic dynasty, the existence of which is inextricably linked to the security of Judah and dependant upon the king doing justice and righteousness (cf. Jer 22:3-4). In Jer 23:6, the name of this future ruler will be yhwh ṣidqēnû, “Yhwh is our righteousness,” which is strongly reminiscent of Zedekiah’s name (ṣidqîyāhû, “my righteousness is Yhwh). By contrast, Ezekiel refers to the ideal, future king as a “sprig” (ṣammeret) of cedar (Ezek 17:22), a reference to Jehoiachin (17:3). He claims that the “sprouts” of Zedekiah’s vine will die (17:9-10). For Ezekiel, the future king is connected to the return from the exile (e.g. 34:11-24) and is expected to do justice and righteousness (45:9). Yet Ezekiel envisages at least a temporary continuation of the Judean community without a king while they are in Babylonia. He instructs his audience to do justice and righteousness (Ezek 18:21-32; 33:10-20), which he does not portray as a condition of Davidic kingship, but rather of the Judeans’ restoration to “life.” It is unclear whether Ezekiel and Jeremiah are in dialogue concerning this issue. On the one hand, they use the similar language of sprouts and sprigs as well as of “doing justice and righteousness” (ʿāśâ mišpāṭ ûṣědāqâ) in connection with leadership and the future of Judah. Yet their definitions of who must do justice and righteousness, what exactly this entails, and what the consequences will be differ significantly. Their language surrounding these issues does not overlap as one might expect if they were conscious conversation partners. It is very likely that Jeremiah and Ezekiel knew of one another. In Jeremiah 29, the prophet writes a letter to the exilic community and refers to the existence of prophets among them, though he only names Shemaiah (29:24-32). There are several possible reasons why Jeremiah and Ezekiel never acknowledge one another, but the most compelling is their distinct factional affiliations. With regard to Davidic kingship, Jeremiah condemns Jehoiachin (22:24-30) whereas his view of Zedekiah is occasionally positive (32:4-5; 34:4-5). Conversely, Ezekiel condemns Zedekiah and considers Jehoiachin and his line to be the legitimate heirs of the Davidic throne (Ezek 17). Examining their support for a future Davidic “sprout” versus a “sprig” reveals a significant juncture at which their ideologies diverge.

The three plague septets (of seals, trumpets, and bowls of God's wrath) in Revelation all depict the judgment of God in the form of pestilence and plague. This apocalyptic association of divine wrath with plague and disease has proven to be expedient rhetoric in discourses of immigration and "foreignness" in America since its colonization. This paper examines the theme of disease in Revelation (and its literary forbears) and its use in American immigration discourse that aims to exclude by labeling unwanted people groups as diseased or as a plague themselves.

2 Sam 19:1–9 narrates a crisis of loyalty between David and his troops when David is seen weeping over the death of Absalom. Among the troops, celebration turns to mourning as they disperse like “shamed” (hanniklāmîm) troops (v. 4). Joab reprimands David for “putting to shame” (hōbaštā) the faces of all his servants (v. 6). The scene strikes the modern reader as emotionally charged. However, a study of shame lexica (bôš, klm, ḥrp I) in the Deuteronomistic History (DH) reveals that this terminology hardly designates a discrete, interior emotional experience. The predominant usage of shame lexica in DH, especially in reference to male social groups, underscores a primary interest in preserving social bonds or challenging status and reputation, and deals little with an emotional experience per se. This paper builds upon previous work that appreciates the physical aspects of shame lexica (Lynch 2010) and brings the lexical study of shame into conversation with emotions research and masculinity studies to recover further its physical and performative aspects. The centrality of the physicality and performance of shame allows us to re-read the hanniklāmîm and hōbaštā of David’s troops not as reactionary despondence but as ritual performance toward solidarity with David.

The nouns bōšet, kəlimâ, and ḥerpâ are often regarded as designators of shame or shame-like experiences in Biblical Hebrew. However, unlike modern articulations of shame as a self-conscious emotion, the BH shame lexica show a marked tendency toward physical, embodied, and performative associations rather than interior psychological feelings. This feature of the BH shame lexica can be especially observed in the conceptual metaphors that express their experiences they designate: SHAME IS A PHYSICAL BURDEN / HEAVY OBJECT; SHAME IS CLOTHING / COVERING; SHAME IS AN ADVERSARY; SHAME IS A WEAPON. This paper traces the usage of these metaphors for shame-like experience in Psalms and finds a marked usage in petitionary psalms, and several patterns emerge. First, these metaphors of shame are always experienced as an individual plight when they refer to the psalmist’s own experience, even when the context of the larger psalm is communal (e.g. Ps 44:16). Second, in contrast to the first, the psalmist always applies to a plural enemy when psalmist invokes these metaphors in imprecations. And third, these metaphors exhibit strong tendencies toward specific shame lexemes, providing insight to the experiential nuances that pertain to the shame lexica and the role that shame-like experiences play in the formation of the self in the context of psalmic prayer.

In a recent monograph (How the Gospels Became History, Yale University Press), I argued that the evangelists consciously used historiographical tropes to make their mythoi as plausible as possible. In this talk, I reflect further on the meaning of my proposed genre "mythic historiography," or myth written in historical form, showing how pervasive it is among Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian authors of the first and second centuries CE. I also reflect on the response to the book by modern (scholarly) readers and discuss what I have learned from them, along with future avenues for research.

The use of historical examples was a common literary device in early-imperial-period Roman literature. Forming part of this cultural discourse, Jewish Antiquities presents historical figures as edifying or deterring models, also putting brief references to past events into the mouths of various figures. Moses – an exemplary leader – thus defends his leadership against Korah, Dathan, and Abiram’s revolt by adducing a series of historical episodes in his prayer (but cf. Num 16:15). The present paper analyzes this passage in detail, tracing its biblical background and evincing how Josephus skillfully interweaves the device of exempla with scriptural quotations. The discussion reveals that: 1) Moses’ plea to God – “I have not taken one donkey from them …” (Num 16:15) – is conjoined with his speech to the people near Dathan’s tents (Num 16:28-30), thereby aligning Moses’ legal appeal with Samuel’s in similar circumstances (cf. 1 Samuel 12); 2) Num 16:28 – “the LORD has sent me to do all these works …” – serves as the peg on which the detailed list of historical incidents (from the burning bush to the receiving of the law at Sinai) – is hung; 3) the historical episodes play an evidential role, establishing the rule that everything has occurred according to God’s will and proving by way of induction that the priesthood is founded on the same principle. The function and some of the structural features (e.g., anaphora) are typical of classical lists of examples – a device Moses employs elsewhere in the Antiquities (e.g., A.J. 3.17–19, 3.83–88). Its presence within the prayer thus not merely supports the particular argument but also underscores Moses’ eloquence – one of the characteristics of an exemplary Roman leader; 4) the topoi and many of the specifications adduced by Moses are drawn from Scripture. While the catalogue is thus clearly influenced by historical summaries set in a liturgical context (e.g., Psalms 78, 105 and Nehemiah 9), it also finds parallels in late Second Temple period Jewish texts (cf. Moses’ prayer in LAB 19:8–9, and the historical summary therein).

4Q83 (4QPsa) is often cited as early evidence of an MT-like version of the Davidic psalter, but this position is problematic in several respects. First, two preserved joins in 4Q83 (Pss 31→33, also in the parallel manuscript 4Q98 [4QPsq]; Pss 38→71) reflect significant differences from the MT psalter in contents and/or arrangement. Second, the reconstruction of the lacunose portions of 4Q83 according to the MT yields conflicting results, implying that 4Q83 also differed from the MT psalter in at least some of the lacunae. If 4Q83 differs from the MT psalter in 25% (= 2/8) of preserved joins and cannot elsewhere be coherently reconstructed according to the MT, the 4Q83 psalter must be treated as substantially different in contents and/or arrangement from the received MT psalter. In this paper I will adduce literary arguments to suggest with regard to the 4Q83 psalter that: 1) Ps 32 was either secondarily omitted or moved from its position in the MT psalter; and 2) Ps 71 was either reduplicated after Ps 38 or moved from its position in the MT psalter. This yields a profile of reworking in the creation of the 4Q83 psalter with remarkable similarities to that of the compiler of the 11Q5 psalter. I have argued elsewhere that the 11Q5 psalter is a revised version of the second half of the Davidic psalter that presupposes of the missing first half. Though the witnesses to the 11Q5 and 4Q83 psalters do not overlap in preserved contents, I will make the case based on circumstantial evidence that the 4Q83 psalter is in fact the missing first half of the 11Q5 psalter, such that the entire Davidic psalter is primarily attested at Qumran in a unique, bipartite form dependent upon a proto-MT base text (first half: 4Q83 4Q98; second half: 4Q87 11Q5 11Q6). This suggestion fills many gaps in the study of the Dead Sea Psalms scrolls and helps bring order to a corpus that has often been perceived as chaotic and diffuse.

Would the delay of Parousia have caused early Christians to abandon the future dimension of their hope? The standard rationalistic explanation claims that after no fulfillment of Jesus’s promises in Mark 9:1 and 13:30, early Christians exchanged their future-oriented eschatological hope for the realized eschatology (e.g., Schweitzer, Werner, Bultmann). On the other hand, today’s cognitive approach to emotions views them as value judgments and proposes that the emotion of hope involves a “robust sense of future possibility” (Martha C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 2001, 146). Without a future dimension, hope is no longer hope. Proponents of realized eschatology would leave early Christians without hope, but hope was actually a substantial part of their everyday ritual life. My thesis is that early Christians were constantly renewing their eschatological hope through their ritual participation. Pierre Bourdieu believes that habits have a stronger power of conviction than rational arguments: “we are as much automaton as mind. As a result, demonstration is not the only instrument for convincing us. How far things can be demonstrated! Proofs only convince the mind; habit provides the strongest proofs and those that are most believed” (Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, 1990, 48). There is a power in ritual habit that has a long-time effect for the knowledge of its participants, influencing their hope. For this paper, I am combining Bourdieu’s concept of habitus with Wulf’s elaboration on the concept of mimesis: “Mimetic learning…it is a process by which the act of relating to other people and worlds in a mimetic way leads to an enhancement of one’s own world view, action, and behavior… it is related to the body and it establishes a connection between the individual and the world, as well as other persons; it creates emotions and practical knowledge” (Christoph Wulf, “Memory, Mimesis and the Circulation of Emotions in Rituals,” 2012, 86). A ritual habitual participation in a mimetic way creates emotions assessing the future. Nussbaum defines emotions as “appraisals or value judgments, which ascribe to things and persons outside the person’s own control great importance for that person’s own flourishing” (Martha C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 2001, 4). Emotions as value judgments created in Ritual constitute practical knowledge that guides a person in the future. Thus, ritual produces knowers. In this paper, I am combining Bourdieu’s, Wulf’s, and Nussbaum’s theories in my search for early Christian emotions expressed in their texts. I will primarily look for the ritualized hope expressed in early Christian writings, which deal with their rituals, and my aim is to point contextually to its future directedness. Since rituals have the ability to bring together the past, present, and future (e.g., the Lord’s Supper), I believe that early Christian rituals were among the major sources of continual hope in the future Parousia of Jesus. Finally, since that belief is expressed throughout the New Testament (e.g., Mk 14:25; 1Cor 11:26; Rev 22:20), the natural question is how their hope was continually renewed. My solution points to rituals, showing how habitus influences epistemology.

The paper takes William Blake’s drawing “The Death of the Wife of the Biblical Prophet Ezekiel” (c. 1785, Philadelphia Museum of Art) and addresses the imagery through the lens of the comic book trope Women in Refrigerators (WiR) by Gail Simone. WiR is a plot device that dismisses female characters to propel further the male character’s heroic journey. The trope takes place in a superhero world. William Blake is far from a comic book artist, but he created a symbolic universe with words and visuals that is accessible today and still engages readers. I argue that William Blake considered Ezekiel a prophetic hero in his symbolic universe. While not exactly like a superhero in a comic book, Blake considered Ezekiel an inspiring sublime historical figure and saw visions of him on occasion. Along with some of his illuminated prophecies, Blake’s painting “The Whirlwind: Ezekiel's Vision of the Cherubim and Eyed Wheels” (c. 1804) found in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will be discussed here in terms of the expectations Blake set out for “Poetic Genius” and how Ezekiel qualifies. Ezekiel’s stoic conviction in the drawing signals a rejection of an old system. Therefore, Ezekiel’s wife is a woman in the refrigerator, a dead body that visually reminds the viewer of Ezekiel’s imaginative awakening from the “old” to the “new.” In contrast, in his series of engravings on Job, Blake depicts Job’s wife alongside Job throughout his journey of awakening. William Blake visually manifests Ezekiel and his corpse bride in his symbolic world in his sketch following cues from the text itself. The WiR trope helps shed light on Blake’s imagery, and together they leave room for a “fridging” inquiry into the biblical text of Ezekiel 24:15-27 that will end the paper.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Multidisciplinary Approaches and the Gospels.

Except a few references to the notion of wisdom’s inaccessibility, Job 28 and Prov 8, for instance, Israelite wisdom tradition maintains that wisdom is acquired through human cogitation. Although the process can be arduous, learners (epitomized as “son” most often in Provebs) are expected to gain wisdom with the aid of their teachers (likewise epitomized as “father”) and wide range of pedagogy. The father/teacher invokes sporadically God’s authority to voucher his teaching, but he claims no supernatural means in receiving or imparting the wisdom in his care. Qohelet and Job, the principal protagonists of other canonical wisdom, rely even less on divine authourity for their wisdom as they draw far more from their personal experiences and reflections thereupon. Even for Ben Sira, the exalted Torah does not supplant or replace wisdom so much as it lays foundation for and grant authority to the latter. It is in the Words of Agur (Prov 30:1-9) that we find a novel idea of wisdom—being directly infused by God to the uninitiated and unworthy recipient. Although Agur’s admittance of his own sub-human ignorance and incapability to learn is largely if not entirely rhetorical, the very fact that he contrasts revelatory wisdom vis-à-vis heuristic knowledge is significant. Interestingly, a later Jewish wisdom text from Qumran, 4Q 436 (Bareki Nafshi C), contains the notion of wisdom mediated by illumination and vision from God. It depicts God infusing wisdom to the poet to reveal His own will, to protect the poet from evil and even turn him into a new person. Here the enlightenment is charisma in the Weberian sense, namely some distinct state of the person given at the divine initiative. This notion of inculcated wisdom may forecast an even later Jewish development found in the NT wisdom texts: God is the generous giver of wisdom to all who realize their deficiency (James 1:5), and Christ becomes wisdom for the believers (1 Cor 1:30). This study aims to contribute to constructing a trajectory of the varying notions of wisdom acquisition, and provide a window to a better understanding of the wisdom tradition from biblical and post-biblical period.

The association of foreign empires as dragons and monsters is a prominent metaphor throughout the Hebrew Bible. In these texts, the God of Israel is understood as a god of order who fights against the powers of chaos to bring either judgement or salvation. The primary image associated with the God of Israel is that of the divine warrior who fights on behalf of the people. This binary relationship that equates the divine with order and the monstrous with chaos has dominated biblical studies. However, less recognized is the implicit identification of the God of Israel with monstrous language and chaos imagery in these cosmic battles. In this paper, I propose that the metaphor of God as monster is one embraced by the prophet Ezekiel and his community as a means of dealing with the experience of exile and displacement. Using the lens of Monster Theory, the portrayal of God as monster in Ezekiel 32 is apparent in the emphasis of God’s size, power and destructive actions against Egypt. It is not only the physical attributes of God that emphasize his monstrosity but the reaction of creation and the people who are terrified by the outcome of the battle. Scholars have focused on the depiction of Egypt as a monster but as Timothy Beal states, “It takes a chaos monster to defeat a chaos monster” (T. Beal, Religion and its Monsters, 18). Although Pharaoh is identified as a dragon, it is in fact the God of Israel who is responsible for the chaos and horror recorded in this lamentation. Monster Theory as a critical lens reads monstrous bodies as signs to understand a culture’s identity, prejudices and fears. The metaphor of foreign empire as monster has dominated discussion of the divine combat traditions without a sustained analysis of the monstrous imagery that undergirds the presentation of Israel’s God as terrifying and horrific. Though the God of Israel is typically identified as a god of order, a closer examination of the monstrous imagery and metaphors reveals one very familiar with chaos and terror.

The opening five chapters of the second book of Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus bring together a series of New Testament passages relating to consumption of food, ancient banqueting practices, an early Christian agape meal, medical theories of the body, and Platonic ethics to offer a constellation of notions that uniquely brings together place, space, ritual, embodiment, and material culture . In the case of the New Testament passages, Clement deploys biblical texts in a new way to describe behaviour at banquets, including engagement with klinae (banquet couches) and eating implements (plates, cups, etc.), even as it is obvious that he understands their original context as unrelated to the way he uses them. Surprisingly this text has largely escaped scholarly discussion except with reference to formulations about catechesis and whether Clement’s texts should be understood as part of baptismal formation for catechumens. The combination of items in the Paedagogus is the most extensive treatment of its kind in emergent Christ religion of the first two centuries if not in Christian Antiquity in general and offers a unique means of engaging with the study of material religion and consideration of the Paedagogus in the light of spatial theory. This paper takes up El Salvadoran anthropologist Manuel A. Vasquez’s non-reductive materialist theory of religion which considers the polymorphous generativity of matter in the practice of religion and the conceptualization of space. It uses Vasquez to consider Paedagogus 2.1.1-5 in order to explore ways in which the text brings together body, practice, material objects, and place making. It uses Vasquez’s theorization of the religion as lived material practice to consider the ways in which Clement exhorts diners to position their bodies at banquets, the way to occupy one’s couch, and to interact with food and dining objects. It explores the way Clement conceives a lived material space-time practice of health and moderation, all conceived with the help of New Testament eating texts, to consider the agency of food in Clement’s conceptualization of religion and practice. As Clement combines in a unique way a spectrum of topics he offers a view into a means of place making that lends dynamic energies to material realities in which the self is rendered as a porous identity through which material conditions such as heat, cold, food quantities, bodily position, and ethical moderation work together to offer a vision of ancient Christ religion that is more than belief and practice but a particular formulation of space-time-material practice. In Vasquez’s analysis religion should be investigated with a view to intersections between material realities, lived religious practice, and hybrid formations of cultural-material identities. This essay thus brings Vasquez’s analysis of material religion to bear on this ancient text in the hope of opening a new way of exploring the intersection of space, physiology, the material of banquets (food, drink, dishes, couches) to open up a way of embedding an early Christian text within an embodied material religious context.

The ancient Israelite system of ritual pollution and purification (the system we call “Π”) is concerned predominantly with questions of how pure people become defiled and how the unclean are to be purified. A subject almost absent from the ancient literature is the problem of contact between impure people. This absence is surprising in light of the fact that the sources of impurity are diverse and common, and contact between impure people is an everyday situation. A study of two sources, 4QTohorot A from Qumran and Qirqīsānī’s Kitāb al-Anwār wal-Marāqib, reveals that the question of contact between impurities is related to the basic model according to which the various impurities are perceived. An examination of these : Through this study we wish to answer a basic question regarding the “fundamental science of ritual” in Π:Are the conditions contractible from diverse sources conceived as different in type, differing from one another as diseases differ from each other; are they conceived as different in degree, somewhat like temperature, which may arise from diverse causes and merely vary in quantity; or does another, perhaps intermediate model have stronger explanatory power for Π? In a lecture based on a new reading in the 4QTohorot A, we wish to examine the different ways in which sources from the Second Temple period and the Sages understood the relation between the various impurities, and suggest that the attempt to impose a hierarchical rating and orderly system upon a rather chaotic set of legal and ritual details led to interpretive and unresolved tension that resonates in rabbinic sources as well as in medieval sources. This tension reveals a fundamental embarrassment about the features of the impurity phenomenon.

St. Thomas who was one of the key-figures in the formulation of the Eastern Church traditions, seem to have played a secondary role in the foundation of the Armenian Church. The perception of the image of Thomas in the Armenian milieu, however, deserves more attention, since the traditions about this apostle, albeit scarce and varying, are closely interrelated to the preaching activities of the founders of the Armenian Church, St. Bartholomew and St. Thaddeus. In a number of Armenian apocryphal stories, such as the “History of Thomas, the Apostle who was sold to India”, Thomas is called a twin brother of St. Thaddeus. This tradition seems to be known also to the redactor of the Armenian Synaxarion where St. Thomas has the authority to send his brother to Edessa in order to preach the Christianity to the Armenian king Abgar. The Synaxarion then adds that St. Thomas himself went to Armenia on his way to India. St. Thomas had also a sort of authority in an Armenian apocryphal narratives dedicated to St. Bartholomew (such as the“Martyrdom Bartholomew”): it is him taking the privilege of his superiority to ask Bartholomew to preach in Armenia. The aforementioned evidences of the participation of St. Thomas in the life Armenian Church, history, nevertheless, did not endow him with the authority to become the “official” founder of the Armenian Apostolic Church thus giving this role to St. Bartholomew and St. Thaddeus.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Emerging Scholarship in Biblical Studies.

This paper will describe how the author introduces Masoretic notes in a classroom by means of a mnemonic called PAGIC. The mnemonic provides a framework for understanding the reasons for the vast majority of Masoretic notes, and serves to reinforce the students’ knowledge of Hebrew grammar as well as helping them appreciate the structure of the biblical text.

The Quran is remarkable for its extremely conservative transmission. This transmission is so precise, that even the specific spelling of individual words is strictly controlled for. Because of this it can be confidently asserted that all early manuscript descend from a single written archetype, which was judiciously copied letter by letter for centuries. This talk will consider the stemma of the earliest manuscripts, and the implications for our understanding of the historical scenario of the standardization and distribution of the text as it is relayed in the literary Arabic sources.

This paper questions the conventional interpretation of the doe-comparison in Ps 42:1 based on linguistic indications and a biological phenomenon. The semantic references in the Hebrew text suggest a meaning which differs from the well-known image of the panting hind as a representation of the soul's longing for God. The root ערג rather points to a vocal sound of a deer. The utterance becomes a performative act when the praying person transfers it to an expression of their Næַpæš. This paper proposes that the verb ערג refers to a specific vocal expression. Among the various different sounds emitted by deer, the shrill cry referred to in Ps 42 indicates a sense of danger. In English, the term for this alarm call is “blowing” or “barking”, in German it is called “schrecken”. The animal's cry functions both as an acknowledgement of the perception of danger and an alert for the herd. During encounters at the watering place, the blowing of a frightened Persian Fallow Deer may have been heard frequently. When attributing it to the Næַpæš, the praying person adds another dimension. They direct the blowing in a different direction: The Næַpæš alerts God. It does so by screaming instinctively like an animal. Consequently, the meaning of v.1 is: "As a doe, that blows near water streams, so my Næַpæš blows to Thee, O God." The comparison with the deer also emphasizes the weakening of the usually agile and exuberant power of the Næַpæš by the experienced distance to God. Just as a thirsty doe blows when it scents an enemy near the vital water, the Næַpæš cries out because it cannot reach the “living God” (v.2). However, the praying person reflects the motions of their Næַpæš in a reserved way. They suppress the cry repeatedly by insisting to wait for God. Only in the last verses of the prayer (Ps 43), the animalistic cry of the Næַpæš takes on a verbal manifestation. The praying person transforms the performative screaming into formulated prayer. In choosing the fully formed lament, they are finally recognizing the motions of the Næַpæš as essential and justified expressions of the self. Now, they alert God with a petition to intervene. As the praying person is still as paralyzed as a terrified deer, it is God who must move. Thus, the understanding of the doe-metaphor is essential for the interpretation of the self-perception of the praying person and their relation to God. It is therefore a key to the meaning of the psalm. Furthermore, the description of the doe provides insights into the ecological perception of nature, specifically regarding the empathy for the wildlife.

Apart from some exceptions, the Masoretic annotations that appear next to the consonant text of the Hebrew Bible in the margins of the Masoretic codices have been almost exclusively studied for their textual content and other aspects have been left aside. One of those aspects is the paleographic characteristics. However, copious evidence of later additions made by various hands that can be seen with the naked eye in the annotations contained in most of the Masoretic codices. The existence of corrections made in many parts of the ms of Leningrad B19a has been mentioned by some authors and recently, it has been concluded, on the basis of the content of the Masoretic annotations and the comparison among the text and the annotations and among the annotations placed in different parts, that the Masora of this manuscript reflects the diversity of scribes and sources (Himbaza 2017). However, no palaeographic studies have been done. This paper presents the results of the paleographic analysis done on the Masoretic annotations of the codex Leningrad B19a.

Reading Paul within the Roman imperial context, along with more recent post-colonial and empire-studies have added additional context to the eastern Roman provinces where Paul preached his gospel. But most studies of this passage continue to underutilize the tools currently available to frame fresh perspectives and questions. More recently scholars such as Brigette Kahl and Davina Lopez have enlisted post-colonial studies from the perspective of the vanquished peoples of Rome to further elucidate the context from which Paul elucidates his gospel. My proposal is to use imperial and post-colonial studies to imagine how the non-elites in the provinces as well as Rome would have experienced Roman authority. This includes drawing on studies of how Roman ideology constructed identity and non-identity—studies of Roman art history and representation. Included in this program of ‘othering’ is not just other peoples perceived as enemies but also the way that Roman ideology and practice ‘othered’ nature, both its biologic and non-biologic environment, using studies of Roman society’s ludic practices such as the munera and venationes—hunts, executions, and fights. This contextualization of the early Roman principate sets the stage for looking from a different vantage point and asking different questions. For instance, how would Paul envision the “sufferings of this present time; how were they experienced? Does creation have the same kind of experience? And who is responsible for this futility? Now this is a question that scholars have weighed in on, but ineffectively. The discussion has come down to several popular options: God (Gen. 3:17-19), sin (Gen. 2-3), various celestial powers, Satan, or Adam. But this underutilizes the historical contextualization from the perspective of the non-elite, who had to experience the reality of Roman authority in all socio-cultural expressions—taxes, occupations, empire-sponsored gladiatorial spectacles—violent games representing Roman control over the world. Hence this paper suggests that for Paul, while the sufferings of this present time are intertextually connected with the Jewish creation stories that testify to human hubris, they are also currently experienced as suffering and futility as represented in Caesar, head of the latest and most all-encompassing expression of human control. Creation has been subjected, by force, by Caesar, against hope (8.20). In the imperial ‘good news’ proclaimed throughout the empire hope is a crucial component but represents a clear contrast to Paul’s understanding. Caesar, in the tradition of human hubris (that goes all the way back to the beginning), has perpetuated an imperial agenda in opposition to hope, which, as Paul say is a part of the experience of salvation by God. This is much different than the imperial concept of a realized hope evidenced by empire-wide peace and security achieved and maintained by violence—violence legitimated by a practice of objectifying as enemies everything else that shared Roman space. Using this contextualization, this paper discusses how Paul’s conflictual unease with Roman imperial culture might address the previously proposed questions regarding the scope of suffering, futility and breadth of the hope of redemption for all creation.

The book of Zechariah contains no clear evidence of foreign vocabulary: no Persian or Greek words, and apparently no direct borrowings from Aramaic. This is remarkable, when considering the fact that the author(s) lived during the reign of Darius, that is, in the Persian period. Those who challenge the distinction between classical and late biblical Hebrew as reflecting different eras of writings, attribute an “extreme conservatism” to Zechariah, implying its lateness is unrecognizable by linguistic criteria. If this is the case, and if post-exilic authors could indeed possess a perfect command of classical Biblical Hebrew, then, theoretically, they could also have authorized the so-called early books, like Genesis or Samuel. The picture changes dramatically though, once the main focus is put on syntax. A minute syntactic analysis of the book of Zechariah reveals about a dozen of structures that situate its language squarely within the linguistic milieu of the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, etc., and set it apart from the classical biblical corpus.

Weeping (בכים) and death are interrelated in the Judges story. This paper will examine the interrelatedness of the emotion of weeping in conjunction with the oaths taken in Judges and explore the possibility that weeping reveals the differing intentions of double-voicedness. Thinking alongside the concept of utterance in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, weeping will be explored as a voice within the narrative. Four scenes identify this powerful emotion in Judges: Israel’s failure in the land and encounter with the angel (2:4–5); the sacrifice of the nameless daughter of Jephthah (11:37); the threat placed upon Samson’s Philistine wife (14:16); and finally Israel, weeping for the slaughtered tribe of Benjamin (20:26). The function of weeping (i.e., grief, irony, remorse, manipulation) will be explored as it relates to the oaths enacted that lead to death within the Judges account.

The story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10 has attracted substantial attention, often with an attempt to explain the seeming dissonance between the two sisters. Few, however, have tried to explain the placement of this story in Luke – why here? Part of the difficulty is that this occurs in Luke’s travel narrative, which appears at first glance to be a random collection of non-Markan units of Jesus material. Yet, Luke is a far more thoughtful author than to simply lump material together. In previous papers I have explored Luke’s travel narrative, both to understand Luke’s larger narrative and literary design (Why a travel narrative like this? Are there similar literary features in other texts?), and also to discover some order in the material presented (I have located a number of “thematic clusters” in other papers). I lay out the argument as follows: (a) a discussion of Luke’s pattern of thematic clusters, (b) a close look at the Martha/Mary story, with attention to text critical and lexical issues to identify the key issues in the text unit, and (c) a closer look at the specific discourse units found in 9:51-10:42, finding the linkages that might point to the Martha/Mary story’s role in this larger text unit. Is there a coherent set of issues that tie these first pericopes together? One particular issue raised in this study is the nature of Martha’s “ministry”: is it food preparation (i.e. waiting table) as so many assume, and almost all of the visual art/painting of the story suggests? Or is it in fact something quite different, as John N. Collins has suggested with his study of diakonia. In this paper I suggest that there is, indeed, a thematic cluster in the opening units of the travel narrative, from 9:51 right up to Martha and Mary in 10:38-42; a theme of “attributes of discipleship”: acceptance/welcome, “doing” ministry, and hearing the word. And all three of these are found in the Martha/Mary story, thus serving as a natural pleasing conclusion to this thematic cluster.

In a recent paper, John Lee approached the question of Greek idiom in the Pentateuch – and consequently the issue of interference – by categorizing LXX renderings into three groups: 1) Renderings that match the Hebrew and do not represent natural Greek, 2) renderings that match the Hebrew and are consistent with natural Greek, and 3) renderings that do not match the Hebrew and represent natural Greek. Of course, Lee observed that these categories were broad and the terminology imprecise. More importantly, it was aimed at identifying renderings free of interference, the second category being the most contentious of the three. The aim of this paper is to take up these categories (put forward in response to Soisalon-Soininen) and to interact with them in the context of recent linguistic research on linguistic borrowing and language contact. Issues of interference are often examined at the level of individual renderings, sometimes in the pairing of words, but rarely at the level of discourse, or that of the text itself as a literary product. Pertinent to this discussion is the prevailing context of analysis: Should the text be approached within the phenomenon of translation, or within the realm of style and linguistic register? In what way are these descriptive contexts compatible? A related issue has to do with the standard of comparison: What exactly constitutes “natural” Greek? After providing some background and methodological observations, this paper will examine a series of renderings and features taken from LXX Deuteronomy with the goal of further refining our use of the terms interference and style, notably, as they apply in this context.

A shiny new coin leaving a mint in the ancient world carried economic value and a message of imperial or civic propaganda. Once a coin had left the mint, however, both could occasionally be altered by the hands of others. Coins could be holed and worn or nailed to objects. Their surfaces could be smoothed and graffiti or symbols scratched onto them. Previously minted coins could be reheated and struck with different dies to create new coins from old. Coins could be defaced, and they could also be countermarked. This paper deals with how these types of altered ancient coins, whether struck with additional symbols, numbers, and abbreviations or changed in other ways, can provide an interpretative lens by which to consider the politial environment of the New Testament and content of some New Testament writings.

Genesis 15 is one of the most intriguing and artful passages within the Abrahamic narrative. In it, YHWH appears to Abram to reassure him regarding the future and pledges Himself in a unique covenant ceremony, often referred to as the covenant of the pieces. In the midst of this grand vision there appears, for the first time, a description of what is often referred to as the promised land. Verse 18 describes the territory granted to Abram and his descendants as stretching “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” From this, two problems emerge. One, this description of the “promised land” is at odds with later passages which indicate that the land of Canaan, which is much smaller in scope, is the land gifted to Israel. Two, this sweep of territory is unrealistically grand and as such, was never realized in Israelite history. Though no agreement has been reached regarding the date or context of the composition or redaction, there does seem to be an agreement that something “extra-literal” is being communicated in this passage. However, an analysis of the spatial language in this text and the role it plays in the narrative has been neglected. I agree that this territorial description was not meant to be understood literally, but rather, that the author was using a known, physical space to communicate on a conceptual level. In recent years, the critical spatial approach has highlighted the intangible aspects of space, noting that a space is not only physical, but ideational, comprised of the associations related to it. In biblical studies, the critical spatial approach has been applied to textual interpretation, suggesting that the spatial dimension of a text can serve as a vehicle for meaning. It presumes that ancient authors and their audiences used space to communicate in creative ways, at times referencing physical spaces to communicate concepts and ideas. However, in these approaches, a consideration of the literal physical space is often limited. Knowing that the ideational aspect of space is shaped by the underlying physical reality, and given the wealth of information available to us about ancient Israel’s physical spaces through historical geographical research, I suggest that a greater use of this information in critical spatial studies would enrich these readings and provide a new application for historical geographical research. Genesis 15 will serve here as an example text, in which we will consider historical geographical information in the context of a critical spatial reading. Through this, I believe we will better understand both the spatial language in this text and its function within the passage.

This paper extends Andreas Juckel’s important 2009 article, “Research on the Old Syriac Heritage of the Peshitta Gospels: A Collation of MS Bibl. Nationale Syr. 30” (Hugoye 12.1, 41-115) by collating the text of Acts contained in this important Syriac biblical manuscript against the standard Peshitta text. (Par. Syr. 30 lacks only Acts 20:30-32b, 20:37-21:1, 21:5-8, and 21:12-14.) Juckel was able to directly compare his collations with the Old Syriac Gospels, but there is no Old Syriac manuscript of Acts. This deficiency is ameliorated by comparing the variant readings in Paris Syr. 30, with variant readings from approximately forty Peshitta manuscripts, several lectionaries and the citations of Acts from approximately one hundred patristic sources. In addition, the Harklean text and margin will be included in the analysis of the variants. The analysis also considers the influence of the Greek text of Acts as a source of variant readings in Paris Syr. 30 by assessing the variants in light of early Syriac translation technique as suggested by Peter Williams in his book, Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels. This paper extends the literature on the Peshitta Syriac text of Acts and the Old Syriac text.

Paul’s quotation of Ps 44:23 MT (43:23 LXX) rests awkwardly between a rhetorical question concerning the status of imperiled believers in Rom 8:35 and the emphatic response in v. 37. Between question and response, it is unclear whether this citation reinforces the question, anticipates the answer, or simply justifies the present suffering. A glance at interpreters reveals that even when advancing a coherent structure to this section, many designate this verse as an ill-placed interruption. This paper argues that the key to understanding the logic of this citation lies not in explaining it as vicarious suffering or prophetic declaration, but instead in reading the citation within the original context of Ps 44 as a poetic narrative of suffering. While many have read this verse as a climatic exclamation of the psalmist’s willingness to suffer “on behalf of” God or “for the sake of” being among the chosen people, the verse more fittingly appears as a final cry of desperation following a long string of accusations against God’s neglect of the community. This leads the psalmist to the inevitable conclusion that God’s people suffer “because of you.” To read this verse as an accusation that “It is your fault we die all day” fits well with the repeated contrast between the community’s faithfulness in contrast to God’s drowsiness or neglect. When Ps 44:23 (MT) is read not as a redemptive or vicarious suffering, but as a true charge of divine abandonment, the function of Paul’s quotation in Rom 8:36 comes into sharper focus. The citation serves as the capstone to Paul’s questions and illustrates the conclusion that might be drawn from the apostle’s present circumstances: If present hardships can separate us from Christ, then Ps 44:23 is true for us—we have been abandoned by God in our trails. With the adversative ἀλλά of v. 37, however, Paul rejects this conclusion by insisting that through the one who loves them Christ-followers are now more than victorious against these circumstances.

This paper will discuss two related aspects – the current archaeological picture of textile production in the Iron Age Shephelah and the identification of the city of Beth-ashbea. According to 1 Chronicles 4:21, Beth-ashbea had a “house of linen workers,” which probably indicates that the town was connected with textile production. The Judahite genealogy in 1 Chronicles 4 includes a number of place names that only occur in this passage, and several of which relate to ancient crafts (e.g., the potters of Netaim and Gederah – 1 Chr 4:23). We will survey the historical geographical evidence for these towns and present our conclustions that most of these towns can be confidently located in the vicinity of the Elah and Guvrin Valleys of the Judean Shephelah.

Current Hebrew language scholarship has many assumptions about collective nouns, but few attempts at a rigorous analysis of the topic. Definitions regarding collective nouns range from words that represent a group of entities to the inclusion of mass nouns as part of the definition of a collective noun. Very few, if any, of these definitions converse with linguistic studies. The lack of a good definition of what a collective noun is resulting in confusion about what is being analyzed and how to analyze it should be analyzed. This paper applies the findings of cognitive linguistics to the question, “what is a collective noun?” It seeks to provide a definition for collective nouns. In order to do this well, two other questions must be asked. First, is a collective noun a count or a mass noun? Second, are all collectives the same or are their subcategories of collective nouns? All of this will be illustrated using biblical Hebrew. This paper seeks to help Hebrew grammarians engage with cognitive linguistics in order to help define the parameters for classifying collective nouns.

In previous publications and presentations, I have argued for the possibility that Mark cites Pss 22, 69, and 118 because they share significant vocabulary with each other and with Ps 89. Words like “scorn,” “save,” “enemies,” and “mercy” enable the use of gezerah shawah to conclude that the suffering figures of Pss 22 and 69, along with the victorious warrior of Ps 118, is in fact the “anointed one” of Ps 89. Because Mark interprets Pss 22, 69, and 118 as messianic prophecies, he quotes them and alludes to them as he narrates Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. In this paper, I apply the same method to Mark 14:18–21 and its allusions to Ps 41:9. Like Pss 22, 69, and 89, Ps 41 describes “David’s” plight with words like “save,” “enemies,” and “mercy.” In verse 2, “David” affirms that the Lord will not “hand over” the righteous to their enemy. In verse 9, however, he complains of betrayal by his friend who ate of his bread. I argue that messianic interpretation of Ps 41:9 explains why Mark’s Jesus can claim that he “goes as it is written of him,” “handed over” to the council by Judas, who is eating with him (Mark 14:18, 21; see also 3:19; 9:31; 10:33; 14:10–11, 41–42; 44), and then subsequently “handed over” by the council to Pilate (Mark 15:1, 10) and by Pilate to the executioners (Mark 15:15).

For a century, critical scholars have analyzed the Gospel and Epistles of John as works with different real and implied authors. Nevertheless, a case can be made for reading the eyewitness “disciple” of John, the anonymous voice of 1 John, and “the Elder” of 2 and 3 John as a single implied author—that is, as a single invented eyewitness “cast and recast… as the mouthpiece of different theological viewpoints” (Méndez 2020). In this presentation, I explore the implications of this thesis on the literary analysis of these figures, tracing out a preliminary literary history of the Johannine eyewitness—that is, an account of how this figure is constructed and re-constructed, adapted and re-deployed across the four texts. In the process of developing this account, the paper asks: To what extent are the successive constructions of the eyewitness in John, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John consistent with one another? How does an intertextual reading of all four Johannine texts as a single (invented) author’s “corpus” impact one’s interpretation of specific instances of authorial self-representation in these texts (e.g., the use of “we” and “I” in 1 John 1:1–5, 4:6; 2 John 1; 3 John 1, etc.)? Finally, how meaningful are inconsistencies or instabilities in the way each text models this figure—e.g., the shift between calling this figure a “disciple” and calling him an “elder”—and why might these differences exist? Beyond an interest in these questions as literary problems, the paper seeks to enhance historical-critical inquiry into the origins of the Johannine Epistles within a post-"community" framework.

In *A Thousand Plateaus*, Deleuze and Guattari present a prolific array of concepts, one of the most frequently cited of which is the rhizome. Extending its botanical definition (i.e., plants that grow underground horizontally), they conceive of rhizomes as networks of nonhierarchical difference, in contrast to hierarchical systems of capture and control, epitomized by the verticality of trees (arborescence). Since the publication of *A Thousand Plateaus* in 1980, the rhizome has grown in many directions in theology and religious studies, including connections with process, ecological, queer, and liberation theologies. Yet, some rhizomatic offshoots run counter to the anticapitalist, liberative orientation of *A Thousand Plateaus*. Not without problematic limitations, the rhizome still holds the promise of intersectional liberation for subjects, societies, and environments. After forty years, the liberating legacy of the rhizome remains relatively untapped. The relationality or “interbeing” of the rhizome is not inherently liberative. It must involve the formation of collective subjectivity, experimentation with radical political praxis, and minoritarian modes of expression.

This presentation will elucidate the relationship that Origen and Augustine maintain between the bodily and the spiritual, or the corporeal and the incorporeal, in their treatises on prayer (especially Origen’s On Prayer and Augustine’s ep. 130). The substance of the paper is an analysis of their respective views on the petitioning for corporeal things in prayer. This reading will conclude that Origen’s dependence upon a Stoic conception of the good (as comprised only of virtue) requires him to reject all petitioning for corporeal things. In so doing, he seems to divest the corporeal of significant value. By contrast, Augustine’s reliance upon a Peripatetic conception of the good, according to which external things are understood as instrumental goods, leads him to affirm the petitioning for corporeal things. He therefore provides a more holistic approach to the corporeal and the spiritual. This presentation will proceed in the following manner: (1) I will first detail the Stoic and Aristotelian contrasting conceptions of the good life (i.e., happiness or blessedness). I will show how the Stoic conception of indifferents (i.e., externals) vs. goods (i.e., virtue) informs Origen’s understanding of prayer, while the Aristotelian conception of external goods as instrumental goods informs Augustine’s view of prayer. For Origen, one should pray only for spiritual realities; by contrast, for Augustine, one may pray for the material things that are necessary for attaining those spiritual realities. (2) I will then address Origen’s and Augustine’s respective views on the Lord’s Prayer, focusing especially on the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Both theologians provide spiritual interpretations; however, Origen’s interpretation severs the corporeal from the spiritual, while Augustine’s presents the corporeal as intrinsic to attaining the spiritual. (3) I will look at Origen’s and Augustine’s attitudes toward the bodily enactment of prayer, suggesting that Origen’s insistence on the specificities of bodily form and location bespeaks a view that might be amenable to the Aristotelian understanding of externals. I will seek to reconcile his rejection of corporeal petitions with his insistence on bodily specificity. In conclusion, this presentation will suggest that Origen repudiates corporeality as indifferent to one’s spiritual aim. Rather than understanding the bodily as a means for attaining the spiritual, Origen understands the bodily as unnecessary or superfluous in prayer. In contrast, Augustine insists that the bodily is the necessary means in the prayerful attainment spiritual blessedness.

Over the past decade, our understanding of the function of oral tradition in Ancient Israel has grown dramatically. Moving beyond the notion of a “Great Divide” between illiterate orality and writing-based literacy, we now understand literature in Ancient Israel’s oral-and-written society to have been always performed, moving in and out of oral and literary forms throughout the formative period of the Hebrew Bible. Most of this scholarship, however, had concentrated on narrative and poetry, how it was performed, textualized, performed from text, re-oralized, and re-textualized. Little attempt has been made to understand is how Law functions in such a society. How do laws work in an oral-and-written society like ancient Israel? How is law “performed,” preserved, modified? This paper draws on analogies from early Iceland, since the world of the Eddic and Skaldic poets, of Nornagests þáttr, is the oral-and-written society of “Pre-exilic” Israel and Judah. On the one hand, Ancient Israel’s law comprised a subset of oral lore that was shared and developed by acknowledged experts who deliberately passed it on to successors. On the other hand, what was transmitted orally was supported by writing. Written artifacts of the law would have been created not only by the government but sometimes by private individuals, as well. The Pentateuch as we have it contains remnants of text written either to be delivered as law recital or in word-for-word imitation of the recital. Biblical legal texts are pedagogical texts, lists of hypothetical examples for training people in a common law system, compendia of minute distinctions, not codes. Further insight is also offered into how the law was “performed,” preserved, and modified.

Theophilus of Antioch looms large in the history of the New Testament canon. The Syrian Bishop’s comment on the inspiration of some would-be canonical gospels are a milestone in the development of Christian scripture. The possibility that Theophilus also composed a harmony of four (and only four) gospels has lately assumed a pivotal role in certain retellings of these second century controversies. In particular, Theophilus’ harmony is marshaled in support of an exclusive tetraevangelion already wide-spread in the mid-second century. Along similar lines, Theophilus’ harmony is hailed as the key to understanding Tatian’s canonical consciousness in composing his Gospel Diatessaron. These are castles built on sand. Speculations about Theophilus’ gospel harmony are founded on obscure testimonia in Jerome’s Letter to Algasia and the 12th century Liber Sancti Jacobi. The latter, I argue, has been misconstrued. This Latin homily does not, in fact, attribute a gospel harmony to Theophilus, but the compilation of the first tetraevangelion. The former testimony, Jerome’s passing reference to Theophilus’ harmony, is amenable to various explanations but, considering his comments in On Illustrious Men, probably arose from confusion with Tatian.

In the paper on the example of the Georgian version (GeII) of the contaminated Greek Esther I will discuss on the one hand how important proper names are for study of the Textual History of the contaminated texts and on the other hand how informative mistakes made during copying of the rare proper names are for reconstructing the transmission History of the text. I. Proper names – witnesses for the textual history of the contaminated text I.1 Various textual forms of the Book of Esther differ from each other by the proper names as well. Sometimes same person is called differently in different textual forms. Therefore, proper names are good indicators for the contamination sources. I.2 The various types of contamination occurring in GeII will be demonstrated on the example of proper names since they follow the same pattern of contamination as the remaining text. I.3 In case of proper names doublets (i.e. two names of the same person side by side) – result of contamination – severely damages coherence of the text. Therefore, when it is possible doublets are overcome in different ways. I will illustrate those means as well. II. Proper names – witnesses for the transmission history of the text. Mistakes made during copying of rare proper names show peculiarities of transmission history as well. E.g. II.1 Incorrect segmentation of the proper names in listing denotes that scripta continua was the paleographic peculiarity of the original. II.2 Copyists’ mistakes caused by misreading of rare proper names show that in the beginning of the transmission history the GeII was spread by the manuscripts written in the earlist Georgian script – Asomtavruli. These paleographic peculiarities demonstrate antiquity of the Greek original and its Georgian version.

Faith has been described as an “existential trust” or “confidence”, or even a blind leap by our reason (Bishop, 2016). Christian Existentialists like Paul Tillich have famously described it as one’s “ultimate concern” (1957). Though such terminology is shared in Islamic discourses, the Qur’an introduces faith as an activity that gains meaning in a framework of God’s Oneness. For commentators on the Qur’an like Nuṣrat Amīn Beygum (d.1983) faith (imān) is not principally an expression of our will or existential attitude, but the correct functioning of our intellect (ʿaql) - of being able to envision the self and the universe within a paradigm of a Divine Unity. Born in Iran and trained in the educational curriculum of the ḥawzah, Nuṣrat Amīn Beygum is a rarity in the field of Islamic scholarship. Being one of the few female students to have attained the degree of ijtihād (religious jurisprudence), she was also the founder of many schools for Iranian women, and most memorably the author of a major fifteen volume Qur’an tafsīr called the Makhzan al-ʿIrfān (Treasury of Divine Gnosis). Focusing on this latter work, this paper will analyze the approach the mufasirah takes in drawing out a Qur’anic epistemology and definition of faith. I will examine Nusrat Amīn’s commentary on the first three verses of Sūrah al-Baqarah: “Alif Lām Mīm. This is a book in which there is no doubt, [it is a] guide to those who have fear [of God]. Those who have faith in the unseen, and uphold prayer and out of what We have provisioned them, expend”. Translating “faith in the unseen” as “who have faith in that which is hidden from their senses”, Nuṣrat Amīn detours towards a discussion of faith and reason. Imān is not a leap by our reason, but our greatest intellectual exercise. It is a recognition of the order of the universe and the presence of God, and the respective transformation of the individual in this framework. What is noteworthy is Nuṣrat Amīn’s definition of rationality: reasoning is treated both as a tool for detecting physical phenomena and causality, and a means for moral cultivation. Rationality as intellection, I argue, is both discursive thought and an ethics - the two acting interdependently. Through Nuṣrat Amīn’s commentary, we are introduced to a dynamic, Qur’anic definition of rationality.

Chrysostom is widely considered to provide evidence for a “consistently Byzantine” form of the New Testament text. Despite the strength of this consensus, in this paper I suggest that there is a strong possibility that Chrysostom’s text of Romans, as evidenced by his Romans Homilies, may not in fact have been nearly as uniformly “Byzantine” as has often been assumed. While final conclusions on the nature of Chrysostom’s text of Romans will require a good deal of additional research, it seemed reasonable to begin by examining those places where the Byzantine text, as printed in the Robinson Pierpont (RP) edition, differs from the “initial text” found in the NA28. After the exclusions detailed in the paper, 152 of these variation units remained. I examined every repetition of each of them, both in the text of Migne and in my full transcriptions of Hagiou Saba 20, one of the earliest extant Greek manuscripts of the Romans Homilies (Pinakes suggests a ninth century date). I found that Migne’s text agreed with RP over against the NA28 in 85% of the 137 units for which unambiguous data was available, initially seeming to provide solid confirmation for the current consensus. Yet in the 131 units for which Hagiou Saba 20 provided unambiguous data, there was an agreement rate with the RP of only 53%—hardly a “uniformly Byzantine” text form. Furthermore, while Migne, along with all other printed editions of the Romans Homilies, locates the doxology at 14:24–26 (where it is consistently found in the Byzantine text-form), Saba 20 locates it at 16:25–27, a relocation supported by Syriac evidence that predates the oldest extant Greek manuscripts of the Romans Homilies by over two centuries. The Romans text of found in Chrysostom’s Romans Homilies has, in a significant number of instances, demonstrably been subject to the very same sort of transformations as have continuous text manuscripts of Romans. Furthermore, the gap between our oldest manuscripts of Romans and the time of its composition is substantially smaller than the gap between our oldest manuscripts of the Romans Homilies and the time of their initial delivery. Therefore, each manuscript of the Romans Homilies, like each continuous text manuscript of Romans, should be seen as containing a form of the text that is at least as old as the manuscript itself, but neither necessarily nor demonstrably any older than that. Given the complexity of the textual transmission of Chrysostom’s exegetical legacy, the fact that a nineteenth century printed edition of the Romans Homilies contains a consistently Byzantine form of the text seems insufficient to justify the widespread consensus that Chrysostom exegeted a “consistently Byzantine” text of Romans in the fourth century.

In 2010, we began to gather materials for a new lexicon of Mandaic. In this lecture, we shall present briefly the main accomplishments of the project to date, including the digitization of the entire corpus of Mandaic literature, the discovery of numerous new textual witnesses, the correction of hundreds of lexical entries. It is no exaggeration to say that the data processed in the course of the project have changed the face of Mandaic lexicography.

Among the advances of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta is the constant citation in the critical apparatus of the LXX, the Peshitta, the Targum and the Vulgate. While the Septuagint holds a primary place in the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, the younger versions often illustrate the complex transmission of a particular phrase in the Hebrew. They can reflect not the earliest original reading but the earliest trajectory of interpretation of the Hebrew which sometimes begins in the LXX as well. Examples from 1-2 Samuel will be adduced to illustrate the important value of Peshitta, Targum and Vulgate for arriving at the earliest possible reading of the Hebrew text.

According to Ezek 8:14, women carried out mourning rites for Tammuz in the Jerusalem temple during the late monarchical period. Many commentators take this notice at face value. This paper, however, suggests that behind v. 14 lies the practice of mourning dead kings in the First Temple. This conclusion is based on a survey of comparative evidence related to the cult of Tammuz/Dumuzi in first millennium BCE sources from Mesopotamia and the Levant. The evidence is fragmentary but some inferences can be made. In the Levant, grieving rituals for the goddess’s dead consort appear to have taken place before public pilgrimage to a temple was undertaken—a practice that helps to explain why women’s mourning rites for Adonis in Greece (adapted from West Semitic models) typically did not take place in sacred space. Also relevant are Neo-Assyrian texts, as it is often claimed that religious practices in Judah came under Assyrian influence during the late monarchical period. A survey of ritual texts including SAA 3 38, K 164 and related material suggests that rites connected to the deceased lover of Ishtar did not closely resemble what Ezek 8:14 describes. Moreover, in both Assyria and the Levant rites that invoked Tammuz/Dumuzi took place in sacred sites in which the principle deity was a goddess, unlike the temple in Jerusalem. Given these difficulties, if Ezek 8:14 has any anchorage in First Temple liturgies, it appears to be an allusion to some other practice. Comparative evidence shows substantial associations between the cult of Tammuz/Dumuzi and honoring the dead. How to locate this in proximity to the Jerusalem temple? The critique of Ezek 43:7-9 provides a clue. What did take place in the Jerusalem temple during the monarchical period were observances connected to the death of Judean kings. In this connection, there is evidence for the importance of mourning women in royal funerals on material objects such as the Ahiram sarcophagus from Phoenicia. The author of Ezekiel 8 wrote under the influence of a priestly theology that operated with a binary that strongly contrasted life and death. For this reason, the presence of the royal dead in proximity to the temple was considered an abomination and a sign of the First Temple’s illegitimacy. In the case of v. 14, funerary rites for the kings of Judah were regarded as tantamount to the worship of Tammuz, an underworld deity. This is in keeping with the allusive character of the visionary survey found in 8:5-17, which depicts cultic practices unacceptable to Ezekiel as forms of idolatry.

Although the majority of Eve’s history in art is, like academic scholarship of the garden narrative, dominated by scenes of Creation, Temptation, and “Fall”, and to a certain degree, Expulsion, there are numerous examples of visual renderings of the first woman outside of Eden that can help to open the eyes of contemporary readers of Genesis 2–4 to the complexity of Eve’s maternity. Images of the first parents beyond Paradise follow relatively set iconographic patterns; from the early medieval period, we find evidence of Eve portrayed in a maternal role either at the birth of one or both of her first two sons, Cain and Abel, holding or nursing one or both of these children, or in a state of mourning for the death of Abel at the hands of Cain. While this paper does not seek to offer a comprehensive account of the visual traditions surrounding the depiction of Eve as a breastfeeding or as a mourning mother. Eve’s appearance as a mother with her infants initially seems to have developed as part of the iconographic tradition of The Labours of Adam and Eve, and thus interpretatively speaking functions as a visualisation of Gen. 3.16. Interestingly, these images of Eve with a small child or children frequently appear following the Expulsion in the majority of pictorial narrative schema, thus conflating the tasks verbally described by God in Gen. 3.16-19 and the reality of these as they take place outside of Eden. Though the representation of Adam’s labour, which primarily takes the form of him working the land with tools, or sometimes oxen, bears no relation to the text of Genesis 4, envisioning Eve’s task as childcare aligns with vv. 1 and 2. Thus, while the images of the first man at work are embellishments on the details supplied in ch. 4, imaging Eve with her offspring is an expansion rooted in the Bible account. This paper offers a brief investigation of some early representations of Eve nursing her children as she is depicted in the Moutier Grandval Bible, the Ashburnham Pentateuch, the Junius manuscript, and the potential they have for expanding notions of Eve’s womanhood, both historically and today.

Ordinal numbers (e.g., first, second) express the property of having a certain position in an order relation. Temporal phrases with ordinals designate an interval in a particular position on a timeline, e.g., בַּיּוֹם הַשֵּׁנִי “on the second day”. Remarkably, in BH the day of the month (henceforth ‘date’) is never expressed with ordinal numbers. Dates are frequently expressed by a bare numerical phrase (BNP), consisting solely of a cardinal, as in בְּעֶשְׂרִים וַחֲמִשָּׁה לֶאֱלוּל (Neh 6:15). Although the BNP is already in use in Classical BH (CBH), it only becomes widespread in LBH. This paper is a diachronic examination of the BNP in the Bible, comparing its frequency and distribution in LBH to earlier CBH and to Hebrew of the Second Temple period. A proposal regarding its interpretation and historical origin is presented based on this data. In CBH the BNP is mostly used with the first day of the month. Although the few dates from the second to the tenth in the CBH corpus are all BNPs, the much more frequent dates from the 11th onward are mostly appositive phrases (APs), with a cardinal followed by yom, e.g., בְּאַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ (Ex 12:18) (Rothstein and Moshavi, unpublished ms.) In LBH there is no change with respect to dates up to the tenth. With higher ordinalities, however, the BNP has gained statistical dominance, surpassing both the AP as well as a new construction formerly used only to express regnal calendar years: a construct phrase (CP) with yom as head and a cardinal as annex, e.g., בְּיוֹם אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר לְחֹדֶשׁ אֲדָר (Esth 9:15). In the Dead Sea Scrolls the BNP is almost universal for dates, and it is the only construction employed in the Judaean Desert documents in this context. Although the BNP appear at first glance to be an elliptical version of a construction containing yom, there is no suitable candidate from which it can be derived. The AP, unlike the BNP, is never used with lower ordinalities. The CP is used with both lower and higher ordinalities, but is not used with yom until long after the appearance of the BNP. It is proposed here that the BNP is not an elliptical construction but rather a label for an abstract entity, functioning in a manner equivalent to a proper name of the date. The data suggest that the BNP was initially used only for the first day of the month, probably as an elliptical version of the archaic phrase יום אחד “the first day” (Gen 1:5). The cardinal in the elliptical phrase was then reanalyzed as a label, enabling it to spread upward to lower and then higher ordinalities, and eventually push out other constructions. Its increasing supremacy in the Second Temple period can be explained by its economy, and, most importantly, its bringing about a unified counting paradigm for all the days of the month.

Although regular Hellenistic Greek would require people to be filled with something (joy, sorrow, etc.), Rev 6:11 contains a sample of lexical ambiguity, as the verb plēroun has people (martyrs) as subject but is followed by no complement. Martyrs are simply fulfilled or completed. But in what sense: numerical, as a reference to their life course, or descriptive of their moral character? The article raises serious doubts regarding the first two (quantitative) options and takes issue with the word (number, rarely course) supplied by translators, lexicographers, and commentators alike. The objections raised are methodological, semantic, syntactic, and contextual. Further, the article suggests that it is from a moral-spiritual perspective that the martyrs must be (qualitatively) completed. In order to probe into this hypothesis, the article visits numerous samples of Hellenistic Greek against the linguistic formula in Rev 6:11. Inter-textual witnesses that many researchers build their quantitative view upon are either anachronical or non-Greek documents. On the other hand, the qualitative view on plēroun is supported by good pragmatic, inter-textual, and co-textual evidence. The implication of the study for lexicography in general is, once more, that lexical semantics becomes reliable and sound only at the intersection between pragmatics, syntax, and co-text.

The disjointed nature of Jeremiah’s oracles against Babylon (MT 50-51) has proven a formidable challenge for any scholar seeking to uncover the internal logic of these chapters. Those who have offered organizational schema have typically done so via rhetorical-critical (Bellis 1995, Kessler 2003, Lundbom 2004) or structuralist analyses (Aitken 1984), but the widely variable content and structure of the smaller literary units within Jer 50-51 often frustrate such attempts. The present study offers an alternative methodology for determining the organizational logic of Jeremiah’s oracles against Babylon by considering the possibility of oral performance and focusing on the shifting discursive context assumed by each oracle (suggested in Holroyd 2017). Specifically, this paper focuses on the oracles in Jer 50:11-46, arguing that they follow a progressive pattern: two discrete prophecies of doom against Babylon alternating between indirect and direct address (vv. 11-16, 21-27, 29-32, 35-40), followed by an oracle of hope addressed to Israel (vv. 17-20, 28, 33-34). At the conclusion of the fourth such cycle, the pattern is intentionally subverted through the strategic use of doublet material from elsewhere in Jeremiah, heightening the rhetorical effect of Israel and Babylon’s surprising inversion in 50:41-46. Towards the establishment of the above conclusion, the present paper is divided into four sections. Section one highlights the role of doublets, allusive texts, and especially shifts in address as internal clues to the determination of discrete literary units within Jer 50-51. Section two establishes and enumerates the literary units within Jer 50:11-46 according to the criteria determined in section one. Section three employs the heuristic tools of Performance Criticism in order to demonstrate an organizational pattern of small, three-oracle clusters (contra Reimer 1993), characterized by rhythmic and predictable shifts in addressee, mnemonically linked together using catchwords (cf. Lundbom 1999). Section four highlights the rhetorical effect of Jer 50:41-46 in light of said pattern. Here, I argue that the repetitive nature of these discursive shifts establishes the audience’s expectation that an oracle of hope directly addressed to Israel would follow the pair of Babylon-addressed oracles in 50:35-40. Instead, what follows is a verbatim quotation of an oracle against Israel from 6:22-24. The initial subversion of audience expectation, coupled with the delayed announcement of the addressee and the perplexing reference to “a people coming from the North” creates a dramatic rhetorical tension that heightens the catharsis of verse 42’s concluding vocative. The dramatic effect of this proclamation is further celebrated in vv. 44-46, which reverses the chapter’s recurring pastoral metaphor through another doublet (49:19-21). By highlighting the importance of direct and indirect address within the context of oral performance (Culler 1985), this paper suggests that the organizational logic in Jer 50-51 may be found within a “performance mode of thought” (Doan and Giles 2005). Furthermore, the discrepancies between the MT and LXX in Jeremiah’s OAN further suggests that this dialectical relationship between literacy and orality is an ongoing phenomenon within the scribal practices of ancient Israel (Niditch 1997, Person 1998, Ben Zvi 2000).

What can we learn about sexual violence when we read the Book of Samuel? Taking the historical difference between our societies today and Biblical Israel into account, we still see that there are structures these crimes are embedded in, which resemble very much the structures we can analyze today: the linkage between sexuality and access to social power, male bonding enabling and concealing acts of sexual violence, and the tendency to silence the victims are perhaps the most prominent of these features. Starting from the story of Tamar and Amnon (2 Samuel 13), the paper will show that sexual violence is closely connected with David’s biography as well as with the Davidic family. Violence against women is part and parcel of the power play between men and – on the level of the narration – a means of characterizing and criticizing the arising dynasty. Political and sexual power go hand in hand, the access to the agent position concerning sexual acts is limited to men. And David’s own transgression in taking Bathsheba and murdering her husband Uriah is the starting point of violence (“the sword”), including sexual violence, from within his family as the prophet Nathan states in 2 Samuel 12:10. But even if diegetic characters in the narrated world command silence – as Abshalom does in 2 Samuel 13:20 – the biblical text breaks this silence in telling the story of Tamar and Amnon. Against the tendency to conceal sexual violence, that is still vivid in our churches as well as in our societies today, the biblical canon keeps this issue in mind. It tells about the victims and identifies the perpetrators; it uncovers the structures of violence and will not get tired to name injustice. From a narratological and a didactic perspective, the paper will explore why it can be fruitful to read these stories today: in religious communities, in class, and in other groups who want to talk about this subject without giving it a therapeutic setting. Biblical stories about violence can help us to keep the issue in mind against all tendencies to cover it up. They offer the possibility of talking about violence and, at the same time, balancing proximity and distance to this painful subject.

Cyprian of Carthage has no doubt about the status of the so-called deuterocanonical books that he cites. For him, they are divine Scripture, given for the instruction, correction, and exhortation of God’s people. In this paper, I consider his use of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), a book he sometimes appears to confuse with Ecclesiastes, often attributing quotations from it to Solomon. Although Tertullian only cites one text from Sirach, Cyprian uses it across all areas of his pastoral concern. One passage reveals the divine truth of Christ’s origin, others are concerned with the order and unity of the church—honouring priests and rejecting heretical baptism. Warnings from Sirach against listening to the wicked are likewise applied to avoiding the words of heretics and schismatics. Cyprian’s focus on discipline and repentance in the Christian life is underscored by texts that emphasise the beneficial effects of trials and the necessity of perseverance. Particularly significant is the influence of Sirach (along with Tobit) on Cyprian’s understanding of the salutary effects of giving alms. Examining Cyprian’s use of Sirach gives us the opportunity to appreciate the book’s contribution to Christian theology. It also provides insight into how the early church interpreted and applied the Old Testament as a whole.

Hebrew lyric poetry, like that contained in the book of Psalms, relies heavily on voicing and a rhythm of association to construct meaning. This vocality is also leveraged to call to mind social spaces and to position individual and groups within those spaces. Approaching the Songs of the Ascents (Pss 120–134) as a voiced genre, reveals how vocality contributes to the sense of movement within this lyric sequence. Many scholars have sensed this progression and attempted to root it in literal and historical movements, festivals, and pilgrimages. The Songs of the Ascents did arise in a specific historical context; however, knowing the details of their origination and canonization is not necessary for appreciating the rhetorical power of the voicing and how voicing elicits a sense of space. The voicing of Pss 120–134 conveys movement—from the desperate cries arising from the tents of Kedar to the loud praise of the community and Yahweh’s blessing from Zion; this movement is facilitated by the voicing of these psalms. The wicked are directly addressed in the opening psalm but they are distant memory in the concluding psalms of the sequence. As the oppression of the wicked fades in these psalms, the communal voices and address increases. The vocality of the Songs of the Ascents—with shifts in and out of prayer and testimony, both communal and personal voicing, and the inclusion of quotations from Yahweh, the nations, and previous generations—relocate those uttering these psalms from the margins to the congregation of the people of Yahweh. The juxtaposition of voices and shifts in address contribute to the movement and the meaning the Songs of the Ascents; the vocality of this lyric sequence is dynamic and creates dialectics of distance and proximity, presence and absence. This paper will explore how, in the lyric sequence of Pss 120–134, the voicing of the individual psalms evoke different spaces and social locations and the rhythm of association or sequencing of these psalms evoke the sense of movement between these spaces.

After the middle of the 14th century, a theory emerged among the speculative mystics of the so-called “School of Ibn ʿArabī” thinkers. It seems to have had a very active life among philosopher-theologians (mutakallimūn), philosopher-sages (ḥukamāʾ), and speculative mystics (ʿurafā) in the Persianate or Shiʿite milieu, including thinkers from the late Seljuq, Timurid, Safavid, Qajar and Pahlavi periods, including figures such as ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshānī (d. ca. 1335), Maḥmūd Shabistarī (d. 1347), Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. 1385), Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 1636?), Mullā Hādī Sabziwārī (d. 1873), and Mahdī Ilāhī Qumshaʾī (d. 1973). In my preliminary research, I have termed it the Three-Book Theory, because it describes a complex relationship between the three basic books of life: the book of the cosmos (al-kitāb al-āfāqī), the book of the soul (al-kitāb al-anfusī), and the book of the Quran (al-kitāb al-qurʿānī). The Quranic point of departure for this Three-Book Theory is one key verse, 41:53, which indicates a relationship between the ayāt of the Quran and the āyāt of the cosmos and soul, the word āyāt carrying the (deliberately) ambiguous or double meaning of “signs” as well as “verses”. Although mainstream commentators, like Zamakhsharī or Bayḍāwī in the classical period, do not speculate at all about the “books” indicated by these “verses-signs”, the mystics of the School of Ibn ʿArabī make this verse an occasion for a wide range of discussions on the structure and levels of the soul, the structure and levels of the cosmos, and the structure and levels within the book of revelation, indicating complex correspondences between these three domains. The implicit claim of these mystics in describing these correspondences is that the “exegete” cannot truly understand one domain without viewing it also in terms of the others. This paper focuses on the correspondence (ta‏ṭbīq) theory developed by Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (1385), a scholar-mystic whose tafsir, al-Muḥīṭ al-aʿẓam, is perhaps the most significant single work for the development of the Three-Book Theory. Āmulī places his own work in the line of the speculative Quranic commentaries of the School of Ibn ʿArabī and the School of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, but he explicitly adds principles and governing rules of interpretation that earlier scholars had left out. I clarify, in particular, how Āmulī’s method solves interpretive dilemmas found in the mainstream exegetical tradition concerning the words of God (kalimāt Allāh), including the descriptions of the Prophet Jesus or the Shiʿite Imams.

Textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible is in a period of transition. The traditional search for the Urtext has been qualified by some and abandoned by others, and even the definition of textual criticism is open for debate. A number of scholars have in recent years attempted to heed George Brooke’s call for a more “holistic account of the evidence” (idem, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Demise of the Distinction between Higher and Lower Criticism,” in Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method [EJL 39; Atlanta: SBL, 2013], 16). The wide range of proposals that have been put forward, however, attest more to the diversity of the field than to its commitment to re-orient the text-critical task in a unified way. There has even been disagreement in the past ten years especially over the very nature of our objects of study, with scholars debating what exactly biblical books are. This paper suggests that the manuscript evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls offers the best place to begin such an holistic re-orientation, and that the Community Rule, or Serekh ha-Yahad, tradition is particularly instructive. The Serekh is attested in thirteen manuscripts that were composed over a relatively short amount of time, and many of them are exceptionally well-preserved. These manuscripts thus offer a unique and important window into the earliest stages of composition and development. This paper explores the textual pluriformity in the Serekh tradition, and suggests that these texts, through their pluriformity, attest to a debate over the ontology of literature in early Judaism. More specifically, 1QS, through its heightened use of the term ‘emet, “truth,” is depicted as something altogether distinct from 4QSd, which contains more references to the Torah. These respective patterns of language act to present each manuscript in line with two separate bodies of revelatory knowledge, and it is suggested that these ancient views on the nature of the Serekh ought to be taken seriously in our contemporary discussions of the ontology of biblical books.

Ancient sources that mention the presence of respectable women at symposia are few in number. Usually the symposium served as an occasion for citizen men to drink and socialize with other men, whereas women—if they joined the gathering—were present for the men’s entertainment. In the exceptional case of citizen women taking part in a symposium they are expected to stay quiet and to attract no attention (e.g. Plutarch, Sept. sap. conv. 150–55). Interestingly, a small number of sources narrate of citizen women not remaining quiet at a symposium—either on their own initiative (Diogenes Laertius 6.97–98) or because of a preceding male provocation (Demosthenes 19.196–199; cf. Cicero, Verr. 2.1.66–67). This kind of active female behavior causes a gender role conflict that makes the men involved try and restore the social order by undertaking a violent attempt to treat the free born woman like a prostitute. The incidents are accompanied by strong affective responses on the part of the women as well as the men: Male wrath and female fear add to the vividness of the narrations. My paper explores both, the narrative structure of the texts ins question as well as the social structure that the narrations presuppose. The analysis sheds new light upon the Lukan scene of the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet in the house of the pharisee (Luke 7:36–52). Here, a woman joins a symposium, actively approaches the main guest, and is subsequently treated like a sinner by the host. But differently from the Graeco-Roman sources the text does not bring up the woman’s fear. Instead, the Lukan Jesus underscores the love and thankfulness that her behavior displays.

The Muslim accusation that the Jews changed the Torah falls under an overarching narrative of Jewish response to the messenger of Islam. On the one hand Muslim writers claimed attestation for the messenger in the Torah. On the other, writers accused the Jewish leaders of altering or erasing references to the messenger from the Torah. Later forms of the accusation added additional components, but the story of Jewish rejection of Muslim claims for the messenger has maintained its appeal up to modern times.

This lecture takes the interpretation of the Psalms as a test-case to re-address the question of Paul’s Jewish context. His self-professed affiliation with the Pharisees will be examined in light of contemporary Judaism, with special attention to Philo of Alexandria, his direct contemporary who shares his diaspora background.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Emerging Scholarship in Biblical Studies.

In my presentation I will tackle the issue of change in cultural evolution, asking how we can account for the velocity in which cultures change, in comparison to biological processes. The solution, which lies in the nature of human cognition, benefits from studies and concepts that were developed in the study of culture, more than concepts from the realm of biology. The first part of my presentation will lay out the theoretical basis: starting with the cognitive-semiotic Decoupling theory, that explains the innovative nature of human cognition, and building on Merlin Donald’s theory of the evolution of human cognition and the cultures that these cognition created. The place of cultural change has to do with the interaction between the cognitions laid out by Donald, especially the transition from the fringes to the institutional, and from the mimetic to the theoretic. In the second part of the presentation I will discuss a case study - the crystallization of the rabbinic Judaism and its rise to hegemony from a cultural-evolutionary perspective, building on the theoretical approach described in the first part of the paper.

It is no secret that narrative characters with physical “abnormalities” generally serve a narrative function. Besides their descriptions that already imply a physical norm that they somewhat deviate from, they come to us in – at times not very accessible – specific cultural and narrative settings. As this is true for any narrative, (NT) healing accounts offer yet another dimension to this since they depict a transformation of the dis/abled characters, a move from dis- to ability. Since this “negotiation” of deviating bodies is on a story-level performed by a mainly physically active Jesus, his corporality plays an additional role, if only as a contrast foil. Similarly important are other characters described with physical traits that might not be distinctively classed dis/abilities. On this account, in the following the term “dis/ability” with its forward slash will designate any kind of physical deviance employed by the narrative that can only be defined in contrast to a highly contingent and culturally variable normalizing bodily scheme. With each narrative it is therefore important to analyze context, function and norm of its representations of dis/abilities by a) examining what exactly is implied to be “abnormal” physicality, also with regard to other descriptions of physicality within the same narrative, including the physically healing Jesus; by b) tracing those descriptions and their physical and social range of meaning historically; by c) questioning how and why the narrative uses these representations of “deviating bodies” and by d) revising what the narrative tries to convey and how the representations of physicality serve this purpose. In the Gospels these characters and their stories are mainly employed to show and sustain Jesus as a powerful healing character. But more than that, by adhering to the method outlined above, we can see that representations of deviating bodies serve each narrative’s specific function within the Gospel’s storyline and its theological claims which changes from narrative to narrative. Furthermore, while the “healing” is often regarded in a binary body scheme, with sickness on one and health on the other end, I want to challenge this perspective and assume that these “deviating” characters might provoke another body norm within their literary function and socio-cultural context. To demonstrate what my approach exactly entails, I want to analyze Mark 3:1–6. After taking a closer look at its macro context and narrative structure I want to turn to this narrative’s three physical characters and its representations of dis/ability before I finally outline a few conclusions.

The morphosyntax of ditransitive constructions in Syriac is considerably complex. The differential object marker is historically derived from the goal marker l-. Objects can also be marked differentially by verbal object suffixes, generally in combination with l-. By examining illustrative examples from the Pšiṭta, I show these strategies interact differently in two types of ditransitive constructions, namely the indirective and the double object type, which are also linked with particular verbal classes. l- does not have the exact same function across these types, one is a role-based strategy, the other differential. There is notable overlap, especially in the expression of highly salient human referents. At the same time, using alternative prepositions can be considered a type of discriminatory marking of the recipient role.

In his classic work on historical geography The Land of the Bible, Yohanan Aharoni outlined the principles for site identification: (1) location of the proper general vicinity in accordance with the ancient sources; (2) analysis of the name, its development and its preservation in the area; (3) the archaeological evidence.” While much has been made of the competing archaeological claims by et-Tell and el-Araj for the identification of ancient Bethsaida-Julias, less attention has been given to the first two principles; namely, the topographical details provided by ancient historical sources and the evidence from toponymics. In this paper we will look at Josephus’ detailed account of the battle near Julias on the Beteiha plain recorded in Life 389-406. In addition, we will consider whether the toponym el-Araj itself might witness to an ancient memory that remembered the site as New Testament Bethsaida.

Scholars have attempted to identify the transgression that made Onan, the second son of Judah in Genesis 38, deserve a divine death sentence. Edward Ullendorf, for example, argues that Onan's transgression was coitus interruptus. While other scholars, like David Cotter, insists that the transgression was the failure to fulfill the “levirate marriage”. Although Ullendorf and Cotter differ in identifying the form of action, both agree that it was a transgression or a condemnable sin. Instead of looking at Onan’s action as an act of transgression, I argue that Onan’s action is a form of resistance toward a hegemonic structure. By utilizing postcolonial approaches, I aim to demonstrate that Onan's spilling of seed is an act of "sly civility." It functions as resistance toward the hegemonic culture of “anonymous collectivity” that was manifested in the form of the Levirate responsibility. In supporting the argument, I will structure the paper in three parts. First, I will survey the earlier scholarship of the Onan narrative. Further, I will discuss the notion of sly civility suggested by Homi Bhabha and the concept of anonymous collectivity suggested by Albert Memmi. Finally, I will read the Onan’s narrative in the lens of “sly civility” and “anonymous collectivity.” By spilling his semen on the ground, Onan covertly resists the oppression of his father in particular, and his society in general.

How ethical would a god be that commands us to sacrifice our children to him/her? Would we worship such a god? It would seem pretty straightforward to answer with a simple “yes” or “no” in a narrative seemingly created to do just that. Yet, the Akedah remains a complex and challenging story, appearing to defy consistent interpretation. It is interpreted in various ways: as Abraham both passing or failing the test; as both a condemnation of or as a perplexing praising of human sacrifice; as pushing our understanding of the range of God’s ethical nature; and, as deeply questioning the entrance into a covenanted relationship with a deity such as this one. In texts such as Yael Feldman’s outstanding Glory and Agony – Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative (2010), we are challenged by her honest presentation of the manner in which our theological interpretations of the Akedah have evolved within the ideology of Judaism…even to the existential limits represented by accepting, for example, the death of a child during the Shoah as a fulfillment of God’s command to Abraham. There are those that would say it is a command that we must embrace at appropriate times. How to deal with a god that demands this? This paper will address various hermeneutical responses to the Akedah (Gen 22:1-19), while suggesting a different approach and solution to the structure, purpose, origin, and ethical framework of this challenging story. It suggests questions and answers that have long generated various interpretations of the Akedah. What is God commanding in this test? What does Abraham stand to lose? What is the symbolism of Isaac? When and why was the story written? Is there a pre-Israelite source for this story? Does Abraham pass the test? Was Isaac sacrificed, and then resurrected? Is the story only a condemnation of human sacrifice? Why does Abraham descend the mountain alone? It then examines the language and context of the story, looking closely at the content of the story itself. What is the nature of the test? What is God’s response to Abraham’s efforts, i.e., what does God actually say and think, at least as far as the author is concerned? God’s responses support that there is an underlying patriarchal narrative driving the action. It is a test of Abraham’s obedience to God, a test that Abraham passes. God rewards him with progeny and blessing. Nevertheless, this suggestion requires that Isaac not be included in this pre-story. He enters only later, via the efforts of a redactor. This pre-story should be placed at the beginning of Abraham’s narratives. These other stories would be read as deriving their traditions from this original text. Our received text would have been edited to impose an ethical standard to oppose human sacrifice, and to introduce Isaac into the story, maintaining God’s promises to Abraham. A brief moment of speculation is to suggest that this later introduction of Isaac serves to link the Isaac tradition with a previously separate Abrahamic tradition.

The extraordinary and dramatic biblical story of the exchange between Saul and the medium of Endor (I Sam 28:4-24), who raises the spirits of the dead, has inspired the imagination of many poets, writers, playwrights and painters. Examining a variety of works from modern Hebrew literature, shows that the various creators did not consider the medium who dealt with "forbidden" magic, a negative figure. The woman considered in the Bible as a "sinner," who should be condemned to death (Leviticus 22:26), is described in many modern literary works as an empathetic, warm, and compassionate woman who heals the souls of oppressed people. She is sometimes described as a Saul's lover and sometimes as a modern medium, or as a contemporary spiritual-psychological therapist. In some of the literary works the tendency to 'purify' the medium's character from the negative stereotype that clings to her as a 'witch' is evident. Through the recasting of the medium, the various works expressed reservations about the negative, sometimes chauvinistic conceptions that were accepted in Western culture in relation to the witch's image. The lecture will discuss a variety of works from Hebrew literature written from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. The literary works are 'modern midrashim' and, like the early Midrashic authors, writers and poets have also retold the biblical storylines in order to represent the dilemmas of life in their time.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Asian American Interpretation.

The Septuagint studies in the book of Daniel afford the rare opportunity to investigate two parallel versions for the entire book, namely, the Old Greek (OG-Dan) and Theodotion (Th-Dan). This study explores recensional exegesis, seeking to analyze the contextual additions extant in the two versions, within the framework of a translation-revision relationship. Previous recensional studies take little account of the contextual additions in the recensional units which have been investigated and make no attempt at systematization. Consequently, the need for such an inquiry, together with the fortunate situation to benefit form a complete Theodotionic text which reflects a recension, provide the ideal context for this study.

The Ludi Saeculares have long been viewed as a key symbolic moment in the reign of Augustus. Scholarship on the Games is particularly rich because scholars have access both to a large inscription (ILS 5050) recording provisions for the festival as well as elements of the ritual itself, in addition to other sources. While the inscription has been plumbed for insights both into Roman religious practice and the relationship of the imperial family to the Senate and the state (Galinsky, 1998; Putnam, 2000; Thomas, 2011), the nature of the inscription itself has seldom been directly explored. This paper explores the inscription from the perspective of prospective memory, arguing that the inscription served to shape future celebrations of the ludi saeculares, rather than merely commemorating the Augustan games. To some extent, the inscription itself announces this purpose: it records that when Gaius Silanus raised the question of a permanent record of the festival ad conservandam memoriam, the Senate responded by decreeing a bronze and a marble column ad futuram memoriam tantae religionis. The prospective nature of the Augustan decree may be best revealed by comparison with the inscription (ILS 5050a) recording the Severan celebration of the Ludi Saeculares, held ‘on schedule’ 220 years after the Augustan, in 203 CE. Unlike the Augustan inscription, these acta seem determined to be commemorative; they give lists of names of people present in meetings and ceremonies and a host of minor details such as the purple fringes on the emperor’s toga that aim to preserve a record of what happened; it also includes a copy of the carmen saeculare composed for the occasion. By contrast, the surviving portion of the Augustan inscription mentions far fewer individuals and focuses attention on dates and time of sacrifices, the honorand of each ceremony and the items sacrificed, and the exact words of the prayer for each sacrifice of the ludi saeculares. Regarding the Secular Hymn, the inscription says only “carmen composuit Q. Hor[at]ius Flaccus”; we possess the text only through the corpus of Horace’s poetry. The sparse detail of the inscription suggests that it was not intended to create a visual image of the ceremony for those who did not live in Rome or whose lifespans did not coincide with the performance of the games. Rather, it projected an image of the ceremony into the future for subsequent generations, and the success of this enterprise can be read in the details of the Severan ceremony. The Augustan inscription, by consigning the rituals of the previous celebrations to oblivion and offering an authoritative version of how the ceremony should proceed on subsequent occasions, thus played an especially critical role in shaping memory for the future.

There have been many studies on the developments in prophecy in the late Second Temple period, but diachronic changes in the depiction of the prophetic figures themselves have not gained similar attention. This paper will explore the various occupational dimensions of prophetic figures in late Second Temple Jewish literature. Prophetic figures are found in many literary sources from this period, but here I will focus on three corpora of texts from slightly different periods. The majority of the depictions of prophets in the Hebrew Bible are either pre-Exilic, Exilic, or from the early Persian period. The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls depict prophetic figures from a slightly later, late Persian/early Hellenistic, period. Finally, the compositions associated with the Qumran movement (e.g. pesharim, Hodayot, and Damascus Document), depict prophetic figures through the lenses of late Hellenistic/early Roman periods. By comparing the different depictions of prophetic figures in these sources it is possible to detect how the depiction of prophetic figures changes over time. Prophetic figures are not portrayed only as conducting activities associated with court prophets, but specific aspects more commonly related to, for example, priests and Ancient Near Eastern scribal scholars are included in their characteristics. Such changes may reflect shifts in the societal roles and structures in the underlying Jewish societies and their continual engagement with the wider Mediterranean cultural sphere.

The text of 2 Samuel 21:19 states in summary fashion that a certain Elhanan, son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite, killed Goliath the Gittite in battle (thus, in apparent contradiction to the famous extended pericope of 1 Sam 17 in which David slays the Philistine). While engaging in some text-critical analysis, the majority of previous scholarship has devoted more time to identifying other potential solutions to this problem. For example, many see this verse as a survival of a more ancient hero tradition which was later credited to David in 1 Sam 17 (thus McCarter [1984]). Alternatively, some attempt to view either ‘David’ as a dynastic title (Honeyman [1948]) or see ‘Goliath’ as a generic term used by the Israelites to refer to a giant (Tsumura [2019]). It is argued here, however, that all the text-critical options have not been fully exhausted, and that a satisfactory reconstruction may yet be achieved. The reading defended here provides a closer account for the spurious 'ōrgîm ‘weavers’ inserted after Elhanan’s name. Although typically viewed as secondary, a more precise mechanism for its rise has not been offered. It is further argued that the gentilic bêt hallaḥmi ‘Bethlehemite’ should be viewed as part of the original text on the basis of a comparison with other onomastic data from 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. The critical relationship between bêt hallaḥmi ‘Bethlehemite’ (2 Sam 21:19) and 'et laḥmi ‘Lahmi’ (1 Chron 20:5) is next examined, and a model for the secondary rise of this apparent personal name is offered. Issues that are considered include the phonological plausibility of a personal name ‘Lahmi’, and the balancing of intrinsic and transcriptional probabilities that could yield the best reconstruction.

According to Revelation, where do Israel’s people stand in the New Jerusalem? As is well known, Israel’s classical prophets, in whose lineage John sees himself standing, devote their greatest eloquence to picturing their people victorious, joyfully reclaiming the holy city from foreign enemies—in, for example, such famous passages as Isaiah 60ff; Ezekiel 36ff; Zechariah 14, Psalm 96, to which John often alludes. This talk focuses primarily on his description of the inhabitants of New Jerusalem (Rev. 21-22). Starting from 7: 4-17, the Apocalypse describes and differentiates two distinct groups within the eschatological city: first, the 144,000, consisting of 12,000 from each of Israel’s tribes, and, second, the “innumerable multitude” redeemed from all the nations. As we’ll see, John pictures the latter as people “of the nations” who, after witnessing and experienced the terrors of God’s wrath, have repented of their sins, which the Lamb’s sacrifice allows them to expunge. Consequently, humbled by punishment, they have turned to worship Israel’s God. While characterizing this “multitude” as very different from Israel’s people, the Apocalypse follows earlier prophesies, suggesting that these survivors from “the nations,” having “seen the light,” will be allowed to enter the New Jerusalem. This reading helps clear away centuries of interpretation prompted by Christian commentators who insist that John’s final vision of the city is a “universalist” one, and therefore depicts the “innumerable multitude” parading triumphantly into the eschatological holy city, which has been prepared for the “new Israel,” that is “the Church.” On their reading, Revelation anticipates “the conversion of the nations.” Our reading demonstrates instead what the Apocalypse anticipates, on the contrary, is the coercion—or, perhaps better, the repentance—of the nations. Those among “the nations” who survive, then, are those who have turned in terror to worship Israel’s God, recognizing that he alone can save them. When we critically assess the exegetical strategies used to make the “Christian” case work, we note, first, at least two crucial passages describing the New Jerusalem in Rev. 21-22, in which influential Christian commentators have chosen to follow the lectio dificilior of the Greek text, which better serves to support their interpretation. Second, such interpreters simply merge the two groups that John carefully differentiates, explaining that, in effect, when entering into the New Jerusalem, Israel simply disappears into the “innumerable multitude.” Third, here, as elsewhere, they read in reverse the prophetic oracles to which John alludes, thus inverting their meaning. In all these ways, as in others illuminated by our panel, reframing Revelation as a Jewish book clarifies—and simplifies--our understanding of the Apocalypse.

The Assyrian siege of Jerusalem is one of the most prominent historical events in the history of an-cient Israel. Accordingly, its mention is frequently found in the biblical and extra-biblical literature. In the Hebrew Bible alone, narratives of the siege were incorporated into the book of Isaiah, the books of Kings, and in the books of Chronicles. These stories have become commenly known in the history of research as the Hezekiah-Isaiah-narratives. They are comprised of a series of three stories about the political and individual fate of the Judean king Hezekiah and illustrate how he receives advice and support from the prophet Isaiah. This paper argues that the large number of textual connections bet-ween the Hezekiah-Isaiah-narratives and other texts in the former and latter prophets shows that pro-cesses of innerbiblical exegesis should be taken into consideration in an interpretation of Isa 36–39 / 2. Kgs 18–20. Viewing the midrash-esque style of updating and commentating on the texts is particularly important for understanding the theological functions of the narratives. Additionally, it provides us with a method for determining before and after which texts the Hezekiah-Isaiah-narratives should be chronologically dated. The paper concludes that each of the three stories has its own literary growth and that the oldest parts of the first story can be dated to the second half of the 7th century BCE and not to shortly before the fall of Jerusalem as many have argued. Lastly, the Hezekiah-Isaiah-narratives contain material which plays a significant role in the development of the biblical monotheism. The paper offers new perspectives on this debate and considers the theological implications of the One God concept.

In general, film studies scholars have not paid much attention to the religious dimensions of Korean cinema. Likewise, within the interdisciplinary subfield of Bible and film studies, sustained investigations of Korean films have been far and few between. Parasite (2019), the widely acclaimed Korean film directed by Bong Joon-ho, offers a timely opportunity to expand the critical discourse in these fields. Previous studies of Bong have explored his films from the angles of globalization, transnational media flow, genre theory, the commercial aspects of the film industry, and so forth. But, to our knowledge, there have not been any scholarly attempts at bringing his work into dialogue with biblical, theological, or religious perspectives. In view of this scholarly lacunae, our paper seeks to engage in a dialogical study of Parasite and the biblical apocalyptic tradition. First, we trace the apocalyptic motifs and symbols themes within the film (the beast-like figure underground, water as a means of world-destruction and re-creation, and the violent climactic battle, for instance) to examine how ancient biblical themes are creatively adapted — whether consciously or not — in contemporary filmmaking and reception. Given Erin Runions’s insight in How Hysterical: Identification and Resistance in Bible and Film that the apocalyptic motif can manifest in films as a dramatic unveiling of the “failure to identify with the capitalist order,” we argue that Parasite harnesses biblical resources to critique the oppressive structures of class and global capitalism, albeit in a decidedly non-triumphalistic manner. Second, we will also claim that re-reading the second temple apocalyptic tradition in light of Parasite can cast fresh light on the social conditions and pragmatic politico-theological motivations in which the tradition originally developed. Through the various cosmological-apocalyptic schemas and echoes at play in Parasite (such as the careful vertical ordering of power vis-a-vis powerlessness, or the syncretistic incorporation of elements from traditional Sino-Korean and Native American religious traditions), we aim to revisit and underscore the inherently polyphonic and social-critical nature of the biblical apocalyptic tradition.

Commentators have observed parallels between the Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII,1) and other texts in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—Gen 1:1-3, 26, 2:7; Prov 8:22-23, 27-36; John 1:1-18, 3:14, 8:22, 12:32-34. They, however, have not fully appreciated the parallels between the Trimorphic Protennoia and the book of Revelation. If one scrutinizes the Trimorphic Protennoia, it becomes clear that the author of the Trimorphic Protennoia constructs apocalyptic parallels with the book of Revelation. How, then, does the author of the Trimorphic Protennoia appropriate apocalyptic motifs form the book of Revelation and apply them in his or her text? What might be the author’s intention for this intertextuality? And how does this intertextuality function rhetorically? This paper will argue that the author of the Trimorphic Protennoia appropriates the apocalyptic motifs used in the futuristic eschatology in the book of Revelation and applies them to the realized eschatology in his or her text in order to appeal to those who were disappointed by the delayed Parousia. Moreover, the author of the Trimorphic Protennoia borrows cosmological and soteriological frameworks from Platonic texts—Sophist and Timaeus—but modifies them in order to appeal to those who were less satisfied with Platonism. This paper will therefore suggest that the intertextual link between the Trimorphic Protennoia and the book of Revelation is a rhetorical move to attract those who were familiar with the apocalyptic motifs in the book of Revelation, but then move them in a completely different direction with some different emphases, particularly the full realization of one’s divine nature in the present, not in the future. Some of the overlapping framework between the Trimorphic Protennoia and Platonic texts can also be understood as a rhetorical move to attract those who were conversant with Platonism at first, but then appeal to them with some different emphases, especially affirming the elect soteriology and the cosmic destruction without reincarnation.

When one thinks of the formation of the self, the priority of dress oft not plays a foremost role in its consideration. Moreover, how an Other participates in the formation of oneself can also be overlooked in some circumstances. In the prophetic text Isaiah 61:10-62ff, the ramifications of being invested of dress by the deity is often assumed by some who have studied this text and has not been considered as a formation of the subject. I suggest that these acts provoke new perspectives of the self through their assertion of a divine perspective using dress on the body. This argument is a departure from, though not an opposition to, the scholarship that fails to ask the inherent meaning and function of the act of investiture. I will seek to explain why investing dress, and particularly in relation to the body, would be used in this way. I will argue that the prophetic imagery of investiture is a mode of self-formation and examination for the audience and an encounter with being and truth: it is an ‘unconcealment’ of being through the movements of dress that seeks to concretize new understandings of the self as an invested and thus embodied (or on-bodied) reality, a metaphoric image with metaphysical implications. As the recipient of YHWH’s actions of investiture, the new perspective created through personified Jerusalem/Zion speaks to the crucial function that dress plays in creating a gap between the current realities of exile, warfare, trauma, and destruction have been experienced and interpreted by the community and the concretization of and orientation toward a new identity and future as manifested in Jerusalem/Zion’s investiture.

The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) is used to establish the text of the Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior. This method has been dubbed a “black box” because it has been difficult to understand and has lacked a way for users to edit data. Until now, most researchers outside of the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) have only been able to read about the method and see the results of the editorial work. This presentation will explain how users can now download an open source CBGM environment, edit their own local stemmata, and re-establish genealogical coherence accordingly. I will describe how the open source CBGM will make the method and source code behind it more transparent and explain how this open source CBGM is different from other implementations. The presentation intends to equip individual scholars and editorial teams with the means to use the CBGM to test out their own theories of the transmission of the New Testament. Because the creation of this open source CBGM is an on-going project, suggestions on how to improve it are welcomed.

The textual history of Jewish Pseudo-Orpheus is complex and uncertain, and past scholarship has favored questions of recensional schema, authorship, and dating. While past scholars’ preoccupation with Pseudo-Orpheus’ textual complexity is warranted, Robert Kraft has noted that in matters of Jewish pseudepigrapha, a “fixation on the texts alone will get us only so far" (1). In an attempt to move past the feedback loop of textual hypotheses, my analysis will be less concerned with the particularities of textual development and more concerned with what that development reveals. This paper frames the genre of Orphica as the Ur-tradition behind Jewish Pseudo-Orpheus and considers how the Jewish authors/redactors are channeling a pre-existing Greek literary form. In so doing, Jewish Pseudo-Orpheus proves to be an appeal to the paradoxical authority of Orpheus as both Greek and an eastern outsider. This authority enables these Pseudo-Orphic verses to legitimize Judaism by harnessing the credibility of an Orphic genre that legitimizes “alien” religious practices. By venturing past recensional hypotheses, analysis of Jewish Pseudo-Orpheus reveals an example of Judaism’s appeal to a common, cultural cache even as it asserts religious and historical distinctiveness. (1) Robert A. Kraft, “The Pseudepigrapha and Christianity Revisited : Setting the Stage and Framing Some Central Questions” in *Exploring the Scripturesque Jewish Texts and Their Christian Contexts.* Ed. Robert A. Kraft, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism; v. 137. (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 57–8.

Beliefs about the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul combined to form one of the most distinctive features of early Christian doctrine. Early Christians had to explain bodily resurrection to audiences that found such notions peculiar or horrifying, and it was difficult to adjust the emotions and traditional customs of grieving for those who came to believe that bodily death was not the end. Such topics have been fruitfully studied in their ancient contexts of Greek philosophy, Jewish eschatology, and beyond. But among scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity, there has been relatively less scholarly emphasis on the vast corpora of funerary inscriptions from around the ancient Mediterranean, and how these created a theater of discourse that expressed the meaning of death and the appropriateness of grief. This presentation gathers and analyzes epigraphic data for a widespread phrase on Greek-language epitaphs: those which comfort the deceased and passersby with the assertion “no one is immortal” (oudeis athanatos). In conversation with classic studies (Lattimore, 1942; van der Horst, 1991) and recent works (Peres, 2003; ed. vol. Epigraphik und Neues Testament, 2016), the epigraphic data from multiple databases will be analyzed regionally and, when possible, chronologically. The paper will first demonstrate the influence of these epitaphs as a kind of therapeutic eschatology, or common consolation for the bereaved. Through their ubiquity, they established parameters of belief and grief into which early Christian claims about eternal life or immortality were uttered, such that Christian expressions of consolation (e.g., 2 Cor 7 and P.Princ. II.102) relied upon and adapted their phrases. Then during late antiquity, as the Christianization of the Roman empire supposedly spread doctrines about the availability of immortality, one might expect epitaphs denying immortality to have decreased in number. The final part of the presentation explores, to the contrary, the surprising resiliency of “no one is immortal” epitaphs in late antiquity. Some slight epigraphic adaptations enabled Christians to console the bereaved and still maintain hope, albeit ambiguously, in an immortal future.

Second Maccabees 3.26 relates dioscuric figures who “appear” (prosephanesan) to Heliodorus the minister of King Seleucus IV Philopator (187-175 BCE). Heliodorus presents himself and his guards to enter the Jerusalem Temple treasury full with money “committed to the holiness of the place” (3.12). Temple priests vehemently protest the violation (3.18-20), and the people call upon the Almighty Lord who “makes a great apparition (epiphaneian megalen epoiesen)” (3.24). There appears (ophthe) a rider on a horse which violently strikes Heliodorus. Two angelic beings then appear to Heliopolis one on either side, scourging him until he falls to the ground speechless and “in darkness” (3.25-27, 29). Through the mediation of the high priest Onias, Heliodorus recovers. Again the “the same young men” appear (ephanesan) beside Heliodorus and command him to give thanks to Onias and to declare to all the mighty power of God (33-34). The dioscuri then vanish (34). In the account themes which include conflict, hierarchy, and the sanctity of the Temple comix with mystical language. Written in Greek near the end of the 2d century BCE by a hellenized Jewish author for a diasporan Jewish audience, the story may have circulated along with similar Jewish legends where princes of other nations are compelled by miracles to see the superiority of Israel’s God (Bickerman 2007, 1.457; cf. Dan. 2.47; 3.29; 4.37; 6.26; 3 Macc. 7.6). Was the author of the Gospel of Mark influenced by such material? In Mark 3.17 Jesus specifically gives James and John the surname Boanerges, “Sons of Thunder.” As “insiders” to Jesus’ ministry and teaching, James and John desire heavenly status with Jesus on his right and his left (10.37). They also witness miracles (healing of Simon’s mother 1.29-31, and Jarius’ daughter 5.35-43), as well as Jesus’ Transfiguration—which includes the appearance (ophthe) of the two figures Moses and Elijah (9.2-8). The twins are also presented in connection with conflict. On the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, Jesus speaks of the chaos of forthcoming destruction as well as the imminent suffering of James and John (13.1-9). As with 2 Maccabees, the Gospel of Mark is written in response to Jewish conflict, in this case constellating with both the violation and destruction of the Jewish Temple. Gaining a sense of the extent to which Mark’s portrayal of the twins James and John might mirror elements of the story of the dioscuri of 2 Maccabees 3 raises questions about the degrees to which the Gospel of Mark is itself a product of hellenistic aretalogical traditions having to do with twinship and twin cults. To what extent does the author of Mark adapt 2 Maccabees dioscuric imagery to his own apocalyptic framework and religio-spiritual focus?

The discursive power of the Islamic sermon, and particularly its rhetorical potential for promoting transformation in Muslim societies, has drawn increasing attention from scholars of contemporary Islam. Grounding on Talal Asad’s notion of Islam as a “discursive tradition” that cannot be reduced to textualized concepts (1986), Abdulkader Tayob defines the sermon as the occasion for a Qur’anic “re-citation”, that “recalls and reproduces, however dimly, the divine irruption in seventh century Arabia” (1999). This intervention aims at exploring the role of sermon in the construction of progressive Muslim discourses, focusing on Cape Town’s Claremont Main Road Mosque (CMRM) as a case study. Founded in 1854, since the 1908s CMRM has affirmed itself as a key venue in South Africa for the elaboration of a Muslim discourse that identifies as progressive and defines its approach as “critical traditionalism”, under the leadership of Imam Hassan Solomon (1980-1986) and then Imam Abdul Rashied Omar (1986-). Rather than being the solitary work of an individual scholar, CMRM “tafsir of praxis” (Shaikh 2007) is the product of an inclusivist, critical and democratic hermeneutics in which not only the Imam but also the congregation and visiting lecturers (local as well as international civil rights activists and Islamic scholars) participate in the reading of the Quranic text and the construction of meaning and understanding. Among the tenets of CMRM discourse has been the affirmation of gender equality in Islam; the mosque made headlines when professor amina wadud was invited to present a pre-sermon lecture in August 1994, an event that catapulted CMRM at the forefront of what Ima Rashied Omar named as the gender jihad. 25 years later, the gender jihad has moved forward: steps have been taken to advance the participation of women in the mosque administration and in ritual practice, and since 2013 CMRM has launched a campaign to raise awareness and support the struggle against gender-based violence (GBV). This intervention will take into analysis the re-citation of qur’anic verses in fifteen sermons and pre-sermon lectures dealing with the topic of GBV, delivered between February 2013 and February 2020 by a diverse array of lecturers that includes Imam Rashied Omar, Sadiyya Shaikh, Aslam Fataar, Shu’aib Manjra, Jaamia Galant, Nafisa Patel, Minhaj Jeenah, Magboeba Davids, and Nuraan Osman. Works cited: Asad, Talal. The Idea of Anthropology in Islam. Occasional Papers Series. Washington DC, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1986. Shaikh, Sa’diyya. “A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence and Resistance”. In D. Maguire e S.Shaikh (ed.) Violence Against Women in Contemporary World Religions. Cleveland, pilgrim press, 2007. Tayob, Abdulkader. Islam in South Africa – Mosques, Imams and Sermons. Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1999.

This paper begins by drawing on recent archaeological evidence to demonstrate how the Book of Chronicles was composed in world of ruins, both those stemming from more distant events and more recent ones. It then argues that the experience of these ruins is inflected within a number of the stories the Chronicler tells, the present landscape of the time impressing itself on how the past was remembered through the stories the Chronicler tells. To give some substance to this argument, this paper examines passages connected to Gath, Jerusalem, and a broader geographical sense of political boundaries, each of which evince moments of redress in the Chronicler’s telling that are predicated, this paper contends, on a terrain that was more familiar to the Chronicler’s era. This paper concludes by grounding these observations in recent theoretical studies on the relationship between ruins and remembrance, where a remembered past is found to be beholden to the ruins that remain.

This paper engages in a missional reading of key women in Luke’s Gospel, engaging the work of feminist biblical scholars. The role and function of the women in Luke’s Gospel has been the subject of considerable debate for more than thirty-five years. Amy Jill-Levine’s introduction and Robert Karris’s chapter in The Feminist Companion to Luke (2002) both offer effective summaries of that debate. Luke’s gospel was, by many first wave feminists, praised for the comparatively prominent role it gave to women. That view, however, has been thoroughly contested by scholars who conclude that Luke instead delimits, ignores, or downplays the contributions of women to the ministry of Jesus. It is widely observed that while women are disciples of Jesus, women are assigned to ancillary and supportive roles in the narrative. For instance, Barbara Reid (2016) notes that, “while there are women who receive the word, believe, are baptized, follow Jesus, and host house churches, there are no narratives showing individual women as called, commissioned, enduring persecution, or ministering by the power of the spirit, as there are of men.” John Carroll (2014) stated, “It seems increasingly clear that Luke offers a “double message” regarding women—a narrative construction of gender roles that entails ambivalence and ambiguity”, quoting Turid Karlsen Seim’s apt phrase for the complexity of Luke’s account of the role of women in Luke’s account. This ambiguity significantly complicates a missional reading of the women in Luke’s gospel. What role does Luke narrate for women in the mission of Jesus? Is that role liberating or repressive? That complexity is compounded by the diversity of consider that interpreters bring to the task. Noting that some readers find Luke to be a source for women’s liberation while others see the Third Gospel as an impediment to the same, Amy-Jill Levine (2002) comments that with stories of women in Luke, “a liberating account for one reader can function in quite the opposite way for another. Interpretations of the gospel necessarily vary depending upon both the methods by which the narrative is analyzed and the presuppositions and experiences readers bring to the text.” This paper explores the potential of a missional reading of the women in Luke’s gospel, defining a missional reading as one aimed at the formation of a reading community as the missional people of God. In it, I take up the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 as an evocative focal point for the matter at hand; since the text is both the matter of significant debate among scholars and popular among lay readers, perhaps especially women. A missional reading of texts like this must not only attend to the ambiguities and complexities that pertain to the women in the text, but must also grapple with the many and varied positionalities of the women who read them. The paper concludes with considerations for the practices of missional reading in light of this argument.

Invited paper; abstract coming soon.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Multidisciplinary Approaches and the Gospels.

Doro Levi, an early analyst of late antique mosaics, posited that the rich carpet mosaics of the fourth-century cruciform Church at Qausīyeh were among the first of their kind in Antioch, rocketing forth as complex, immersive geometric fields instead of serene geometric borders for figurative scenes. The Church at Qausīyeh in all likelihood housed St. Babylas, an Antiochene martyr-bishop. The beleaguered and contested Bishop Meletius was active in its construction and was buried with Babylas in the center of the church. The dedicatory mosaic inscriptions and John Chyrsostom’s Homily on Meletios suggest that the church was usable by 386CE. Whether Levi’s timeline is precise or not, I argue that these geometric mosaics still function as framing devices, but for actions larger than a framed scene – even cosmic actions. First, the geometric mosaics act as fields for human action as the community gathered in the church, producing a temporality within the church that differed from the temporality outside it. Viewers became wound and enchanted in the mosaics even as they drew close to each other. Second, against the sprawling geometric mosaics, the stark black-and-white dedicatory inscriptions stand out, proclaiming the genealogies of Antiochene orthodoxy in a contested time. And third, the geometric mosaics frame the liturgies of the word and rituals of devotion, both of which occurred at the central chamber, where the arms crossed, where the bema rose, and where two Antiochene saints were buried. Using both theorists and historians, I consider how these mosaics worked in assemblages within their context. As Gell notes, art always assumes certain assemblages – viewer-object; maker-object, and so forth. He wagers that these configurations produce their own inner temporalities through pleasure, puzzles, and enchantment. More recently, Rebecca Molholt and Sean Leatherbury have considered how mosaics acted on their viewers, and Ann Marie Yasin has considered congregants as crucial components of the church-machine, fueling it through memory and prayer as they encounter mosaics and other dedications. Sara Ahmed, a critical theorist who engages extensively with postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory, shows how places, objects, and people can be played off each other to produce feelings that bind people together, like fear and hate, but also, importantly, like wonder. My piece ties these theorists together to claim that the geometric mosaics of the Church of Babylas become comprehensible in relationship to their embedded inscriptions, to the people who walked upon them, and to the striking contrast with the gleaming verticality and orality of the bema.

Shapeshifting by its very nature, metal simultaneously resonates with the theological and the geopolitical. Gold, silver, bronze, and iron — the four metals that comprise the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream — feature prominently throughout the Book of Daniel, from the gold and silver temple vessels to the iron teeth and bronze claws of the fourth beast. These appearances, which bridge the court tales and the visions, underscore the ambivalence of each of these metals as signifiers. Gold and silver can be used to create sacred vessels or make tribute payments. Bronze and iron can be shaped into useful tools or death-dealing implements. The roots of this ambivalence toward metal may be traced deep into the Hebrew sources, from the presence of gold in Eden to the association of metallurgy with both fallen Watchers and the descendants of Cain. Despite the visibility of metal in Daniel, no thorough analysis of its appearances in the context of both the geopolitical dynamics of the various empires and the innovative apocalyptic theologies that emerged around the 2nd century BCE has been attempted to date. Historical-critical methods allow us to peer through the text into the forces and processes which have helped determine its form. But there is also something poetically compelling at work in Daniel that we risk losing if we limit our reading to the mere mechanics of history. In order to consider how metal flows through the narrative, it is therefore useful to adapt a framework borrowed from the visual arts by way of philosophy: that of material performance, an approach for conceptualizing the way that objects render visible the forces that shape them. A material performance analysis of metal in Daniel considers the book's ekphrastic descriptions of metal objects as performative entities in their own right, each with a socially constructed history and material context, insofar as these descriptions relate to the historical movement of metal through the ancient Near East. This paper outlines an experimental approach to reading Daniel through a material performance analysis of metal in order to observe some of the text’s more elusive theo-political features in motion.

This paper analyzes the reception of stories and elements from two apocryphal acts of the apostles (Acts of John and Acts of Thomas) through the liturgical texts or hymnography related to the feasts of the same apostles.

God's dikaiosyne is rightly recognized as a key theme in Romans. However, many hesitate to interpret God's dikaiosyne as "justice," fearing this would imply a reciprocity "antithetical" to the good news of Paul’s gospel, and define God's dikaiosyne solely as gift, power, a merely beneficent faithfulness, or the overcoming of "justice" via penal atonement. The implication is that God’s saving dikaiosyne is not, strictly speaking, just. But this alternative would puzzle many ancients. Moreover, a narrow reading of God’s dikaiosyne restricted to one of these options is difficult to maintain across Romans, wherein Paul shows himself no stranger to theodicy (3:5-6; 9:14-23), and in which, despite many readings, the basic principles of God’s “just judgment” in 1:18-2:29 remain true for believers, even if in Christ they are ordered toward believers’ salvation (e.g., 6:12-23; 7:4-6; 8:3-17). This paper sketches a definition of justice in Paul's contexts (Jewish and non-Jewish) as a generous and impartial equity, beyond mere reciprocity or requital. It then revisits Romans to show how the dimensions of this justice underlie its many arguments, illuminating the salvation-history and theodicy of chs. 9-11, the purpose of the impartiality discourse of chs. 1-3, and Paul’s participatory soteriology (esp. chs. 6-8). In all, this argument shows justice qua justice as the quality out of which—not despite which—Paul sees God ordering history toward the generous and impartial redemption of Israel and the gentiles.

In interpreting “sacrifice” in Paul little attention has been given to spatial theory. In general, critical theorists of space (Foucault, Soja) have suggested that an overweening focus on history has limited the attention given to spatiality. Canonical theological interests have also consumed a good deal of interpretive attention with respect to Paul. However, because “every activity generates a particular spatio-temporal structure, [and] this structure seldom thrusts to the front of awareness” (Tuan), “we must be insistently aware, … [in spite of] the apparently innocent spatiality of social life” (Soja), of how important spatiality is to the hermeneutical endeavor. Crucial spatial realities are often hidden from view, or at times, hidden in plain sight. This paper draws out just such subtle and unconsidered data from the Pauline corpus to suggest an explanatory paradigm for data related to sacrificial theology, soteriology, and pneumatology in Paul: a space-sanctifying, Levitical sacrificial tradition (Milgrom) may lie behind Paul’s understanding of Jesus as sacrifice, and by extension, his soteriology. The multivalent usage of sacrificial terminology in Paul is well established (Klauck). However, debate has continued over whether the proper paradigm for understanding “sacrifice” in Paul comes from the Levitical tradition, or even whether the idea of “atoning sacrifice” is a concept germane to Paul at all. For the most part scholars seem to have split between, on the one hand, those defending a traditional and more “canonical” reading of Paul as dependent on Levitical traditions for a personal “atoning sacrifice” understanding of Christ’s death (e.g. Bell, Gathercole), and on the other, those who believe that neither “atoning sacrifice” (Käsemann) nor Levitical traditions are relevant to Paul’s understanding (McLean). However, a third possibility may be posited: Paul’s understanding of Christ’s death as sacrifice may have been partially dependent on interpretations of the Levitical tradition of the ḥaṭṭaʾt as a sacrifice that operated to purify the place for the Deity (Milgrom, Anderson), specifically, the Jerusalem Temple. Paul’s pneumatology especially points in this direction, indicating a conviction that at least one key function of Jesus’ sacrificial death was to purify Gentile bodies, individually and / or corporately, as an appropriate dwelling place for God’s spirit. This interpretive possibility suggests that the tradition of Christ’s sacrificial death may be able to be traced at least as far back as the point at which it became phenomenally clear to Paul that the Gentiles had suddenly, and surprisingly, become “temples” of God, vessels purified for the presence of the Holy Spirit.

On February 28, 2020 in one of his many Fox News appearances, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas emphatically declared that "Democrats are on the wrong side of just about every faith issue, whether its school choice, religious freedom, Israel and certainly the abortion issue.” Even more strongly, Jeffress impressed on Fox viewers that "the greatest obstacle between the left and their vision of a godless America is President Trump." Drawing upon ethnographic research spanning from 2018 through the 2020 presidential election at First Baptist Dallas church this paper will provide insight to the complicated ways in which religious and political identities intersect by analyzing sovereignty of God rhetoric at First Baptist Dallas. It will juxtapose the public presence of Pastor Robert Jeffress with reflections from members in interviews. How will evangelicals in this context respond to the outcome of the election.

In 1846, Zipha Elaw (1790-1873?), a free-born African American woman and an itinerant preacher in the Wesleyan tradition, published a memoir recounting her "life, religious experience, ministerial travels, and labours." From the book's dedication onward, she addresses her audience in language redolent of the apostolic letters of Paul, structured according to the Book of Acts, and saturated with biblical allusions. Elaw situates her identity—as empowered and guided by God’s Spirit--within a biblical framework. References to the bride in the Song of Solomon, Esther, the Ethiopian eunuch, Joseph, Deborah, Jonah, Daniel, Paul, and Jesus, to name but a few, add a biblical patina to her self-presentation. Quotes from 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Psalms, Judges, Matthew, and Philemon buttress her observations and injunctions with scriptural authority. This paper will assess Mrs. Elaw's deft use of bibilical forms and allusions in crafting an authoritative, prophetic persona, which she uses to challenge the besetting sins of early 19th century American and British society--"the abominations of slavery," "pride and arrogancy," greed, worldliness, and godlessness--and to inspire her readers to emulate her in living according to the counter-cultural standards of the gospel. Elaw’s memoir, in fact, reads as an extended, lyrical exercise in biblical interpretation. She reads her experiences by means of the Bible, and the Bible by means of her experiences. For Elaw, the Bible serves as the hermeneutical key to her vivid personal narrative, as well as to her compelling ethical and religious exhortations.

The iconography of the Ancient Near East includes some of the most vivid images of animals to be found anywhere. These images took many forms – painted pottery, clay sculptures, carved stone, and sculpture in precious metal – and appeared frequently in works that dealt with deities. Many gods (including Ancient Israel’s) were associated with real animals such as lions, bulls, and wild oxen, as well as imaginary creatures such as fire-spitting dragons, cherubim and seraphim. The bull, for example, was a symbol of lordship, leadership, strength, vital energy, and fertility. As such, it was either deified and worshiped or used to represent divinity. An equally important animal vis-à-vis Ancient Near East gods was the lion. Through the symbol of a lion, Ancient Near Eastern gods were represented as omnipotent rulers, and the foreign policies of Israel and Judah were effectively influenced by this impression. Although animal iconography is one of the most prevalent forms of Ancient Near East artifacts, I am focusing on lions and bulls, two of the most prevalent which represent deities and their totems. As I discuss, since deities and their representations as bulls and lions were ubiquitous throughout the Ancient Near East, it is not surprising that Israel’s deity shared the same totems as its neighbors.

4Q317 is an astronomical composition written in Cryptic A script. The official DJD publication contains only the images of its app. 70 fragments. The text of each individual fragment was published in the DSSEL, and a more detailed edition exists for its first fragment. While the general content of the scroll is known, the exact details of its astronomical theory were not deciphered, and no relative position of the fragments within the scroll has been proposed. In a collaboration with Jonathan Ben Dov and Moshe Diengott, we were able to reconstruct the astronomical theory of 4Q317, using mathematical equations solved by a computer program written for this purpose by Eshbal Ratzon, and to improve the reading of the preserved text. The new understanding allowed us to locate the original position of at least five of the largest fragments of the scroll. Hopefully, additional digital and material considerations will help us find the position of many more fragments.

Interpreters of biblical apocalyptic books Daniel and Revelation have long manipulated their readings to fit particular political agendas. After the trauma wrought from the World War II destruction of two major Japanese cities with atomic bombs, American Evangelical leaders saw the destructive capabilities that humanity could now wield as both a blessing and curse because the weapons that produced peace only did so on the back of much death. Receptions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Evangelical preaching was immediate, as a 31-year-old Billy Graham preached a 1949 sermon titled “The Second Coming of Christ”, in which he makes his stance about nuclear forces clear: "When that atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, I was sorry for those poor people, but in one sense of the word I said, “HALLELUJAH! The end is about here!” Because for the first time in the history of the world man has enhanced weapons to destroy itself with and that’s exactly what God said in His Word. I tell you tonight, the end is almost here!" Graham continues in his message and speaks of both Daniel and Revelation and the words therein, thereby linking writings from over one thousand years before with an event that ended World War II in the Pacific front. Indeed, when a speaker that upon his death received the title of “America’s Pastor” associates a word of praise and adoration with the deaths of over 200,000 civilians, tracing the roots of such receptions becomes a near necessity. How did Graham get to this point, and did his perspectives change as he aged? Further, what is the continued impact of Graham’s interpretations of Daniel and Revelation through this pro-nuclear Holocaust lens? This paper traces the roots of Graham's reception, surveying who influenced the popular preacher and led to this interpretation. The paper then tracks the continued life of Graham's reception, as current political and social leaders employ similar receptions that perpetuate the trauma of the military attack and Graham's subsequent popular interpretation for political and social gain.

This discussion will address the role that Egypt plays during times of drought for the patriarchs.

Hybrid creatures are those with composite bodies that include other species, human and nonhuman alike, and are prevalent throughout both canonical and non-canonical literature. Included in this category are the book of Ezekiel's living creatures whose traditions have a rich nachleben in Jewish and Christian literature, and are usually centered around discussions and visions of the earthly and heavenly temples. Much less discussed is the literary and textual import of the creatures' hybrid, polyform bodies in texts such as in the book of Daniel and other Second Temple Jewish literature. This paper examines Ezekiel's textual influence on the book of Daniel, paying special attention to the application and adaptation of composite or hybrid creatures in visionary accounts. Although this connection has been previously been established by scholars in both linguistic and thematic terms, the reasoning behind this literary relationship is nearly always explained as one intended to contrast the perfection of the living creatures around the throne with the debased beasts competing for dominion on the earth. I propose that texts such as Daniel 7 instead sought to evoke a sense of powerful otherworldliness and proximity to divinity for its readers, as well as the authenticity of the vision, therefore expanding the tradition of hybrid creatures beyond the limitations of either purely divine or a perversion of such. Based on the development of the concept of hybridity from Ezekiel to Daniel, as well as the interaction with contemporary texts and their cultural milieus, this study offers an alternate perspective on the chimerical creatures of Daniel 7 and how their composite nature may have been understood by ancient readers.

Medieval Christian theologians had good reason to defend the textual integrity of the Old Testament. First, St. Augustine had proclaimed that, although enemies in their hearts, the Jews had preserved incorrupt the shared biblical text. Precisely because they are enemies of Christianity , Jews are essential witnesses to truth of the Old Testament whose prophesies are said to be fulfilled in the New. Had the Jews corrupted or falsified the text, surely they would have eliminated those passages that so clearly demonstrated the truth of Christian faith. Second, in its encounter with Islam, medieval Christian polemicists were compelled to defend the textual integrity of the Old and New Testaments against Muslim critics who charged that both had been corrupted and therefore were inferior to the Quran. Both Augustinian tradition and the encounter with Islam, then, demanded from Christians a vigorous defense of the textual tradition of the Scriptures. And yet, there remained medieval Christian voices that accused Jews, because they are enemies of Christ, of malicious falsification of the Old Testament. These voices grew louder as Christians became aware of the role played by Talmud in Jewish life. In this presentation, I intend to examine the role that the medieval Christian discovery of the Talmud played in promoting a more sophisticated charge of Jewish false emendation, and identifying its consequences.

On May 4, 1969, James Forman, the former executive director of the SNCC, took over the pulpit of historic Riverside Church and read aloud the Black Manifesto. The Manifesto demanded that white Christian congregations pay $500 million in reparations to black people as a “beginning of the reparations due” black Americans. Days later, the National Committee for Black Churchmen spoke out in support of such a proposal, declaring that white churches “undeniably have been the moral cement of the structure of racism in this nation,” and continued to play that role up unto their own day. The debate over the case for reparations for black Americans goes back at least as far as the nation’s failure to provide the promised 40 acres and a mule to freed slaves. That debate has recently gained serious attention in the public square, with House legislators holding the first hearing on reparations in more than a decade in 2019. While far less attention has been given to the idea of ecclesial reparations, this debate, too, is picking up steam, with Virginia Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Episcopalian Diocese of Maryland, among others, committing themselves to concrete acts of ecclesial reparations. Nevertheless, many Americans remain deeply resistant to the idea of reparations of any kind. One survey in 2003 found that only 4% of white Americans supported reparations for black descendants of slaves. In this paper, I bring the historic discourse around ecclesial reparations into dialogue with the theology, ethics, and practice of the biblical Jubilee. To do so, I first explore the way ecclesial reparations relate to the goals of reparations more generally, namely, to (1) acknowledge serious injustice, (2) provide redress for that injustice, and (3) create closure for all involved parties (Darity). I then draw this discourse into dialogue with the biblical Jubilee, first exploring the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, and then considering the way “jubilary” themes resonate across the canon, particularly in Nehemiah 5:1-19, Ezekiel 46-47, and Acts 4:34-35. I argue that a reading of such passages from the social location of American faith communities complicit in racial injustice and confronted by the call for reparations can shape such communities for the creative, faithful practice of ecclesial, jubilary reparations today.

The rise of the Documentary Hypothesis in the late nineteenth century drew critical scholarship away from an earlier emphasis of Exod 1–2 as separate, preparatory material for the events that truly began the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt in Exod 3. The origins of this distinction trace back to Astruc in 1753 under the supposition that Moses, though the author of the Pentateuch, could not have written about events that occurred before his birth or during his infancy. Recent decades have seen the return of older hypothesis concerning the composition of the early exodus-conquest narrative, such as an original beginning in Exod 2:1 and the possible secondary character of Exod 3. However, literary and narratological analyses of the opening chapters seem to suggest the opposite. Rather, Exod 2 seems to be a later addition to the earlier beginning of the narrative found within Exod 3 and the call of Moses: 1) The identification of MT 2:23aα in LXX 4:18 as a Wiederaufnahme suggesting that Exod 3:1–4:18 be reckoned as a later addition should be rejected based off tensions internal to this hypothetically-reconstructed pericope; 2) With the marriage of Moses and Zipporah showing signs of being a later addition to Exod 2, Moses’ flight to Midian serves no narratological purpose should Exod 3 be seen as later, and only minimal purpose should the call of Moses be maintained as early. It appears that the best way to explain these tensions is with an original call narrative in Exod 3 that began the exodus-conquest narrative, which was later prefixed with a birth story in Exod 2 as an example of Judahite “subversive reception” of Neo-Assyrian literature, and finally Exod 1 as priestly in its most-fundamental material.

January 27, 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. While some gathered in solemn assemblies, others were busy sending letters to US synagogues blaming the machinations of "so-called Jews” and “the Synagogue of Satan” for the world's ills (Mekhennet 2020). Such cruel and paranoid conspiracy-theory thinking is, unfortunately, not so unusual in today’s world. The American "End-times Evangelist” Rick Wiles spent the better part of 2019 openly blaming the Jewish “Synagogue of Satan” for the decline of US culture (ADL 2020), and on December 10, 2019 two Christian vigilantes took action against what they described as the global conspiracy of "the Synagogue of Satan” by opening fire in a kosher grocery store in Jersey City (Dolsten 2019). The paranoid vision of an oppressive Synagogue of Satan whose members "say they are Jews, but are not” is drawn from Rev 2:9 and 3:9. Taken at face value as a Christian protest against Jewish hypocrisy and oppression, this defamatory spectre has haunted Jewish-Christian relations ever since (Friesen 2006; Duff 2006) and is dangerously alive and well today (Lind 2018; Esterman 2019). Unfortunately, scholarly commentaries on Revelation dependably take the book’s representation of Christians enduring Jewish persecution at face value (Blount 2009; Koester 2014). My study counters this dangerous habit by reading Rev 2:9 and 3:9 from a social-scientific point of view: the apocalyptic conspiracy-theory thinking of Rev 2:9 and 3:9 is about strategically defining community insiders, not accurately describing outsiders. It constructs insiders “in the know” as simultaneously persecuted and powerful heroes, over against the deceptive and oppressive “powers that be" outside. This new reading is promising for two reasons. Firstly, a social-scientific focus on rhetorics of community definition can be very helpful in understanding apocalyptic cultural expressions (Portier-Young 2011; Esler 2014), by highlighting and clarifying the ways in which apocalyptic imagination helps in-groups define themselves over against competitors and “outsiders” (Wilson 1973; Esler 1993). Applying this kind of socio-rhetorical approach to the first-century vision of the Synagogue of Satan therefore addresses a significant scholarly lacuna. Secondly, my new reading brings the analysis of 1st-century apocalyptic into conversation with the analysis of the 21st-century conspiracy-theory thinking that precipitated the Jersey City shooting. Apocalyptic imagination defines community partly by purporting to reveal the behind-the-scenes workings of history to a faithful few “in the know” (Collins 2014; Koester 2014). Conspiracy theories define “insiders" as special too (Hart and Graether 2018; Douglas, Sutton, and Cichocka 2017), by making comparable claims (Neville-Shephard 2018; Oliver and Wood 2014). Their proponents are thereby similarly rhetorically ennobled as both persecuted and powerful (Sunstein and Vermeule 2009). I argue therefore that 21st-century conspiracy theories about the Synagogue of Satan are attractive primarily because they offer their proponents the promise of somebody special to be and something special to belong to. As such, they represent new twists on Revelation’s old community-defining strategy.

The prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah used imagery and threats of children as victims of war and Yahweh’s vengeance as powerful tools to attempt to persuade their audiences. Amos and Hosea employ common ANE motifs that parallel covenant curses and describe extensive acts of brutality directed against children. Isaiah and Micah avoid stereotypical phrases and refer to more common practices, to include deportation, forced labor, and other realities that children faced during war. Although references to children as war-victims among these prophets contain differences, they all demonstrate the rhetorical capital of these images. Archaeological and other ancient Near Eastern evidence of children as victims in war further reinforces how impactful these images would have been on the prophets’ audiences. This paper will survey the references to children as victims in war by these eighth-century prophets, describe relevant archaeological and other ancient Near Eastern evidence, and argue how these images and references contributed to the prophets’ rhetoric.

The call of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6 may not be the first text one thinks of when discussing social justice. However, when seen in its broader context within the Book of Isaiah, especially Isaiah’s description of the daughters of Zion, this chapter can be seen as depicting the impending war with Assyria as the tragic and unnecessary means through which social justice will finally be achieved. The Book of Mormon appears to notice the social justice implications of Isaiah 6, but alludes to this chapter in the context of the destruction of the people in 3 Nephi. When these allusions to Isaiah 6 are understood in the broader context of 3 and 4 Nephi, it becomes clear that the Book of Mormon sees the destruction in 3 Nephi as the horrific means through which social justice is brought about among the Nephites, just as the war with the Assyrians was the means through which it was brought about in Isaiah. The Book of Mormon’s allusions to other related biblical narratives, especially those about women, serve as a warning to those that oppress others, especially the marginalized.

Though many of the more formal channels for scriptural interpretation were closed off to late medieval women, they nevertheless found a variety of other, less formal modes of exegesis. Moreover, the very constraints that restricted women’s interpretation could also produce original exegetical results. Hadewijch of Brabant, a thirteenth-century beguine and mystic, left behind a corpus of mystical literature that frequently borrows from scriptural images and language. A striking example of this is her Songs (‘Liederen,’ also called the Stanzaic Poems), which bear a subtle resemblance to the Psalms – a resemblance recently brought into view by Patricia Dailey (Promised Bodies, 2013). Perhaps the reason that the psalmic resemblance has gone largely unremarked is that the Songs bear a much stronger and more obvious resemblance to the courtly love poems of Hadewijch’s day. Mystical theology, secular poetry, and scripture are thus blended in the Songs to create devotional poetry of remarkable literary sophistication. However, Dailey limits her comparison of the Songs and the Psalms to shared aims and rhetorical modes, arguing chiefly that both the Psalms and the Songs ask readers to ‘mirror’ the affective modes of the text in order to construct the spiritual self. In this paper, I will attempt to strengthen Dailey’s claims of psalmic influence on Hadewijch’s Songs in two ways. First, I will consider in greater depth Hadewijch’s historical context among the beguines (that is, semireligious women who did not take monastic vows) by examining the relationship of beguines with both the Psalter and the arts. Second, drawing from this historical context, I will offer a close reading of Hadewijch’s Song 16 in comparison with Psalm 44. While Dailey suggests that Hadewijch’s Songs “may not be mappable onto any specific psalm per se,” I will argue that a close comparison reveals that Psalm 44 and Song 16 share nearly identical structures. Whether or not Hadewijch was consciously modelling her poetry after specific psalms, this comparison reveals that psalmic influence may have run even more deeply than Dailey proposed, and suggests that further research may reveal similar parallels in other songs. This paper will thus raise questions about the relationship between secular poetry, mystical theology, and biblical exegesis in the Late Middle Ages, with special attention given to how Hadewijch’s work points toward a mode of scriptural ‘interpretation’ that was open to women at a time when the possibilities of formal interpretation had been foreclosed. The paper will also contribute to recent attempts to argue that mystical literature should not be understood as ahistorical, acontextual, or ascriptural but rather as deeply embedded in highly particular religious contexts. Furthermore, the paper will suggest that Christian mysticism is invariably an exegetical enterprise in which mystical experience both shapes and is shaped by the exegetical traditions of its day.

This paper was written with the research assistance of Gabby Scott. In Michael Bryson’s book chapter, “The Gnostic Milton” (CUP 2012, ed. Herman and Sauer), he argues Milton’s portrayal of the Son is “an embodiment of a Miltonic Gnosticism,” arguing that Milton’s portrayal reflected fundamentally gnostic views. Bryson based his argument specifically on Paradise Regained and the Son’s emphasis on internal knowledge (gnosis), which is in sharp contrast, Bryson argues, with the Son depicted in Paradise Lost whose orientation is turned outward and earthly through external valuation (pistis). Bryson offers his analysis on the Son’s upward trajectory toward gnosis exclusively through the depiction in Paradise Regained, as indicative of Milton’s alignment with “an old ‘heretical’ tradition,” namely gnosticism. Furthermore, Bryson conceptually treats only with the gnostic ascent of the Son via the Son’s turn from the external (pistis) to the internal (gnosis). This paper offers the missing but implied other half of Bryson’s argument, namely the role of gnostic descent and the initial emanation to the earthly world of externals. Our argument turns on three key areas of Milton’s depiction of the Son. First, that Milton’s understanding revolves primarily around the outwardness of the Son in Paradise Lost, indicated primarily through the Son’s creation of Earth in Book Seven (VII.163–76)—a key Miltonic departure from the traditional Book of Genesis. Second, that Milton’s depiction of the Son’s begetting and post-begotten state involves the concentration of raw power and enjoyment of materialism (V.606–41). Third, that Milton’s understanding of Eve in Book IX is conceptualized similar to the gnostic Sophia, through the initial recognition of error crucial to repentance, superficial motivations for transgressing, and transgressions necessitating the role of a savior. Key texts for comparison to gnosticism emphasize the “Gospel of Thomas” and “Gospel of Philip”, with some consideration of indirect influence via the Nag Hammadi texts of the “Apocryphon of John” and “Hypostasis of the Archons”. Ultimately, the Son of Paradise Lost seems a wonderfully gnostic creation, though of the opposite trajectory from the Son of Paradise Regained: following the gnostic worldview, creation occurs from the top down, and involves emanation from the inward perfection of highest beings to the lower beings of this world who are primarily concerned with earthly things. Only then can a gnostic or the Son then move from external, outward and earthly things toward an inner focus on gnosis which enables ascent. To gnosticize the popular saying, what goes down must eventually come up.

Jonah 1:5a has it that the sailors throw cargo into the sea, “to lighten it for them” (NRSV). The lack of a direct object following “to lighten” in Hebrew prompts many to understand the action as a practical measure to lighten the boat, e.g. Sasson and Wolff. This interpretation, however, misses the potential ritual import of the sailor’s action. I will argue that the sailors enact a religious measure to lighten the storm, as suggested by Fretheim and Trible. After all, the storm rages against them, not the boat. Viewing the sailors’ action as a religious measure prompts consideration of other texts ripe for fruitful comparison. For example, the Philistines seek to lighten the hand of the Lord and its harm that is against them by means of a ritual act, according to 1 Sam 6:5. In turn, this contribution helps to elevate other religious measures in the book of Jonah, including prayer, divination, fasting, and penance. In light of textual evidence from the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts, we do well to reconsider the common interpretation of the sailors’ action.

This paper explores what Candida Moss calls “the myth of persecution” in 20th and 21rst c. Christian popular media. As Moss describes in her 2013 book The Myth of Persecution, Christians have traditionally exaggerated the experience of pre-Constantinian persecution in the first three centuries. While persecution in this era was actually quite localized, Christians have found an exaggerated picture of Christianity as an embattled minority fighting a totalitarian state more apologetically and rhetorically useful. My goal in this paper is to explore how totalitarian imagery and ideology has contributed to the myth of Christian persecution by looking at pieces of modern Christian popular media -- the 1995 Zondervan children’s television series The Story Keepers, the 2012 romance novel A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers, and the 2018 movie by Affirm Films Paul: Apostle of Christ. My goal is to show that all these moves frame Rome not only as single-mindedly focused on eradicating Christianity, but as a state with a police force and surveillance system that is far more modern and developed than such systems would have been in the first century. The modernity of the fictionalized “totalitarian Rome” serves not just as a fantasy of history, but as a fantasy of future America. By combining the myth of persecution with the dystopian capabilities of a modern fascist state, Christian popular media encourages its consumers to project what is “ostensibly” the past onto the present, or, more frequently, the not-too-distant future. Such media encourages Christians to think of themselves as persecuted along with the Christian characters in the story and to imagine that a similar state of affairs could occur now if the viewer is not properly vigilant.

Building on the proposals of scholars who argue that Nicodemus is characterized in the Fourth Gospel as a dissembler who first approaches Jesus as an opponent (Brant 2004, 2011; Whitenton 2019), this paper offers a literary rereading of Nicodemus's response to Jesus's words about birth from above: “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4, NRSV). Whereas this statement is often interpreted as a reflection of Nicodemus's misunderstanding and foolishness, this paper argues that Nicodemus's words are better interpreted as a reasoned refutation of birth from above. Two main claims support this thesis. First, Jesus and Nicodemus are speaking to each other, not past each other. The central contention of their dialogue is the one that has been most often overlooked. The argument between Jesus and Nicodemus revolves around the simple, unassuming word can (δύναμαι), in which is hidden the problem of possibility. The significance of δύναμαι is signaled not only by its sixfold repetition in the span of such a short dialogue, but also by its appearance in every exchange of speech between Jesus and Nicodemus. The subject matter of their conversation is not birth from above as such, but whether it is possible. This observation makes sense of the way that Nicodemus turns Jesus's metaphor of birth toward the absurd and grotesque. Its effect is to communicate precisely what he regards as not possible: birth from above. Second, an allusion to Isaiah in Nicodemus's response reveals the theological basis of his refutation. Two initial observations about his response commend themselves. First, Nicodemus answers Jesus with the same metaphor of birth, but introduces an aged man into the metaphor (γέρων ὤν) as well as the image of the mother's womb (ἡ κοιλία τῆς μητρός). Second, Nicodemus infers that birth from above implies a second birth of the same kind as one’s first birth, which he judges impossible. His words allude to septuagintal Isaiah's language of birth for the election of Israel. “Hear me, ... everyone who is left of Israel, you who are being carried from the womb (κοιλία) and trained from the time you were a child. Until your old age, I am (ἕως γήρους ἐγώ εἰμι), and until you grow old, I am (ἕως ἂν καταγηράσητε, ἐγώ εἰμι); I bear with you; I have made, and I will set free; I will take up and save you.” (Isa 46:3-4, NETS). Thus Nicodemus's response may be understood as a reasoned refutation of Jesus's words about birth from above. To Nicodemus, Jesus's use of the metaphor of birth presupposes too much discontinuity between Israel's election and its restoration. On account of his understanding of God's faithfulness to Israel, Nicodemus does not accept as possible what Jesus says about birth from above. This rereading of Nicodemus's response suggests that this dialogue sets forth two competing visions for what makes possible participation in the restoration of Israel (see Blumhofer 2020).

This paper reconsiders the concept of “mission” in early Christianity. Many scholars have assumed that the “mission activity” of early Christianity was a self-evident phenomenon, and they have thus understood it along modern lines as intentional traveling to spread ideas about Christ and to gain converts. Not only does this activity often presuppose a bounded, coherent notion of Christianity—indeed of religion as a whole—it also accepts uncritically the presentation of these so-called “missions” in the early texts. This paper interrogates that textual evidence and aims to rethink what we mean by the concept of mission.

Scholars have long considered the appearance of Wisdom as a female-gendered divine or semi-divine figure in biblical literature. In one typical telling of the story of Wisdom, the challenge she presents to the patriarchal monotheism regnant in biblical texts and their interpreters ebbs and flows: At times, Wisdom-qua-feminine divine manifests strongly, as in Christian depictions of Mary or medieval kabbalistic construction of the Shekhinah), while at other times she is more thoroughly sublimated by religious authorities and the texts they produced. Rabbinic literature, with its strong version of patriarchal monotheism, has generally been treated as falling into the latter category. In this paper, however, I argue that one passage in the Babylonian Talmud, an extended discussion of the biblical Miriam (Bavli Sotah 11a-13a), allows a Wisdom that is both thoroughly female and explicitly divine--to emerge. Moreover, this image of a feminine divine is identified with Miriam, who is portrayed in the broader passage as a mother, a prophet, and a sage. This multifaceted Miriam is equated with the seemingly male biblical God, who in turn is likened to the paradigmatically female midwives. This rich moment of gender-bending theology challenges the common depiction of Rabbinic literature as impervious to the theological impulses found in both contemporaneous Christian texts (e.g. the rise of Christian Mariology) and later Jewish ones (e.g. the Bahiric Shekhinah).

Muslim scholars responded to the challenges of modernity, European colonialism, and Muslim weakness with a range of ideological programs, most prominently fundamentalism, modernism, and neo-traditionalism. The first, fundamentalism (Salafism), attributed the ummah’s misfortunes to the pernicious influence of heretical innovations (bidʿa) that had been introduced from without, often by converts to Islam. In purging Islam of these foreign accretions, Salafis hoped that Muslims would regain divine favor and repeat the spectacular geopolitical success they had enjoyed during the first Islamic century. According to a widespread scholarly narrative, one of the casualties of this inward-turning “closed-mindedness” was Muslims’ use of Jewish and Christian materials. Roberto Tottoli writes in his Biblical Prophets in the Qur’an and Muslim Literature: "[In the modern period] it is thought that the contents of the Qurʾan are sufficient to describe the lives of the biblical prophets, and that everything else should be considered material of questionable worth… Everything that is extraneous to the Quran and to the authentic sayings of Muhammad is not only superfluous, but is considered as something insidious for Islam." (1) While there were certainly some Salafī figures, such as Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935), who rejected the use of Jewish and Christian exegetical lore (isrāʾiliyyāt), a curious and unavoidable tension in the Salafī project was that the pious predecessors (salaf) themselves had been remarkably open to using material of Jewish and Christian provenance, as attested in numerous hadith. In the words of one of the most influential Traditionalist/Purist Salafī scholars, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1914), defending the use of such lore: "I have observed, from those who attribute virtue to themselves, the disparagement of the honor of Imam al-Thaʿlabī, may God sanctify his precious secret, because of his narrating exegetical lore from the Jews and Christians (isrāʾiliyyāt). I swear by God, this a rejection of the excellence of the virtuous, and enmity to knowledge!… What sin is there in narrating something and attributing it to its source? What’s wrong with you? By God, what an outrage toward the salaf!" (2) This paper explores modern Salafī debates on the exegetical usage of Jewish and Christian materials in tafsīr, problematizing the common portrayal of Muslim “fundamentalists” as close-minded. On the contrary, some Salafī scholars, such as Jamāl al-Din al-Qāsimī (d. 1914), accorded a place for the scripture of the Other, in emulation of the openness of the earliest generations of Muslims. End Notes: (1) Roberto Tottoli, Biblical Prophets in the Qur'an and Muslim Literature (Richmond: Curzon, 2002), 180-82. (2) Muḥammad Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1997), 1:32.

Krister Stendahl says we must undertake public health readings of biblical texts, especially texts with a legacy of oppression. One text with an especially oppressive legacy is Paul's pronouncement about the community's celebration of the Lord's supper in 1 Cor 11:30, "For this reason many of you are weak and ill and some have died." Paul's warning of judgment and illness for those who eat and drink the Lord's supper "without discerning the body" can be misused to blame victims for their own sickness. Thankfully, recent interpretations underscore that the "body" that Paul intends to be discerned is the whole community-- especially people who are oppressed, hungry, or marginalized in an imperial situation. This text should never be used to blame victims. An ecological reading today can extend the body of Christ metaphor even beyond the human community. It is striking that nowhere does Paul confine the body of Christ metaphor exclusively to humans. An expanded public health reading of the body of Christ to include the entire community of life, including endangered ecosystems as well as humans, may help us discern important linkages for ecological hermeneutics today. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists linked the rise of infectious diseases such as Ebola, SARS, and bird flu, to destruction of habitat and loss of biodiversity. New infectious diseases such as COVID that spread from wildlife to humans challenge us theologically. This paper will explore a broad anti-imperial public health reading of "discerning the body" of Christ in a time of COVID and climate emergency, to include not only human community, but the entire global community and the health of all life and organisms that suffer together.

This response paper will focus on New Testament exegetical, halakhic, and historical-critical issues raised by Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson in their new book Judaism and Jesus. It will also take up their engagement with Messianic Jews and Messianic Judaism.

Building on the ideas introduced previously by such eminent Revelation scholars as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Steven Friezen, and Ian Boxall this paper investigates one particular rhetorical strategy that John of Patmos deploys while constructing the ‘symbolic universe’ of his work. While Friesen saw the heavenly throne of God as the center of John’s world, this paper argues that this is actually the island of Patmos, the author’s self-professed location, which is the true center of the text’s cosmology, its axis mundi. Not only that, but this very ‘Patmos’ must also become a paradigmatic self-location for the text’s audiences as well, enabling them to overcome their marginality and oppression by re-centering the universe around them. John presents his own Patmos sojourn as an affliction and persecution at the hands of some loudly unnamed, yet apparently transparent universal evil, being an outcast at a place where he is geographically isolated and separated from his community and social networks. His visions, however, will transcend these troubles, fully reorienting and restructuring his cosmos, providing him with a first row sit to the cosmic drama, and with a privileged, supernatural access not only to his earthly networks but to the heavenly ones as well. John’s ultimate aim, however, is to convince his audiences that they too can join him and each other in this privileged location and in the community of ultimate power. To this aim he thoroughly fuses “real” and imaginary geographies and itineraries into one comprehensive universe perceivable only by the ones “in the spirit.”

As a late Meccan surah which incorporates a wide range of themes, al-An’am (Q 6) is a useful case study of interactions within the Quranic text: both diachronically – such that its verses may refer back to earlier ones, or be explained or modified by later ones – or synchronically, as is often the case in tafsir works. Muslim exegetes have long made use of the principle that “the Qur’an explains itself”, which – if we adopt the same expression of agency – means that al-An’am is both a mufassir (active) of various Meccan passages and mufassar (passive) by Medinan ones. This paper is based on a thorough study of the whole surah through the eyes of exegetes who gave explicit focus and priority to the intratextual principle: tafsir al-Qur’an bi’l-Qur’an. Beyond their citations of other Quranic passages as thematic parallels, or as evidence for a theological or juristic point, we pay special attention to the aspects of textual interaction which have a bearing on chronology. These include claims of abrogation concerning ten of its verses by later ones, half of which are said to have been cancelled by the ‘Sword Verse’. There are two verses in other surahs which appear to reference verses in al-An’am; and one verse of al-An’am makes explicit allusion to an earlier passage. Based on this, we consider the possibility of a mutually referential relationship between al-An’am and al-Nahl (Q 16). Moreover, there appears to be a relationship with Luqman (Q 31) established by two hadith reports which cite verses from the latter as explanation. As well as questions of chronology, our treatment of the most famous example (in which zulm in 6:82 is explained by shirk in 31:13) appeals to internal aspects of al-An’am to question the common presentation of this citation and its significance.

This paper discusses the evolution of the distributive double noun (quivis) in biblical Hebrew. This construction developed from an asyndeton in Classical Biblical Hebrew into a syndeton in Late Biblical Hebrew, a process that makes it an important diachronic marker in classifying and analyzing these two varieties. Examining this development, the paper first identifies a hitherto unnoticed conditioning: while the asyndetic pattern N1+N1 is used in CBH in the non-genitival state, the syndetic N1+waw+N1 is used in LBH in the genitival state. The shift thus concerns both syntactic structure and syntactic context. A correct understanding of the interrelation between these two aspects of the development under discussion enables us to explain both the shift itself and its main exception, the expression dor wa-dor. Contrary to the commonly held theory, the evolution of the quivis construction does not seem to stem from Aramaic influence. It could, however, be explained in terms of inner development in Biblical Hebrew. The shift from non-genitive to genitive fits the general tendency of LBH to complex nominal phrases. This, in turn, gave rise to the shift from asyndeton to syndeton, the purpose of which was to adjust the quivis construction to its new genitival function by adding a connecting waw. A similar process is observed in the exceptional syndetic phrase dor wa-dor, which appears in this form already in CBH. As the syntactic conditionings dictating its use are identical with those governing the LBH quivis construction, it can be considered a forerunner of the later LBH pattern.

This paper will reconsider the traditional semantic labeling for Biblical Hebrew (BH) verbs. Most BH grammars list the semantic functions of the Hebrew verb according to its morphological forms: e.g., qatal as perfect, yiqtol as imperfect, wayyiqtol as past. Even though such a simple description is beneficial for beginners, advanced students encounter the fact that one form may express various meanings. In fact, many intermediate grammars list a number of possible meanings per a morphological form: e.g., qatal may express present or past state, simple past, past perfect, present perfect, performative, or future perfect. Students needs to choose one meaning from those lists, considering its context, which may be resulted in ambiguity. In order to provide a better presentation on the semantic labeling of Hebrew verbs, I call attention to the significance of lexical aspect, which is also known as situation aspect. I adopt formal semantics, which is often associated with Richard Montague and his three papers, “English as Formal Language” (1970), “Universal Grammar” (1970), and “The Proper Quantification in Ordinary Grammar” (1973). One of the basic principles of the approach is to understand linguistic meaning by constructing precise mathematical models of the principle. Especially, both syntax and semantics are regarded as an algebra, and there is a homeomorphism mapping elements of the syntactic algebra onto elements of the semantic algebra.(Barbara Partee 2016). In terms of verbal system, it is assumed that verbs and predicates headed by verbs denote sets of events, in which tense gives the temporal location of the events denoted by the verbal predicate and in which aspectual categories reflect the internal temporal structure of the events. Furthermore, the internal temporal structure of the events is determined by three aspectual categories: grammatical aspect, lexical aspect, and telicity (Susan Rothstein 2016). Put differently, tense and these three aspectual categories must be considered in determining the meaning of verbs. Nevertheless, traditional BH grammars have tried to define it only by tense and/or grammatical (or viewpoint) aspect. As an example, this paper analyzes so-called stative verbs, qatil or qatul type verbs, to indicate how we can define the meaning of verbs according to the formal semantic approach. Then, I will conclude that both grammatical aspect and lexical aspect of verbs need to be analyzed to determine the temporal value in BH predicates.

This dialogue portion of the session is a conversation and reflection on my social activism as a lawyer and scholar actualizing intersectionality with Professor Monica Coleman.

In the letters of Paul, as in other ancient letters between separated friends and kin, joy is principally an emotion of presence, evoked by reunion or the prospect thereof (Rom 15:32; 1 Cor 16:17; Phil 1:25–26; 2:28–29); longing, conversely, is an emotion of absence (Rom 1:10; 1 Thess 2:17–18; 3:6; Phil 1:8; 2:26; 4:1). As media of surrogate presence, letters and the emissaries who carry them serve as conduits of joy, even as they also intensify the longing of both sender and recipients (1 Cor 16:17; Phil 2:19; 4:10). This paper describes the nexus of prayer, emotion, and epistolarity in Paul by engaging recent study of collective emotions and emotion regulation. Epistolography, from this perspective, is a corporate practice of emotion regulation: it cultivates shared feelings of joy and longing, which, when experienced as shared, are inflected by a third feeling as well, something akin to what Randall Collins terms, invoking Durkheim, “the collective effervescence of solidarity.” Paul’s prayers for his addressees, together with the prayers for his own wellbeing that he solicits from them, find their affective force within this distinctly epistolary context. These prayers are ritual recollections of the other that provisionally overcome absence by calling the absent one to mind—re-membering him or her—in a sacralized setting. Like the epistles in which they are reported and/or inscribed, Paul’s prayers are thus conduits of joy, a means by which he summons the feeling of shared presence (Phil 1:4; 1 Thess 3:9), even as they also express and intensify his longing (Phil 1:8; 1 Thess 3:10–11). In writing (about) his prayers, Paul acts upon both his own emotions and those of his addressees, stirring up joy and longing in himself and, if indeed his prayers and affections are requited, in his addressees as well.

This paper provides an overview of three key Pentateuchal narratives supporting ideas of reparative justice. First, it examines how Genesis 32-33 shows Jacob seeking to give back to Esau the blessing he deceitfully stole in Genesis 27. It points, for example, to Jacob’s willingness to call himself Esau’s slave/servant (Gen 32:19, 21; 33:5, 14), directly reversing Isaac’s blessing (27:29, 37). Second, it studies Judah in Genesis 44, showing how reconciliation with Joseph is achieved only after Judah proves through a willingness to be enslaved himself that he is no longer the enslaving brother he once was. Third, this paper examines ways in which Egyptians furnished the Israelites with valuables just prior to the exodus, seeking deliverance from divine judgment (Exod 3:22; 11:2; 12:35-36). Collectively, these texts demonstrate that from the beginnings of the biblical canon, characters have understood reparative work as essential to addressing past wrongs, alleviating anger, and facilitating new beginnings. These stories are particularly pertinent to discussions of reparations for slavery in America, given that they all deal directly with slavery, various threats, and complicated power-dynamics. For communities seeking to participate in God’s mission, these stories make clear that repentance embodied in reparations can facilitate life-giving futures in contrast to the death-dealing ways of both the past and present.

From the outset of the Joseph narrative in Genesis 37, the story repeatedly focuses on the theme of authority of Joseph over his brothers. Jacob gives Joseph a garment associated with royalty and high officials, and Joseph’s dreams predict that his brothers will prostrate before him, an act of loyalty and respect. Beyond the concept of royal ideology, however, no analysis of Joseph’s first dream would be complete without an acknowledgment of its legal terminology and imagery. Immediately after the narrative introduces Joseph, it describes his father’s relationship with him: “And Israel loved Joseph more than all of his sons because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long tunic” (37:3). Describing Israel’s love for Joseph, the narrative explicitly singles out Joseph from his brothers, with the verb “love” (Hebrew: ʾāhav) used to describe Jacob’s feeling toward him. In this paper, I contend the term ʾāhav here should be read as specific technical legal language denoting the selection of Joseph as the principal heir and/or as the administrator of the paternal estate. Hence, the brothers’ hatred directed at Joseph should not be perceived as jealousy only in response to an emotional bond between Jacob and Joseph, but also a legal bond—a selection of Joseph to receive more than his brothers. Thus, the scribes responsible for the composition of the Joseph narrative work within a legal discursive framework. Although, the Joseph story is not law code, a contract, or legal ruling, the narrative reflects and presumes the common conceptions and practices of the legal discursive world of its writers. Since the ancient Israelite audience of the Joseph story would have identified Joseph’s brothers and sons as sociopolitical groups in their own lives, the scribes’ technical legal diction may reflect the conceptual framework underpinning ancient Israel’s later political organization. Since political events are portrayed as the actions of the individual members of a single family—the sons of Israel—the interactions between “tribes” follow the discursive tradition of “family law.”

The death of Moses, according to Judah Goldin, brings two responses from midrashic interpreters: first, the need to defend or justify God’s sentence that Moses must die, and second, the need to express protestation that this “fate of Moses” was disturbing to later generations (“The Death of Moses: An Exercise in Midrashic Transposition”). This paper examines the long and highly refined treatment of the death of Moses in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, a source whose redaction is the eighth century CE or later, with consideration of parallel sources. The paper argues that this text presenting the death of Moses reveals most prominently (1) key features of the changing genre of midrash in this period, and (2) the understanding of the Book of Deuteronomy as scripture in this late canonical homiletic midrash. Steven Fraade in From Tradition to Commentary, has argued regarding Sifre Deuteronomy, redacted in the third century CE, that this early midrash to Deuteronomy needs to be addressed both through the perspectives of “formation” and “reception.” He writes, “By the first I mean attention to how otherwise discrete and sometimes discordant traditions have been redactionally combined and to varying degrees configured to form a running commentary to the text of Deuteronomy.” The second approach demands that researcher consider the perspective of the rabbinic student of the mid-third century C.E., who is “progressively working through the text of commentary” and “seeks to understand its contained traditions in relation both to one another, fore and aft, and to the text of Scripture, both fragmented and continuous, upon which it comments” (pages 1, 17, 20). The much later Deuteronomy Rabbah has to be addressed differently. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 does not present its object of commentary, the Book of Deuteronomy, as “both fragmented and continuous,” but rather seeks to identify themes spread throughout the work to show common concerns, even if concerns that carry internal tensions, in Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch more broadly. Moses’ death is not simply an event at the end of Deuteronomy, but an extensive preoccupation in the biblical text. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 also does not present “discrete and sometimes discordant traditions” but rather is a highly edited unit of exposition with a defined beginning, middle, and conclusion. The plot and dialogue have a simple and exaggerated tone: grave issues are presented in a manner that may bring a smile or laughter at the representation of Biblical scenes in rabbinic prose. This particular edited unit also exemplifies how two earlier features of rabbinic literature combined and intensified in this work: Rachel Anisfeld’s Sustain Me With Raison-Cakes argues that homiletic midrash of the amoraic period is distinct of a combination of “accessible” material combined with “rabbinic esotericism,” whose exact character and purpose demands explanation (pages 10, 18, 46, 49, 190), and Daniel Boyarin in Socrates and the Fat Rabbis has emphasized the significance of seriousness along with a rejection of the solemn in the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud.

When we explore interpretations of biblical rape texts with the inter(con)text of the public discourse on the coronavirus pandemic of spring 2020, a fascinating hermeneutical observation emerges: both discursive practices silence or even outright reject positions that interrogate, question, or challenge the hegemonic status quo. None of them advance a hermeneutics of suspicion but they promote “surface readings,” a “hermeneutics of trust,” or even a “hermeneutics of restoration,” besides conventional assertions of objective-medical or scientific-antiquarian standards. Yet in both cases, principles of critical analysis are quickly and easily relegated to the intellectual margins. This rhetorical situation demonstrates that the topic of violence, whether specified as sexual violence or a threat to one’s health and life, induces readerly submission to a hegemonic mindset that disregards the proliferation of sexual violence in the world.

This paper studies the names and numbers of women in the crucifixion, entombment, and empty tomb narratives of Mark and Matthew, by highlighting a set of under-discussed nodes of textual instability at Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40, and Mark 15:47-16:1. The first two Gospels demonstrate that either three or four women might appear at the cross, depending on the manuscript; moreover the women’s names are highly inconsistent in these scenes. Such instabilities reflect early competing traditions about which and how many women appeared at the cross and empty tomb in the Matthean and Markan stories. Codex Bezae offers a particularly striking example of the phenomenon, since its text (both Greek and Latin) mentions only two women at the empty tomb in Mark’s Gospel, i.e. Salome is not present. Unlike the story we find in our confusing received text of Mark, where “Mary of Joses” is at the entombment and “Mary of James” is at the empty tomb, in Bezae’s version (and several other early witnesses) the same woman clearly appears in both scenes. In general, scribes and Christian commentators sought to preserve the initial text accurately and only departed from this goal in rare cases, usually by mistake. Certainly there may have been some carelessness or confusion around these women’s names due to divergences in the Evangelists’ accounts. Yet many Markan exegetes have pointed out that Mark 15:40 mentions “Mary the mother of James the lesser and Joses,” while Mark 15:47 refers to “Mary of Joses,” and Mark 16:1 mentions “Mary of James” just one verse later. Do these verses refer to one, two, or three different women? The version of the text reflected in Bezae is far clearer - the same woman appears in all three scenes. Could this apparent “omission” or “harmonization” in Bezae instead be regarded as a “Western Non-Interpolation” at Mark 15:47-16:1, overlooked by Westcott and Hort? Given the increasing emphasis on virginity from the third century onward - especially the virginity of Mary - this paper explores the possibility that the source of the textual instability may be early anxiety about the identity of “Mary the mother of James the lesser and Joses.” This woman clearly gave birth to other sons besides Jesus; notably, in Mark's Gospel Jesus has brothers named James and Joses (cf. Mark 6:3). Omission and harmonization remain valid possibilities for the sensible two-woman Markan textform we find in Bezae and several other early D-Text witnesses. However this paper suggests that we should also consider whether early debates about Mary’s virginity could have had an editorial influence on the text of Mark’s Gospel in these crucial scenes.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on the Early Historical Books.

“How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles?” With these poignant words evoking Matthew 25:18, political speaker Maria W. Miller Stewart (1803-1879) lamented the limited educational and vocational opportunities open to African American women in the first half of the nineteenth century. As the first recorded African American female political writer and the first American woman known to address a mixed audience of men and women on political topics, Stewart was a forerunner for a host of nineteenth-century African American and Euro-American women who took up the pen or ascended the speaker’s platform to argue for racial and gender equality. This paper explores the rhetorical use of biblical language permeating Stewart’s speeches and writings. Adopting the persona of a persecuted prophet, she compared her own afflictions to that of Jeremiah, the apostle Paul, and Jesus. She addressed African Americans (“the sons and daughters of Africa”) and Euro-Americans (whom she called “the Americans”) with strong words that echoed the judgments pronounced by prophets such as Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and John of Patmos. Stewart used her oratorical gifts to urge the United States to end its racist practices, and she exhorted African Americans to unite in order to improve their own economic and educational prospects. She condemned white men’s sexual exploitation of African American women. Stewart’s words are a powerful indictment against American racism, offering a vision of a society guided by biblical principles of justice and equality.

Current SLA research on teaching reading comprehension skills has determined that grammatical knowledge plays less of a role in reading comprehension than is often assumed (Mumin 2011).  Instead, it emphasizes the need for, and effectiveness of, engaging the students' phonological loop (Grabe 2008; Walter 2009).  Typically, however, introductory biblical Hebrew courses tend to focus on the former while ignoring the latter.  After a brief summary of the SLA literature on the matter, this paper will survey a list of resources available to instructors of biblical Hebrew to bolster students' phonological loop processes, provide some initial guidelines for evaluating their effectiveness, and offer some practical suggestions on how these can be incorporated into a first year course.

The closing verses of Malachi (3:22–24) appear to serve as a canonically oriented coda in MT, closing both the Twelve and the Latter Prophets—and, in turn, connecting them with the Pentateuch. For this reason, scholars have often positioned the book of Malachi as part of the large-scale redactional processes through which these components of the canon were formed and coordinated. In this paper, I argue for a more specific way that Malachi functions in this context: together with Isaiah 1, it forms a redactional frame for the Latter Prophets. This frame aims both to promote and to circumscribe the prophetic critique of priestly authority. On the one hand, the frame fronts this critique as a defining dimension of prophetic activity. On the other hand, the frame emphasizes that this critique is rooted in—and is an expression of—tôrâ, rather than being opposed to tôrâ. The paper proceeds in two sections. First, I show how Isaiah 1 and Malachi situate the prophetic critique of cultic impropriety in relation to the term tôrâ. Although there are important differences in how the two texts configure these elements, both do so in order to show that the prophetic critique is not a subversion of tôrâ itself but of the corrupt cultic apparatus that (falsely) claims to speak for tôrâ. In the second section, I present literary evidence that Isaiah 1 and Malachi were authored/redacted in a similar postexilic setting and perhaps directly in light of one another. I argue that they represent an incipiently canonical effort to harness the power of subversive prophecy so as to reinforce rather than to contradict the superordinate authority of tôrâ. One major implication is that, as several recent studies have also shown, the image of the prophet as a social critic is more at home in the postexilic period than earlier scholarship tended to assume.

This paper explores the meaning and purpose of Paul’s citation in 2 Cor 4:6 in the context of chaps. 3–4. In 2 Cor 4:1–6, Paul ends the section with a summary of the nature of his preaching (v. 5) and the glory of his ministry’s gospel (v. 6). Of particular interest is the wording in v. 6: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out [or: Light will shine out] of darkness’ (ἐκ σκότους φῶς λάμψει), who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Most scholars think that Paul is citing a modified form of Gen 1:3 LXX here: “And God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’” Another possibility is that Paul conflates Gen 1:3 with Isa 9:1, the only other time that φῶς λάμψει occurs in the Septuagint. Considering the wider context of 2 Corinthians in which the citation occurs helps to clarify Paul’s point.

The role of prayer, particularly prayer of lament, has been an area of considerable scholarly interest in the study and exegesis of prophetic literature. Although there are various ways in which one may understand the narratival and/or rhetorical motivations underlying prophetic engagement in prayers of lament, this paper aims to explore the ways in which the various prayers of select prophetic texts may have been received in later Jewish texts and contexts. This presentation will explore the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch through the lens of recurring narrative cycles of misdeed, prayer, and restoration. I argue that this cycle consistently demonstrates the efficacy of the prayers of various characters in the An. Apoc. in every instance with one major exception: the era of the Second Temple prophets. This presentation will serve as an exploration of the failure of the prophetic prayer of lament in the An. Apoc. by means of an ideological-critical engagement with the narrative’s perception of the construction of the Second Temple under Persian imperial hegemony. I will argue that in the An. Apoc. the inefficacy of the prophetic prayers of lament reflects the author’s perception of the Second Temple project and offers an ideological critique of the Second Temple prophetic enterprise which underpinned cooperation with imperial hegemony. I conclude that one of the contours of this apocalypse serves as an ideological critique of select Second Temple prophetic prayers of lament and prophetic oracles, situated specifically in the texts of Deutero-Isaiah and Haggai, both of whom endorse cooperation with Persian imperial interests. I suggest that the author(s) and/or community(s) of the An. Apoc. envisioned a failure of the prayers of Second Temple Prophetic project in the historical events of Israel as a parallel with cooperation with Seleucid imperial hegemony. The failed prayers of lament of the Second Temple prophets depicted in the An. Apoc. thus suggests that for the author(s) of the apocalypse cooperation with imperial hegemony has produced in the past, and will continue to produce, failed prayers of lament, a failed temple and failed eschatological renewal. Thus, in the contemporaneous context of 1 Enoch, the failure of prophetic prayers of lament constitutes a marked attempt to redefine the identity of the community in contrast to the prayers of cooperation evidenced in Second Temple prophetic literature. I will conclude by way of a discussion of 1 Enoch’s An. Apoc. understanding of “effective” and “ineffective” prayer in its various characters, and suggest that the narrative rejects the prayer of Second Temple prophets and opts instead for an alternative vision of eschatological restoration.

The Book of Mormon describes itself as an ancient scriptural text authored by Israelites who migrated to the American continent around 600 B.C. and took with them Jewish biblical texts that had been written before that time. However, for more than a century, Latter-day Saints have dealt with a potential anachronism: Book of Mormon prophets quote from and respond to chapters from the book of Isaiah that modern scholars typically date to well after 600 B.C. Beginning with B. H. Roberts at the beginning of the twentieth century, Latter-day Saint scholars and Church leaders have had a variety of responses to this issue. For many believers, the existence of chapters assigned to “Deutero-Isaiah” in the Book of Mormon is proof enough that the scholarly dating is simply wrong. Some have defended the unified authorship of the eighth-century Isaiah by engaging with and criticizing various scholarly assumptions and arguments. Others have taken a mixed approach, suggesting that the Book of Mormon only proves that Isaiah 2–14, 29, 48–53 (and maybe 54) were preexilic, and that other chapters could have been composed later, as the scholarly consensus holds. Still other Latter-day Saint scholars have sought to accommodate evidence that Deutero-Isaiah was different than the original eighth-century Isaiah. One suggestion is that the author of the Deutero-Isaiah chapters was indeed a different prophet, but he recorded his words prior to 600 B.C. (in time for the Book of Mormon’s dating, but still earlier than the chapters’ setting in the Babylonian exile). Another approach has been to suggest that the Book of Mormon prophets were using earlier, preexilic versions of these particular prophecies, which later went through a Babylonian/Persian redaction; because the English translation of the Book of Mormon utilizes the redacted version of Isaiah found in the King James Bible, the chapters then end up looking anachronistic. Some Latter-day Saints have pushed the influence of the English translation even further, suggesting that the Deutero-Isaiah chapters represent an inspired modern expansion on the Book of Mormon’s ancient textual material. Of all these approaches, the most common has traditionally been to discredit the scholarly consensus and argue for the unified authorship of Isaiah. However, while several 5–10 page articles or book chapters have critiqued a summary of the academic arguments for multiple authors, no Latter-day Saint scholar has ever produced the up-to-date, methodologically rigorous, book-length response that would be needed to fully engage these arguments on their own terms. Nevertheless, not all Latter-day Saints would agree that this would even be the right approach. Some solutions do not require that the Deutero-Isaiah chapters come from the eighth-century Isaiah, and belief in divine intervention opens up various theological solutions to account for the Book of Mormon, even if those solutions lie outside scholarship’s ability to evaluate. For most Latter-day Saints who have responded to this issue, faith in the Book of Mormon’s divine providence remains a key part of any approach.

This presentation considers thematic intertextual connections among various biblical stories in both testaments. Specifically, it explores the story of Rahab (Joshua 2), Ruth (the book of Ruth), the “pagan” sailors (Jonah 1), the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and Cornelius (Acts 10). In each instance, individuals we might typically expect to see villainized, or at least marginalized, in the pages of Scripture, are valorized instead. Each of these individuals takes risky actions to preserve, or enhance, the lives of others. Each behaves in unexpected ways within the biblical narrative given the way people in their representative categories are typically portrayed. By extolling their virtues, the reader’s sympathies are turned toward these individuals and, by extension, the groups they represent. While it is difficult to ascertain precisely how such stories would have functioned in their ancient context, it will be argued that these were intended to counter exclusivist tendencies and thereby promote greater inclusion. By extolling good qualities of individuals from groups despised by the audience—or disparaged in the biblical corpus—these stories would have challenged negative stereotypical views about certain kinds of people. By persuading people to rethink deeply held views about the Other, these stories had the potential to change hearts and minds, thereby reduce animus and potential acts of violence toward individuals often held at arm’s-length. Finally, brief attention will be given to contemporary applications of this motif. It will be suggested that extending this practice into the modern world has real benefit for the reduction of violence and the promotion of peace. Humanizing rather than demonizing the Other builds bridges of understanding and goes a long way toward stopping violence before it starts.

It is widely recognized that the Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament is translated from the Septuagint. In this paper, I study the translation technique of the Ethiopic Version. I focus on the additions in the Ethiopic text that were made by the translator in the non-kaige section of 2 Samuel (i.e. 2 Sam 1–9). Such additions in the Ethiopic text can be detected comparing the Ethiopic text to the Greek manuscript tradition: the elements in the Ethiopic text that have no equivalent in any other witnesses of the Greek text may be attributed to the translator. The additions are divided into three categories: grammatical, logical and stylistic additions. This helps us to understand how the Ethiopic Version renders the Greek text. Furthermore, the knowledge on the translation technique is essential when judging whether the variants in the Ethiopic manuscript tradition represent the original text or the inner-Ethiopic development.

In 1 Cor 7 Paul responds to a number of queries put to him by the Corinthian ekklesia with a mixture of commands of the Lord (1 Cor 7:10), and his own judgment, which he claims is inspired by God’s pneuma (1 Cor 7:40). While many have sought to locate Paul’s words about marriage within Stoic-Cynic debates about celibacy, the divine imperatives with which Paul responds suggest another fruitful area for comparison in oracular consultations. Consulting oracles was an abundantly-attested way for individuals and communities to resolve disputes and seek divine guidance concerning the best course of action for various aspects of daily life in antiquity. In addition to literary attestations, the specifics of many questions and answers have been preserved in inscriptions and lead tablets from the oracles of Zeus at Dodona and Apollo at Didyma. This paper analyses Paul’s advice in 1 Cor 7 alongside the sorts of topics commonly brought before an oracle in these sources, which include questions about who one should marry, whether one should marry, or whether one should find a different wife, as well as matters of correct cult and sacrifice, which may have further pertinence as Paul moves on in 1 Corinthians. This paper then examines the implications for Paul’s role as apostle, and ambassador of Christ to the Corinthian ekklesia (1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 5:20) in the context of “freelance religious experts” who offer religious expertise outside of official religious institutions.

My paper will respond to Radcliffe Edmond's exploration of the interrelationships between ancient magic, theurgy, and philosophy in his recent book, Drawing Down the Moon.

This paper will consider the changes made in the reconstruction of the Initial Text of the Gospel according to Mark in the Editio Critica Maior from an exegetical point of view. What impact might these changes have on the interpretation of the Gospel? What is their significance? Are there new patterns which come to light, or further data which might be taken into consideration?

Rilke's *Letters on Cézanne* are often quoted but rarely studied on their own. In this paper I argue that these letters are performative, enacting a social space that connects Rilke with his two intended addressees. Moreover, I will argue that these letters are theological and religious by reading them with Nicholas of Cusa's *de visione dei* (1453), which, like Rilke's Letters, has at its core the experience of painting as an event of language. I compare the ways that Cusa and Rilke stretch language apophatically to enact an experience of painting that ultimately defies language. Rilke and Cusa thus make language function liturgically, in which the experience of painting becomes an act of participation, repetition, and belief. In Rilke's letters, belief is privileged over sight (2 Cor 5: 7), and that which completes sight. Rilke thus confesses his slow appreciation of Cézanne’s paintings: “for a long time nothing, then one gets the right eyes” (10 October 1907). The "right eyes," then are for Rilke (and for Cusa) more than a visual experience. It is this move from sight to belief that opens a space to think theologically about modernist painting.

It is well known that a “post-Qumram” paradigm shift has occurred in Hebrew Bible textual criticism. The result has been a greater focus on a "text qua scribe" model of analysis in which spectra of scribal dynamics are brought to the forefront. The implications of this necessitates a focus away from primary dependence on traditional stemmatic, Lachmannian text-critical methodologies and models as they are ineffective at adequately tracing or characterising such scribal activity. So, the present work applies insights and models from Cognitive Linguistics for the purpose of developing a proposed “bottom-up” categorisation model or schema on the basis of a comprehensive text-critical analysis and database of the Hebrew variation attested between Masoretic, Samaritan, and Judaean Desert manuscripts of the Book of Deuteronomy (with versional witnesses brought to bear when directly relevant). The result of the evaluation is the assertion that we should conceive of the transmitted text of the Hebrew Bible during at least the Late Second Period as "resinous." This label is meant to function as a highly productive metaphor to express how socio-cognitive factors affected dynamic, embodied scribal processes and the meaningfulness of variations in their textual representatives.

Prayer is a category that can involve different types of actions. Hand positioning, the use of voice, gestures and material objects can all be part of this category. Furthermore, it is likely that some characteristics, gestures, and objects would be common for prayers focusing on the same goal. During the Second Temple Period, prayer was used as a form of protection against evil beings, and there are many aspects of these acts that need to be explored by scholarly discussion. This paper will adopt an inductive methodology and explore the possible association of musical instruments with apotropaic prayers in 4QSongs of the Maskilb (4Q511) and 6QpapHymn (6Q18).

The purpose of this paper is to interpret the new Commandment in John 13:34 as John’s reinterpretation of the Jewish origin story This paper attempts to demonstrate how the new commandment reconfigures the Jewish origins story through the person and ministry of Jesus to ensure the ontological continuity of the Jewish identity for the Jewish followers of Jesus. A strong social identity presupposes the ability of that identity to articulate its origin and its future orientation. A social category that allows its members to project themselves across time in a stable manner attracts more members than social categories that fail to do so. Therefore, the narrative strategy of John to draw an analogy between Moses and Jesus as a lawgiver and originator of a new social group could be seen as John’s attempt to allow Jewish followers of Jesus a sense of ontological continuity in their identity through the processing of remembering and reinterpreting a critical Jewish cultural narrative. The giving of the new commandment in John results in the superimposing the figure of Moses, a central figure in their social memory, upon Jesus in the conscious of the Jewish readers, and this configuration insinuates to Jewish readers the continuity of Jewish social memory and identity in and through Jesus Christ Thus, John’s rewriting of a Jewish history through the Christological lens implies how the continuity of the OT narrative identity into the NT age

Examining narrative features of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Greek novel Callirhoe, and the Gospel of Mark, this paper argues that, in literary works from the early Principate, involvement of the divine in human suffering (even through inaction) often resulted in human honor. Ancient Roman attitudes toward enduring suffering and hardship varied: trials tested the one undergoing the hardship (whether that be difficult life situations or the challenges of others), brought about opportunities for displaying positive shame, and could become debilitating and thus dishonoring. For some, especially during the period of the Principate, becoming hardened to humiliation—and thus embracing shamelessness—became a means to honor. Similarly, in certain literary representations dating to the early Principate, suffering willed or caused by the gods leads ultimately to honor for the characters in question. Thus, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, human persistence and piety in the face of suffering caused by gods results in honors from divine and human characters. In the novel Callirhoe (a Greek novel that impacted Roman culture), troubles and shameful status reversals are attributed in large part to divine action and inaction, and it is only with divine favor that suffering is abated and honor fully restored. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’s shameful suffering is associated with God’s will and to an extent is attributed to divine inaction. Once again, honor is restored only through divine intervention, so that Jesus’s honor is (partially) restored at the end of Mark.

Harry Fleddermann offers five arguments for the existence of Q (verbal agreements, agreement in order, doublets, priority discrepancy, and internal coherence), but both Q scholars and Q skeptics have elevated the first of these arguments to the neglect of the others. Q scholars have done so in letting the double tradition largely dictate the contents of Q. Q skeptics have done so in assuming that if dependence of Luke upon Matthew (or vice versa) can be demonstrated, then Q becomes “unnecessary.” This paper will consider the five arguments for Q, demonstrate the weaknesses in an over-reliance on verbal agreements, show the strength of the other four arguments, and add a neglected sixth argument for Q that is the most important indicator of the contents of Q. The result is a more robust case for the existence of Q and an improved method for determining the contents of Q.

The infamous story of Jephthah’s fateful vow and subsequent sacrifice of his only daughter is one of the most profoundly horrifying stories of victimization in both the Hebrew Bible and Western literature. Depending on one’s interpretation of the text, Jephthah is either a heroic judge and faithful YHWH follower or an insecure, rogue leader who makes a rash vow with a deadly consequence. The historically patriarchal arc of biblical exegesis and interpretation has viewed Jephthah as the tragic hero of this story, while the unnamed daughter’s death is an unfortunate byproduct of this faithful man’s obedience to God. I seek to interpret this text of terror with a feminist critical lens in order to liberate this pericope from its patriarchal constraints and to bring the story of Bath-Jephthah to the surface. My interpretative focus on the experience of the daughter instead of the experience of the father allows a shift in the exegetical focus. I argue that this story is not about a faithful judge, but about a young woman who acted within her patriarchal confines to not die in vain. While Jephthah has been heralded as a gibbor chayil, I propose that in negotiating the terms of her own death and serving as an active dialogue partner with her father, Bath does not die as a nameless virgin but as an eshet chayil.

1 Corinthians 11:17-32 is a discourse of normativity and deviance, which is to say that it is a queer and queering discourse. In this part of his letter, Paul has in view the meal practices of the assembly in Corinth, about which he has heard. Reading into Paul’s response, the meals seem to be proceeding along the lines of class and individual self-concern, with people satiating themselves without regard to each other. This, in Paul’s view, is a gathering that “is not really to eat the Lord’s supper.” The meal practice of the group owes too much to the prevailing customs of the culture, according to Paul, and it does not account for the deviance—which Paul characterizes as a new normativity—demanded by devotion to Jesus. Paul argues that the Corinthian assembly should practice queerer meals, characterized by inclusion, generosity, deference, and egalitarian community. Although these meals deviate from the norms of his day, Paul describes them as normative, and casts adherence to the old norms as deviant by the terms of his new ecclesia. In this article, I put this passage from 1 Corinthians in conversation with sociological discourse of queer potlucks as sites of alternative communities and scholarship about the agape meal as the constitutive event of early Jesus-following worship and community. The modern emergence of potlucks as spaces for the flourishing of gay and lesbian identities, safe places where resources can be shared in solidarity, mirrors the development of the meal as the shared communal space of the Jesus-following movement. In both cases the space of meals becomes an important site of community (ecclesia) where norms are subverted and deviance (by the reckoning of the broader culture) becomes normalized and indeed valorized. The cohesion and flourishing fostered by queer potlucks helps us understand the social function of early meals among Jesus-followers, and the lens of queer practice helps make sense of Paul’s sharp rebuke of his Corinthian correspondents who had abandoned queer practice.

Recognition in scholarship of the disruption of social relations following the downfall of the monarchy has led to sustained attention upon depictions of polity in post-monarchic literature. As a result, Zech 3:1-10 has unsurprisingly garnered a significant amount of attention because it provides a window into the restructuring of Judahite society following the exilic crisis and return. The result of inquiry into this text has been a rather compelling debate regarding the text’s depiction of the relationship between three important political functionaries: prophets, priests, and kings. Many interpreters highlight presumed socio-political developments reflected by this text that exalt the role of priests to the extent that the other functionaries have little or no role to play. Nevertheless, dissenting voices aver that the pericope in fact tempers priestly aspirations by aiming to return society to reliable, pre exilic norms. A relatively unexplored avenue of inquiry into this debate involves attention to recent discussions regarding the broader phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient Near East. Inasmuch as ancient Israel was not the only society presuming a close relationship between prophets, priests, and kings, this type of comparative approach offers a promising lens for addressing some of the most pressing questions posed by previous interpreters. More specifically it enables a reassessment of claims that downplay the significance of the prophetic role in Zech 3:1-10. This paper demonstrates that, consonant with the role of prophets throughout the ancient Near East, the effectiveness of Zech 3:1-10 depends upon the integral role of the prophet in reframing communal identity in a moment of radical political transformation. More specifically, this text offers a rare portrayal within the Hebrew Bible of a prophet functioning as a “central intermediary,” authorizing the central-priestly group in Jerusalem led by Joshua, the High Priest. A crucial aspect of the text’s function in this regard is its theological vision of a priestly-royal diarchy that reinforces a functional hierocracy by relegating the coming royal “Branch” to an uncertain future. Moreover, what has often been viewed as prophetic “critique” functions rather as Herrschaftswissen, legitimizing the priests’ role in providing social stability following crisis. Ultimately, then, the role of the prophet is integral to the pericope’s focus, such that claims regarding the “demise” or “crisis” of prophecy in early post-monarchic Yehud should be reconsidered.

In 2018, the attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions, an avowed evangelical Christian, invoked Romans 13 as justification for the Trump administration’s treatment of detained immigrants.Sessions specifically directed his comments about that verse to “church friends.” Almost two years before his remarks, during the 2016 presidential address of the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Conference, the newly-elected Beverly Roberts Gaventa spoke about Romans 13, using Simone Weil’s 1941-essay entitled “The Iliad, or The Poem of Force.” Gaventa emphasized how Weil, though in the middle of the French occupation, never mentioned any political matter (not even Hitler). Gaventa offered Weil’s omission as a way for biblical scholars to approach their trade: with “a more generous hermeneutic.” Interpretative openness, rather than a hermeneutic of “distrust and suspicion,” according to Gaventa, might save the profession of biblical criticism. She further claimed that without her hermeneutical approach it is “hard to see a long-term future for our enterprise” (21). However, “a more generous hermeneutic” exposes, as is the case with Sessions’ remarks and the policies that proceed from them, a serious liability for evangelical Christians and their belief in the authoritative nature of the Bible: Biblical interpreters imagine, or believe, they are invoking divine authority and wherewithal. Unsurprisingly and invariably, the invocation of “church friends” permits self-proclaimed authority and acuity, which, to borrow a phrase from Gaventa’s speech, “says nothing of the rightness of their own intentions or actions.” In this paper, I examine the trend of Biblical interpretations that have dominated right-leaning and faith-oriented epistemologies that affected actual policies and their impact on the upcoming 2020 elections. Starting with Romans 13 as a rationalization for immigration detention actions, I also identify precarious citations for pro-life/anti-abortion sentiments, like Jeremiah 1:5, and the insistence on preferencing biblical prophecies in Daniel and Revelation that have dominated foreign policy in the Middle East. My intention is to bring attention to the looseness of biblical interpretations that have been problematic for the public perception of evangelical influence upon American politics.

The metaphor of sexual shaming and violence in Ezekiel 16:35–43 and 23:9–49 is nothing short of confronting. In both speeches, Israel’s persistent idolatry is described in graphic language of an adulterous woman or two sisters giving themselves to many lustful lovers. The penalty in the metaphorical world of the divine speeches is each woman’s shaming where their nakedness is exposed after which they are then put to death publicly. While the text’s perspective in both speeches is from the point of view of YHWH as the aggrieved of Israel’s spiritual promiscuity, this paper gives voice to the trauma of the guilty metaphorical women and so Israel’s trauma that the metaphorical language depicts. This is especially critical since the rhetorical audience are those that have lived the trauma associated with the metaphor of sexual violence and so this paper examines how the use of this imagery, through the voice of the sexually-shamed, contributes to the rhetorical strategy that 16:35–43 and 23:9–49 employ within the rhetorical unit of which each passage is apart and then within the book of Ezekiel as a whole.

The Hebrew book of Esther famously contains no direct references to the Deity, nor does it present its protagonists in prayer. Ancient Greek versions of Esther, however, strike a very different chord. Two distinctive Greek versions survive from the Hellenistic period: the so-called Old Greek (OG) or Septuagint (LXX) text, on the one hand, and the so-called Alpha Text (AT) or Lucianic (L-) text on the other. Both contain a number of major “additions” when read against the Hebrew version; one of these (Addition C) includes prayers attributed to Mordecai (LXX Est C:2–10; AT Est 4:13–17) and Esther (LXX Est C:14–30; AT Est 4:19–29) placed at the climax of the narrative. Most scholarship on the prayers has focused on questions of form and the prospect of recovering older literary strata, whether in the form of a communal lament (e.g., Kottsieper 1998) or a Grundlage shared with other prayers, such as that found in Judith 9 (e.g., Van der Walt 2008). These prayers have also been discussed in narrative critical terms and as jumping-off points for conversations about gender roles, piety, characterization, and ethical deliberation in Hellenistic Judaism (e.g., Day 1995; Schorch 2010). Emotions in LXX Esther’s prayer have also been studied as “a contribution to the field of historical psychology” and for what they can reveal about “the change from ‘Hebrew’ to ‘Greek’ anthropology” (Ego 2015). The present paper takes a different approach, starting from the tradition of Greco-Roman rhetorical theory. Reading Esther’s prayer in the LXX as a persuasive text, it examines the strategies Esther uses to convince the Deity to “put eloquent speech into my mouth and make favorable my speeches before the king, and turn his heart to hatred of our antagonist” (AT Est 4:25; cf. LXX Est C:24). We will examine the rhetorical strategies these two Greek versions of Esther’s prayer use to bring about their stated goal with reference to the forms of persuasion (pisteis) outlined in the second chapter of Aristotle’s On Rhetoric: (1) how the prayers argue for the validity of their case with reference to established narrative facts (logos), (2) how they defend and shore up the character of their speaker (ēthos), and especially (3) how they appeal to the emotions of their divine audience (pathos).

Two ancient Greek versions of the Book of Esther survive from antiquity and have been critically edited by Robert Hanhart for the Göttingen series: the so-called Septuagint (LXX or o´) or Old Greek (OG) text, on the one hand, and the Lucianic (L-) or Alpha Text (AT) on the other. The textual basis for the latter is a small set of manuscripts (Ra 19-93-108-319) and a “mixed” text in one additional manuscript (Ra 392). The most distinctive thing about both Greek versions is the appearance of six “Additions” in both the LXX and AT which are absent from the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) of Esther. Compared with the common tradition (i.e., material for which parallels are found in LXX, AT, and MT Esther), which can diverge widely when the three texts are considered side by side, these “Additions” in LXX and AT Esther are relatively similar to each other. Addition C in both Greek texts contains prayers attributed to Mordecai and Esther. The present paper examines textual variants in the AT’s Addition C, with special attention to what has been called recensional activity towards the LXX’s Addition C. Drawing in also the witnesses of Josephus (Ant. XI) and the Old Latin translation of Esther, the latter of which may have been translated from a hypothesised third Greek text (which J.-C. Haelewyck calls La-Grec III), this paper will offer a limited thesis regarding what can and cannot be ascertained concerning the path by which Addition C came to be incorporated into the AT.

Recent studies on the sociology and history of fire in human civilization raise fascinating issues about how we understand the role of fire in human history. Associated with household, women and children, around the hearth - fire is a profound ally. In war it is a horrible adversary - but particularly for the elite. Many of these recent works on fire raise interesting questions about the role of fire as means of politics and judgment. In the Bible, fire is considered "purifying", but also devastating - and devastating to ALL persons in cities - not only the warriors in the field (and Amos rather uniquely features angry denunciations of elite women as well as men). This paper will offer some speculations on re-reading fire in Amos in reference to these recent works on the sociology - and politics - of fire.

Information about violence is found in the Book of Deuteronomy as well as in the Neo-Assyrian corpus, especially royal inscriptions and the adê-oaths. This treatment often reflects notions about divine agency and how the socio-religious landscape was imagined. Accounts of warfare in the Neo-Assyrian royal annals are idealized portrayals of victory that contributed to the self-presentation of the king as a just and capable ruler. These post-factum narratives often include violence against women and children in their attempts to communicate meaning. On the other hand, the adê-oaths sworn by vassals promising loyalty to the Neo-Assyrian king contain prescriptive statements in the curse sections that also mention violence directed against vulnerable individuals as punishment for contravening the treaties. Similarly, the Book of Deuteronomy includes both narratives and regulations regarding violence during warfare. These narratives about the conquest of the land, putting into practice the divine prescriptions communicated by Moses, are cautionary tales that recount success when the people obey the covenant and their failure when they disregard it. This pattern reflects the Deuteronomistic historian’s theological stance and conception of divinity. This paper analyzes and compares the rationale for violence against women, children, and objects in the Book of Deuteronomy and the Neo-Assyrian sources. It will discuss the presentation of violence in the various Neo-Assyrian genres and demonstrate that the violence in the accounts from the royal inscriptions is often portrayed as the fulfilment of the voluntarily assumed curses in the adê-oaths. Attributed to divine agency in response to violation of the oaths, violence in these texts is presented in a more absolute manner because there is a universal conception of the deities’ reach and domain that parallels that of the human ruler. Violence directed against and perpetuated by women and children becomes part of a narrative of divine rejection, justifying Assyrian attitudes and behaviors against the rebellious enemy. In contrast, the regulations for warfare in Dt 7 and Dt 20-21 provide a more nuanced approach to violence against women, children, and objects. The difference with the Neo-Assyrian sources is due to the biblical conception of divine agency and how it imagines the socio-cultural landscape. Biblical violence against the enemy is predicated upon the idea that YHWH is king of the land promised to the people of Israel, who should act in a manner consistent with the covenant relationship in their warfare and conquest. Consequently, this idealized notion of warfare both condones and restricts the violence that is possible.

The book of Ruth offers an example of Pentateuchal law in practice, and by interpreting the law expansively, Ruth makes a strong statement about social justice. While the author of Ruth presents a narrative in which the biblical laws are interpreted in a way specifically suited to the context of the text, the author only does this by broadening the laws, never narrowing them. For the author of Ruth, the laws of the Torah are only a baseline. Georg Braulik posits the idea that “the Deuteronomic laws may already have become outdated and also have no longer been understood by the time that the book of Ruth was written” (“The Book of Ruth as Intra-Biblical Critique of the Deuteronomic Law,” Acta Theologica 19 [1999], 2). This interpretation is unnecessary. The laws of Deuteronomy (and the rest of the Torah) can still be understood as authoritative for the author of Ruth, but authoritative does not mean uninterpretable or unalterable. The book of Ruth, although taking the Torah as authoritative, interprets the biblical laws concerning the role of the Moabites (Deut 23:3–6; Exod 34:15–16), the practice of gleaning (Deut 24:19; Lev 19:9; 23:22), and the practices of land redemption (Lev 25:25–28) and levirate marriage (Deut 25:5–10) by expanding the laws from their statements in the Torah to make a stronger statement about social justice. Because the book of Ruth offers a picture of law in practice, it is just one example of the diverse understandings and applications of law within the Hebrew Bible itself and within the postexilic interpreting communities.

The SAHD project is entering a new phase. This paper presents an overview of the project initiated by professor Hoftijzer (Leiden) in 1987. From the beginning, it combined different goals: (1) a comprehensive presentation of all the available data; (2) with special attention to the lexical fields; (3) a computerized presentation making it publicly available in different forms. The results thus far show impressive output (recently on the semantic field of deliverance) but also limited progress. A new way of combining the different goals of the project will help to invigorate the project. This will be demonstrated with some lexicographic examples.

Unity and diversity among the two letters of Paul to Timothy and his letter to Titus have been much under dispute in recent years. Some have argued, that the letters build an artificial corpus to be read as a letter romance (Richard Pervo, Timo Glaser). However, many miss a narrative that develops from letter to letter and forms a unifying story. Others have countered by highlighting differences between the letters - thereby, hoping to attribute parts of them to different authors and different times (Jens Herzer, Jerom Luttenberger, Michaela Engelmann). Yet, language, theology, ethics and narrative technics, point to a single origin somewhere between the East and Rome in the second century. Therefore, the question remains why there are three and not only one letter and why two of them are dealing with a similar topic of community organization and the duties of leaders in the middle of a dangerous theological environment? To answer this question, this paper will add some observations from resent research on ancient letter collections to the discussion. Roy Gibson (“On the Nature of Ancient Letter Collections,” JRS 102 (2012), 56-78) and others have argued, that there is no systematic or straightforward association between ancient letter collections and biographical or history narration. Instead, letters are most often arranged on the principle of artful verity and significant juxtaposing. By compiling letters into a collection, the collector – here likely in my view identical with the author him or herself – opens the opportunity to read the letters in manifold ways: as a historical narrative of external events, in order to get political advice, in order to delve into the author’s or the recipient’s spiritual journey, in order to become an imitator of the author’s language, stile and/or to expand existing collections, to name some of many possible readings.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Early Christian Judaism.

In 1982, the functional linguist T. Givón (1982) showed that many languages, including Modern Hebrew, employ special referent-coding devices that signal when a new participant is important to the discourse. The present paper shows that in Ancient Hebrew, the noun ’îš often plays this role. It posits that this noun’s prototypical meaning is ‘participant in a situation’, and the most prototypical situations are those that are defined by their participants. These facts create a connotation that enable the noun to serve as a signal that the referent is consequential in the discourse. I will show how this noun (in the plural) is used to introduce a distinct subset of a recognized group as being consequential; how it is used (in the singular) to introduce a new participant while excluding existing participants from its referential scope; and how it is used in appositions that combine the definite form ha-’iš with an apposed proper noun, such as ha-’îš Mošeh (Exod 11:3; referencing Moses), to indicate a situation-altering participant. Previous explanations for these usages, as well as implications on the informational level (e.g., this noun’s nuance of ‘adult’, it role in casuistic laws, and its role in labeling angels), will be briefly discussed. The ability of this view to resolve certain longstanding interpretive cruxes will be noted. This paper is based upon the author’s 2020 dissertation.

Philo’s De vita Moysis is organized into four roles of Moses (2.1-7): book one covers the royal role; book two covers the legislative (§§8-65), high priestly (§§66-186), and prophetic roles (§§187-287). Philo is explicit in marking out the shifts from one role to the next (2.1, 8, 66, 187) and insists that the perfect ruler should combine all four (2.3-7, 187). The Alexandrian handles the biblical text differently for these roles. The first book works sequentially through the biblical narrative describing the life of Moses with some notable alterations, e.g., the absence of the Sinai pericope. The second book is thematic and draws material from throughout the Pentateuch. Philo has clearly developed or imported a grid that he has projected onto the biblical text. This paper will explore the rationale for the four categories that Philo used for Moses.

(1) This interdisciplinary paper brings scholars up to date on the emerging study of “awe” in the natural and social sciences as well as the Hebrew Scriptures. I draw from neuroscience, social psychology, and selected biblical texts to suggest that nature-based awe usually changes people for the better. Ocean storms, gleaming skies, lions, and towering peaks—all of these reveal our limits and instill reverence, teaching us our place in the universe (e.g., Psalm 8). (2) Data from the sciences refine what we mean by the emotion of awe or wonder. According to some studies, indicators of awe include altered time perception, self-diminishment, connectedness, perceived vastness, physical sensations (e.g., goosebumps, jaw-dropping), and a need for mental accommodation. Most studies correlate the emotion with a transformed outlook and with increased prosocial behavior. People are more generous with their time and treasure when they feel awe instead of merely amusement, for example. Even neuroscience may have discovered different brain-wave patterns for experiences of awe. Rather than a luxury only for tourists, then, the sciences show that we are all wired for wonder. The emotion actually enhances our emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual development, though not in simplistic ways. (3) From the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), I will argue that awe-inspiring depictions of the natural world do indeed have these social effects. The biblical cosmos is charged with awe-inspiring features and creatures that reveal the moral character of the Creator and contribute to ethical expectations on humans. Wonderment as an embodied disposition can lead to celebration (Ps 8), dread (Jonah 1), breathless silence (Hab 2:20), surprising generosity (Job 38–42), reverence for our cosmic creator (Amos 5:8), and/or lingering skepticism (Exod 7:9–13), depending on the context. Earthquakes and thunder show that it is not only visual stimuli that can induce awe but also auditory or tactile “affects.” Then, too, the self-diminishing responses of figures such as David or Job depict transformative encounters with natural phenomena. Other questions remain: How does awe relate to the concept of the “fear of the Lord,” and what are the problematic dynamics of fear-based rhetoric in theology? This paper explores what various biblical genres, in turn, can contribute to the sciences as scholars work together to understand what wonder is and what it does in shaping our lives.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Isaiah and Intertextuality.

The Leningrad Codex (LC) is the oldest complete extant manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, and is therefore the basis of much academic study of the Masorah. Masoretic notes in the LC frequently inform us of similarities between certain groupings of texts. These similarities can be found in Masorah parva (Mp) and Masorah magna (Mm) notes on either one verse within the grouping or on multiple verses. Usually when notes appear on more than one verse, there are identical notes recorded in multiple places. However, sometimes the LC provides different notes on different verses within a single grouping of texts. This paper focuses on inconsistencies within the LC’s masoretic notes, specifically cases in which texts grouped together via Mp/Mm notes provide different notes on different verses. Special attention will be paid to cases where Weil’s notes in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia do not include all of LC’s notational information.

As modern scholarship on the parables of Jesus was coming into its own during the twentieth century, the study of the ancient fable by classicists was also hitting its stride. Largely unbeknownst to either guild, scholars have been laboring on these two corpora in parallel, with no interaction between them, arriving at conclusions with significant implications for the other. In this short talk, I will begin to remedy this situation by introducing some key insights, methods, theory, and terminology from ancient fable scholarship that carry substantial implications for the study of Luke’s parables in particular. Between the Synoptics, the Gospel of Luke preserves the largest number of Jesus’s parables by far, the majority of which are unique to his gospel. Among these parables unique to Luke are the most beloved of the Jesus tradition, popularly known as the Prodigal Son, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Good Samaritan, as well some of the most peculiar, including those about bellicose widows, rich fools, and commendable crafty stewards. As a few researchers have observed, this class of parables unique to Luke is distinctive in a number of ways, especially in terms of form and in their ethical emphasis. Rather than illustrating the kingdom of God as Mark and Matthew make explicit, these parables are preoccupied with ethical lessons: being a good neighbor, forgiveness, avoiding greed, the need to pray, to show humility, and so on. I will offer an explanation for the form and ethical focus of Luke’s parables from the first-century fable context. I will begin to familiarize listeners with the world of the ancient fable through a sample of the 600 or so surviving first-century fables. Using the fable theory of Morten Nøjgaard, we will then work through the formal elements of a first-century fable and how ethical lessons are drawn from them, including how a fable is composed. New tools in hand, we will then analyze a couple Lukan parables using the techniques applied to the fable. The result of our analysis will demonstrate that the same techniques applied to the fable can bring valuable insights about Luke’s parables, including their unique formal qualities and ethical focus. I will conclude by raising some broader issues that follow this outcome, such as what difference, if any, there is between a Lukan parable and a first-century fable.

A text-critical commentary is an integral part of the Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior. This commentary will explain the decisions made by the team of editors where the text-critical work on the text has led to textual changes compared to the text of the Nestle-Aland/UBS, where text-critical decisions were problematic, and where the text remains open. In this presentation, we will describe the structure of this commentary, explain how it developed, and discuss the methodological assumptions and procedures that underlie it. In addition, we will examine the role that classical textual criticism has played in conjunction with the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method for textual decisions and how this is manifested in the commentary.

Linguistic evidence has played a large role in the debate over the dating of the book of Daniel. From roughly 1900 onwards, the presence of words deriving from Greek κιθάρα ‘cithara’, σαμβύκη ‘sambuca’, ψαλτήριον ‘psaltery’, and συμφωνία ‘symphonia’ in Daniel 3 was taken as damning evidence against the traditional sixth-century BCE date of composition and as a strong argument for the second-century BCE composition of Daniel in the context of the Maccabean crisis. For the past 50 years, however, scholars have increasingly argued that Greek loanwords could have occurred in sixth-century Aramaic. Two recent papers even argue that the Greek loanwords provide evidence against second-century composition. This talk questions the assumption that the Greek words in Daniel 3 result from lexical borrowing. They are characterized by a lack of phonological and morphological integration. This suggests that they are not established loanwords, but instances of code-switching. Greek linguistic material was inserted into an Aramaic framework by a multilingual author, writing for an audience that was similarly multilingual. As widespread proficiency in Greek is not likely to have occurred in the Near East before the Macedonian conquests of the 330s, the identification of these words as code-switches thus limits the composition of Daniel 3 to the Hellenistic period. The phonology of the Greek underlying these code-switches as revealed by the use of matres lectionis moreover points to a terminus post quem of ca. 200 BCE, strongly supporting a Seleucid context for the composition of Daniel 3.

In this paper, I argue that Ezek 21:1–32 [English Versification: 20:45–21:27] employs a series of metaphors that shift from metaphor to metaphor to form a dynamic allegory of the actions of Yahweh against the people of Israel/Judah. Ezekiel’s Song of the Sword stands at the center of the dynamic allegory, exemplifying the strongest element in the allegory, namely the sword. A dynamic allegory employs a series or collection of metaphors across its narrative arc, whereas a static (or standard) allegory uses one controlling metaphor across its narrative arc. The allegory begins with the metaphor of a fire consuming a forest, progresses to a sword in the hand of Yahweh, becomes a personified sword, and finally coalesces into a metonymical representation of Babylon’s war against Judah. This study uses Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Cognitive Linguistics to describe each of the constituent metaphors in the dynamic allegory. Conceptual Metaphor Theory uses the terminology of “source domain,” to describe the language or image of the metaphor. The source domain then maps onto the “target domain,” which is the concept or thing ultimately represented in the metaphor. Throughout the allegory, the target domain consistently remains the actions of Yahweh against Judah/Israel, which unifies the text of Ezek 21:1–32 [20:45–21:27], despite some clear signs of redactional shaping. The source domain, however, shifts and adapts based on the rhetorical needs of the text. These shifts in the text, however, do not create jarring transitions, as thematic and conceptual similarities facilitate the transitions from metaphor to metaphor. For example, the allegory shifts from the metaphor of the fire to the metaphor of the sword by means of a consumption/eating metaphor. A fire and a sword both eat/consume their victims. The stringing together of the metaphors creates a narrative arc for the allegory to follow. The narrative arc begins with fire in Ezek 21:3 [20:47] and ends in the dramatic siege of Jerusalem (Ezek 21:27 [22]), but the image of the sword binds the allegory together. The dynamic allegory in Ezek 21 divides into four smaller sections. In the first section (Ezek 21:1–5 [20:45–49), Yahweh commands Ezekiel to prophesy about a fire coming on the south. In the second section (21:6–10 [1–5]), Yahweh provides a second oracle explaining the meaning of the fire. The third section (vv. 11–22 [6–17]) contains the Song of the Sword. The final section (vv. 23–32 [18–27]) describes the actions of the king of Babylon. Ezekiel 21 and The Song of the Sword provide fertile ground for new investigations due to a relative dearth of scholarship on the subject. Yet, the text contains complex metaphors and literary imagery meriting careful study.

In this presentation, I will present examples from my own epigraphic fieldwork and discuss the process involved in editing and publishing newly discovered inscriptions. I will also explain and demonstrate how scholars can identify and utilize already published inscriptions relevant to their own scholarly projects. In addition, I will discuss various kinds of epigraphic material and provide information regarding resources, with special emphasis on epigraphic evidence for early North African Christianity.

Clear Bible, Inc. had previously worked on the Westminster Hebrew syntax trees in collaboration with the Groves Center. Unfortunately, that set of syntax trees is not openly licensed and does not meet the needs of Bible translation organizations like unfoldingWord and scholars who need the freedom to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format. Clear Bible will be releasing a new set of syntax trees built on the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible text and morphology in early 2021. In the next few months, they will be releasing the trees under a Creative Commons Attribution license and inviting organizations like unfoldingWord and interested scholars to assist in checking and editing this new set of syntax trees.

The so-called Marginal Latin (LaM or La91-95) is increasingly used in the textual criticism of Samuel-Kings as a source of Old Latin readings. These readings were collated by Ciriaca Morano in his edition "Glosas Marginales de Vetus Latina en las Biblias Vulgatas Españolas" (1989). The text of LaM seems to often agree with the Lucianic/Antiochean tradition, which has been sometimes seen as confirming the Old Greek character of the Lucianic text (especially in 1-2 Kgs; see Julio Trebolle in "The Legacy of Barthélemy: 50 Years After Les Devanciers D’Aquila," 2017). However, thus far no complete text-critical surveys of the characteristics of LaM's all readings have been made. Such a study has the potential to shed further light on the textual character and even the origin of these glossed readings. In this paper the textual affiliations of LaM in 2 Samuel will be for the first time fully analyzed. The study is part of the Academy of Finland project “The Septuagint and Its Ancient Versions,” which in turn forms part of the "Göttingen Septuagint of 2 Samuel" project, led by Tuukka Kauhanen.

There is a certain amount of ambiguity between different early Christian Marys that begins with the earliest gospels, and Mary continues to be a multifaceted figure in late antiquity. This paper takes as its starting point the Qur’anic Mary and traces late antique Christian traditions behind Sura Maryam and Sura al-Imran. The impact of extra-canonical traditions, in particular, the Protevangelium of James, is evident. However, this paper argues that the Qur’anic Mary carries in herself more than apocryphal Marys. Mary in the Qur’an is a virgin mother and a holy woman. She is ascete who withdraws, controls her eating and her communications with people. Stories of holy women, found in monastic author’s works, are reflected in Sura Maryam. To appreciate the Qur’anic Mary, it is therefore necessary to look wider than the biblical or extra-canonical literature. Narratives of desert women are found in Palestinian monastic traditions, and this context will be brought into discussion of the Mary in the Qur’an.

The vineyard is an oft-used metaphor in the Hebrew Bible. In rabbinic midrash, notably in parables (meshalim), as in the parables of Jesus and early Christian texts, the use of this image is continued. Often the image of the vineyard is accompanied with the image of the uncultivated field. Yet another recurrent metaphor is that of the inheritance, nachalah, which often occurs together with the related term segulah. In my paper I will explore the double metaphoric opposition nachalah/segulah and field/vineyard as it is used to express various relations between God and Israel or another specific group as it features in meshalim, mostly in tannaitic Midrashim.

In the extant Latin works of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) there are hundreds of instances of Greek terminology employed, more than 850 in his collected letters alone. The deficiency of the Latin often seems to be the motivating factor for Cicero’s inclusion of the Greek terminology. This is particularly evident in De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum 2.13, where he notes, “Et quidem saepe quaerimus verbum Latinum par Graeco et quod idem valeat” (trans. “One often has some trouble to discover a Latin word that shall be the precise equivalent of a Greek one”). This paper will explore the contribution of Cicero’s use of Greek for modern lexicology and lexicography, with a particular focus on New Testament case studies.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Early Historical Books.

It is well-known that the conclusions of the Synoptic Gospels are remarkably different from one another. While there is significant overlap in the account of the empty tomb (Mark 16:1-8; Matt 28:2-20; Luke 24:1-12), this all but disappear as each Gospel reports the resurrection appearances of Jesus. While the short ending of Mark (16:8) lacks any resurrection appearances (despite suggestions of such appearances in Mk 14:28 and 16:7), Matthew and Luke depict encounters between the disciples and the risen Lord but with few points of contact. Matthew includes a brief appearance to the women and a final commission to the disciples. Luke 24 recounts a lengthy appearance on the road to Emmaus and subsequent appearance to the disciples in Jerusalem before the ascension in Bethany. Markus Bockmuehl has even gone so far as to call the appearance tradition “narrative mayhem” ( “Resurrection” in Cambridge Companion to Jesus, 111). The significant differences have often overshadowed any element of unity in the resurrection appearances. However, the concern for the recognition of the risen Jesus was once held as an element of unity in the appearance tradition. The form critical work of C.H. Dodd and John E. Alsup both noted how the appearance stories shared a concern for the question of recognition of the risen Jesus. However, the analysis and comparison of the theme of recognition in the appearance tradition was rarely developed in detail, let alone in conversation with a wider understanding of recognition in the ancient literary milieu. But a survey of ancient literature demonstrates that recognition (ἀναγνώρισις) was a widespread ancient literary technique. It was defined and discussed in Aristotle's Poetics and was utilized in a range of Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic Jewish writings. Moreover, recognition was particularly utilized as a way to bring a complex plot to its conclusion. This background holds particularly prospect for the use of recognition in the resurrection appearances as the appearances offer the conclusion to the gospels. While studies of recognition in John have blossomed in recent years (Culpepper, Larson), the role of recognition in the Synoptics has remained undeveloped. This paper will redress this oversight. Drawing on the use of recognition in ancient literature, this paper will discuss the similarities and differences between Matthew and Luke in their use of the recognition motif in their appearance narratives. It will explore how each Gospel uses recognition in the appearance tradition as a climactic literary device with distinct narrative functions. This suggests a similarity in form despite diverse functions. I will also suggest how this recognition motif might inform the interpretation of the abrupt ending of Mark's Gospel at 16:8. While recognition does not clarify all of the complex questions of the appearance tradition, it does offer a new way to analyze unity in the ‘narrative mayhem’ of the appearance narratives.

In the Hebrew Bible, the mythology of the twelve tribes of Israel is absolutely central, appearing at every important transition in the historical narratives. Presumably, the vast majority of people who have ever read the Bible have believed that the intensity of biblical history’s focus on the tribes reflected the importance of a genuine tribal entity in Israel’s early history in some way or another. In biblical studies, since the days of Martin Noth, this early history has not been the days of the exodus and the conquest but of the pre-monarchical period, and tribal lists have been treated as a clue to the realities of this era. The data of tribal lists, the small differences between them, are still broadly supposed to reflect the changing shape of tribal organization in the premonarchical period itself. More recently, some scholars have focused on the late, Judahite composition of most tribal lists to argue that they preserve an essentially singular act of Judahite invention, the creation of Judah, in a sense, as Israel. Neither model, however, reflects the way literary, segmented, genealogical myths are understood in contemporary scholarship in other places. Generally, segmented identity frameworks are the source of a nearly constant redescription and contestation over the past between claimants, couched in the language of history. In this paper, I will argue that the Bible’s various redescriptions of Israelite history and identity, via tribal lists, preserve a quite different kind of data than scholars are used to finding in them in either existing model– less historical, more ideological, and significantly more reinventive. As a result, the body of biblical descriptions of tribal Israel represent a source of information about late, Judahite ideological programs that has never been plumbed to any considerable degree. By thinking of these tribal lists less as history, and more as myth, we can position ourselves to ask not what they preserve of the Israelite past, but what they are doing with it, and why.

Interrogation and the logic of questions in the Fourth Gospel (abbr. FG) have rarely been studied. Prejudiced by the paradigm of western science past Johannine scholarship has focused most of its attention on propositions and their logic. This has not only led to a neglect of the logic of questioning in FG, but has, moreover, led many scholars to interpret Jesus’ questions as theological statements. Recently, in a first attempt to study the rhetorical function of questions in FG, Estes (2013) has analyzed Jesus’ questions in FG from the perspective of modern erotetics and has labeled FG as a dialectical gospel. The present paper will further develop this understanding of FG as a dialectical gospel by looking at the rhetorical function of questions in John 6:5–14 and 8:46–59 from the viewpoint of ancient theory of dialectical interrogation. I will argue with Aristotle that questions have their own logic and that the many questions in FG should be read in their own right. The author(s) of FG had particular expectations about how readers conceived of questions and patterns of interrogation. Because of the major influence of Aristotle’s theoretical discussions of dialectic on the later tradition of dialectic (see Spranzi 2011), Aristotle will be our main discussion partner to study the logic of questioning in FG. According to Aristotle, the aim of interrogation is to elicit a response that will be refuted by showing that the answerer has committed an error (ἁμαρτία). The questioner succeeds in his/her task by adopting different strategies to make the answerer say the most paradoxical statements possible or contradict him- or herself. The vocabulary of dialectical interrogation is also present in FG: ἐρωτάω, ἐλέγχω, ἀποπειράζω, ἐξετάζω, ζητέω, ἁμαρτία. Two case studies (John 6:5–14 and 8:46–59) will be provided to verify whether some of the dialogues in which these words occur have features of dialectical interrogation. The outcome is that FG creatively interacts with the ancient conventions of dialectical interrogation. Both Jesus and his interlocutors engage in dialectical interrogation. The question whether Jesus is the Christ is not a matter of faith versus reason, but of a rational investigation conforming to Aristotle’s logic of question and answer.

Scholars of early Mormon history have argued many theories about how and why the Book of Mormon includes lengthy quotations of Isaiah, Matthew, Malachi, Acts, Micah, and 1 Corinthians. The major explanation at the beginning of the twentieth century—propounded by B. H. Roberts, Sidney Sperry, and others—was that whenever Joseph Smith encountered biblical texts on the plates he simply borrowed the translation from the KJV because, for the most part, it agreed with what he found there. In this view, when his text differed from the KJV it was because the plates deviated from what is found in the KJV. This position turned out to be difficult for some Mormon scholars to accept by the 1970s when it became clearer that Smith did not engage with the plates while dictating the Book of Mormon. Instead, these scholars used witness statements explaining that Smith did not use a manuscript or book to produce the Book of Mormon to argue that Smith could not have had a Bible out during the process. The popular interpretation among Mormon scholars since the late 1980s has been that Smith read the text from the stone he placed in his hat and the variants appeared there with the rest of the text. This paper aims to engage the ongoing discussions about the lengthy quotations of the Bible in the Book of Mormon by more closely analyzing the variants in comparison to Adam Clarke’s commentary on the Bible. Joseph Smith’s approach to providing block quotations of biblical texts in the Book of Mormon was eclectic. Scholars have previously noted that many variants are based on italicized words, and others have noted that Smith seems to have made more changes at the beginning of a block quotation and then progressively make less until the end of that textual block. Up to this point no one has systematically explored the possibility that Adam Clarke’s commentary on the Bible, among other common resources of the day, influenced Smith’s decisions when he made the Book of Mormon text vary from the KJV. Although some studies have pointed to specific cases where Smith was likely influenced by these resources, I will show that this is an important aspect of the block quotations in the Book of Mormon that has gone virtually unnoticed in previous scholarship despite its importance. Clarke’s commentary played as important of a role in the dictation of the Isaiah text as the KJV italicized words themselves.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Early Historical Books.

The practice of “sacral manumission” by either consecrating a slave to the deities of the sanctuary or by performing a fictive sale to them is well-attested in the inscriptions of the Graeco-Roman world. Macedonian inscriptions of Roman times provide useful information about these manumitting acts taking place in the temples of various local deities. It seems that such acts are an example of how religion and economy are often interconnected in the ancient world. In this paper, the role of women as slave owners dedicating their slaves to female deities of Macedonia will be discussed in detail. A prosopographical analysis of these women will offer some useful information regarding their status and connections in local communities. Furthermore, a list of all known manumissions performed by women in Macedonia will be provided and the question will be raised whether possible patterns regarding the gender of slaves or that of the deities involved in the manumitting acts could be traced. Finally, the relation between power, economy, and religion in the case of these women as well as their role in control mechanisms of ancient society will be discussed.

In my recently completed dissertation on the translation character of Septuagint Jeremiah (Jer LXX), I argue that a number of the different translation equivalents used in ch. 1–28 (Jer a') and ch. 29–52 (Jer b') reflect revisional changes. By and large, I identify these changes by their similarities to revisional tendencies identified in other revisions or translations that are argued to be within the limits of the kaige tradition. The past few decades have seen the publication of several lists and criteria for identifying kaige readings, but most texts associated with the kaige tradition vary in their attestation of these characteristics and seem to stress certain features over others. Some examplars of this tradition are more attuned to the known revisional principles and display an application of these principles more systematically than others. This paper describes the features among the translation differences between Jer a' and Jer b' that are similar to features of the kaige tradition and assesses their overall character in relation to kaige revisional principles. The purpose of this endeavor is to determine the qualitative and possibly temporal standing of the changes in Jer LXX in relation to exemplars of the kaige tradition.

Analyzing the scribal habits in manuscript traditions raises difficult methodological problems. For example, the traditional method of inferring scribal habits from singular readings has been criticized for ignoring too much of the data because readings introduced independently across different branches of the tradition are excluded. This paper proposes a new approach which uses Bayesian phylogenetic analysis to infer a stemma of the manuscripts whilst logging the ancestral state reconstructions. This produces samples from the posterior probability distribution over all the textual states for all the hypothetical manuscript ancestors. From this information, one can infer the probability of certain changes occurring across any of the branches. As a test case, this procedure is applied to a family of Arabic manuscripts of the Gospels which includes three continuous text codices and nine lectionaries. These manuscripts have been transcribed into D-Codex which is my software package for creating digital editions of manuscripts. D-Codex is used to classify the the variants into classes and to generate an input file for the Bayesian evolutionary analysis package, Beast 2. The power of this phylogenetic method is demonstrated in that it is not only used to analyze the tendencies across the branches leading to the extant manuscripts but also at other places in the stemma, for example at the point in the tradition when the continuous text version was adapted to become a lectionary. It is hoped that this method can be applied to other traditions in a similar fashion.

The Samaritan version of Deuteronomy contains a number of textual variants in comparison to the Masoretic Text that explicitly or implicitly endorse Mount Gerizim as the divinely appointed site of YHWH worship. The so-called “Samaritan Tenth Commandment,” found in the Decalogues of Exodus and Deuteronomy, appears to be the fulcrum of these associated variants, as an explicit commandment, issued to the Israelites from Sinai, that upon entering the land they should construct an altar upon Mount Gerizim. A careful examination of the Mount Gerizim commandment, which is almost entirely composed of text taken from the “narrative” frames of Deuteronomy shared amongst the textual witnesses (Deut 11:29–30; Deut 27:2–7), reveals an interpenetration of legal and narrative modes of discourse. This suggests that, for the scribe(s) that transmitted and contributed to the ongoing composition of this version of the Pentateuch, the prescriptive texts were not conceived as separate, uniquely legalistic documents, but as theological texts, fundamentally integrated into the surrounding narrative.

This presentation will present the major conclusions of my PhD research, which aimed to explore the implications of a prosodic reading of the Masoretic accents. Most prosodic studies of the accents operate from within the framework of classical accentuology (Wickes 1881, 1887, further developed by Breuer 1958 and others). However, it is my conclusion that a prosodic reading of the accents (initiated by Norman 1987, Dresher 1994) necessitates a paradigm shift in the study of the accents. I demonstrate that this new paradigm is not opposed to the classical paradigm, but rather complements it, both having their advantages and weaknesses. This new paradigm aims to provide a reading of the accents that is detached from the underlying theoretical structure in favor of a more practical and readily interpretable reading of the accents. The underlying structure is of great merit for theoretical considerations about the intricate workings of the accentual system, not in the least its association with prosody. However, it fails to break through in a practical manner – in exegesis, for example – as a meaningful addition to the text. The contemporary study of prosody, on the other hand, shows both a well-developed theoretical foundation as an intuitively interpretable practical side. This latter aspect is lacking for the Masoretic accents and it is this lacuna that the pragmatic paradigm attempts to fill. The pragmatic paradigm explicitly addresses two major obstacles for a practical reading of the accents that exist in the structural paradigm. 1) The location of the major disjunctive breaks is generally considered a given. Thus, the location of these breaks is not well understood and hence the accents that delimit them cannot properly be interpreted. 2) The accents are grouped based on shared structural properties and their disjunctive value is described as relative to the context. Thus, one accent cannot be compared to another identical accent in terms of disjunctive force (or any other prosodic aspect for that matter) even within the same verse. The pragmatic paradigm addresses these obstacles from two angles: segment-based and sequence-based. The segment-based approach studies how individual accents can be re-grouped according to similar prosody and how thus prosodic segments are created (much like the structural segments, which the classical paradigm identifies). The sequence-based approach focusses instead on patterns, structures or so-called contours that consist of multiple accents in sequence. Thus, rather than the segment-final accents, it is the interplay of accents within segments that is studied. This two-fold prosodic understanding of the accents enables the systematic study of the intersection between syntax and accents where prosody is suspected to play a major role. Its conclusions then allow a prosodically enhanced exegetical reading of the accents.

This paper intends a comparison of the Beth Alpha synagogue floor mosaics and the Sette Sfere mithraeum in Ostia. The juxtaposition of images in the Beth Alpha synagogue places the zodiac, the sun god, and the temple doors – at the spot where the Torah ark was, in such a relation to each other and to the space in which they occur, that the ensuing visual conversation creates a sense of being “at the sacred portal.” A discussion of the visual elements of the synagogue floor, is set in comparison to the layout and imagery of the Sette Sfere mithraeum in Ostia. A discussion of the meaning of the imagery of the mithraeum in relation to the spatial organization of the structure is offered. Reconstructions of the Mithraic “liturgy” – the process of entering through the spheres, movement through the equinoxes, etc. – offer an understanding of the Mithraic liturgy as a movement out of the cosmos back into the cosmos. It is the spatial meaning of the latter, transferred back to the interpretation of the synagogue floor, that offers an understanding of the experience created by the juxtaposition of the synagogue imagery as a similar kind of mystical cosmic immersion. As such the imagery of Beth Alpha may suggest its positioning in a trajectory that links it to the contemporary of such Jewish mystical traditions as Hekhalot mysticism.

Speech representation is a staple of Greek historiography. Historiography is concerned with ‘what happened’, and one sort of thing that ‘happened’ in the past is that speeches of consequence were delivered -- quite pointedly so in Josephus, whose grand narrative of the history of the Jews opens when ‘God commanded there should be light’ (γενέσθαι φῶς ἐκέλευσεν ὁ θεός, AJ 1.27) and so set in train history itself. But it is also true that from its inception Greek historiography was preoccupied with exploring the opportunities and dangers of speech-making, the complex relationships between speech and action, and the narrative possibilities afforded by the representation of speech. Josephus’ works evince an acute awareness of these issues and the ways in which they were dealt with in Greek historiography. Josephus shares with many Greek historians an ambivalent attitude towards speech and speech-making. While being a good speaker is one of the chief requirements for being a successful leader according to Josephus, he is keenly aware that rhetoric can (and often was) put to dubious purposes. In this contribution several relevant aspects about speech in Josephus will be surveyed and discussed: (1) types of speech and the cohesion of speeches, (2) attributive discourse (that is phrases or “tags” identifying an act of speech), (3) forms of speech: direct discourse (DD), indirect discourse (ID) and records of a speech act (RSA), (4) the feature of rival speeches in the Antiquities, and (5) brief statements in direct discourse.

The growing interest in historical-critical readings that situate the letters of Paul and other New Testament writings within Judaism has been greeted with methodological critiques that have not yet been fully addressed. Two recurring reactions ask for clarity on (1) what is meant by “Judaism” and (2) what it would mean for something to be “within” Judaism. While the former has a long history of discussion, the latter awaits full consideration. In practice, the “within Judaism” and related labels blanket several interpretative approaches that may (1) emphasize the conceptual similarity between a text and other ways of being Jewish (e.g., Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels), (2) argue that the social situation reflected in a text is of a marginalized Jewish group (e.g., Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community), or (3) use an inner-Jewish social setting as an assumption to test the coherence of an interpretive framework (e.g., Nanos & Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism). This lack of explicit, shared criteria creates confusion and enables easy critique and dismissal, preventing greater acceptance of the within Judaism paradigm. My paper addresses this second critique by outlining a transparent, theoretically informed methodology for evaluating the relationship of a text (e.g., Romans) to a social category (e.g., first-century Jews). It builds on related studies (e.g., Davila, Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha) and introduces insights from the study of group boundaries (e.g., Lamont and Molnár, “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences”) to provide a methodology for relating extant textual evidence to ancient social groupings. It distinguishes primary and secondary criteria for identifying texts as Jewish and suggests a typology for how New Testament texts may relate their nested categories of identification (e.g., Matthew’s ekklēsia and Israel). This methodology approaches texts as discursive means of boundary making that use categorization and identification to present their preferred vision of the social world. Since most forms of identity are primarily a matter of self-ascription, these practices of categorization are the primary criteria for a writer’s self-identification in relation to the Jew/non-Jew boundary. Common features of ethnic groups shared with other members of the Jewish ethnic group are then secondary criteria. The typology considers the group identity shared by a writer and intended audience and its relationship to the Jewish ethnos. This may be (1) equivalent to the Jewish ethnos so that the primary ingroup is all Jews; (2) incompatible with Jewishness as Ignatius may argue; (3) a subgroup of the Jews like the Yahad of the Dead Sea Scrolls; (4) trans-ethnic but with a central and privileged place for the Jews as Paul’s adoption imagery may suggest; or (5) non-ethnic with a full dissolution of the Jew/nations boundary. By introducing a conceptual framework attuned to the complex social realities of the ancient Roman Mediterranean world, this typology hopes to clarify the meaning(s) of “within Judaism” by moving away from the binary options of either inside or outside Judaism. I conclude by situating prominent readings of Paul, as well as Matthew and James, in relationship to the suggested conceptual framework.

In this paper, I will argue that the revolutionary identification of religions and religious laws in the Pauline Corpus resonated with Gnostic spirituality that experienced the organized religions of late antiquity as fundamentally corrupt and psychologically repressive. I will attempt to show how Pauline ideas were adopted and further developed in Gnostic works such as the Gospel of Judas, the Exegesis on the Soul and the Gospel of Philip.

All Quranic manuscripts known to us today, save for the lower text of the Sanaa Palimpsest, have been shown to derive from a single written archetype. Yet, despite this overwhelming presence of the standard text type of the Quran, medieval sources as late as the third century bring first hand reports of mushafs of different text types attributed to companions such as Ibn Mas`ud and Ubayy. This paper tries to find a resolution for this apparent conflict between literary sources and the manuscript evidence. I will show that there is a group of Quranic manuscripts that share several formal features amongst one another. First, all of them are Medinan manuscripts in terms of rasm regionality. Second, they have several archaic orthographic practices, such as the spelling of hamzah with alif and the absence of the alif for long ā in words suchs as hādū 'they are Jewish'. Third, they have non-canonical Sūrah orders. The specific clustering of these features is unlikely to be a coincidence, and we must consider these manuscripts to be a specific subclass of the Medinan text type. Careful study of non-standard rasm variants present in manuscripts of this text type, shows that they frequently incorporate variants attributed to the mushaf of Ibn Mas`ud. I suggest that when late sources report on Ibn Mas`ud's mushaf, we are probably dealing with this specific 'Ibn Mas`udoid' text type attested in the manuscripts evidence.

In his 2017 JBL article Mika S. Pajunen notes: “the early reception of Chronicles has not been studied in great detail” (566). After surveying the reception of Chronicles during the late Second Temple period, Pajunen concludes it was the dominant narrative during the early Hellenistic period up until the rise of the Hasmoneans—that is, during the period when the priesthood and Levites held greater influence. Interest in Chronicles then fell off until after the destruction of the temple. While his proposal is generally convincing, the final portion relies upon a commonly held view that: “There is practically nothing of Chronicles…in the New Testament” (584). My paper contests this assumption. I argue that Chronicles is one of the primary texts shaping the narrative structure and interpretive significance of Matthew’s Gospel. The influence of Chronicles on Matthew’s genealogy has been acknowledged by several scholars (1 Chron 1–9//Matt 1:1–16; see, e.g., Senior 1976; Gundry 1982; Rosenberg 2016). The parallels between Cyrus’s decree and Jesus’s final commission have likewise been observed (2 Chron 36:23//Matt 28:16–20; see: Malina 1970; Lange 1973; Frankemölle 1974). I am aware of no scholar, however, who has examined the interpretive import of these connections alongside the additional references to Chronicles throughout the First Gospel (1 Chron 11:2 in Matt 2:6; 2 Chron 36:21, 22//Matt 2:17, 27:9; 2 Chron 36:19//Matt 22:7; 2 Chron 36:15–16//Matthew 23:34, 37a; et al; Charette 2000 & Beale 2004 are the closest attempts in this direction). On the basis of these connections, I propose that the First Gospel is patterned on the book of Chronicles in order to present Jesus’s messianic kingdom as the restored cultic empire envisioned by the latter work (cf. Hahn 2012). My paper focuses first on Matthew’s allusion to 2 Chron 36:23 at the conclusion of the Gospel. While Cyrus’s decree was considered by many (?) to remain unfulfilled (Ant. 15:385–387), Matthew casts Jesus’s ekklesia the fulfillment of those expectations left hanging at the end of the Hebrew canon (cf. Matt 23:35; using the term ‘canon’ loosely). I then turn to the thematic links between the presentation of David in Chronicles, and the presentation of Jesus in Matthew. In the latter narrative, that is, David is presented as a new Moses, inasmuch as both David and Moses receive plans for the building of God’s dwelling place (David–temple//Moses–tabernacle) and the priests who minister in it. Likewise, in Matthew, Jesus as the Davidic Messiah is presented as the New Moses who builds the long-awaited temple and commissions/organizes its priests.

Modern scholarship on the Mishnah postulates a contrast between the rabbinic and the Hellenistic senses of the self (Naiweld, “Commencement,” 13–14; Rosen-Zvi, “Revolution,” 45). There are, however, precedents to the rabbinic self that are also rooted in Hellenistic culture. The debate about the legal function of the self has an antecedent in the Septuagint. The Septuagint’s translators, following the model of contemporary Hellenistic jurisprudence and Hellenic philosophy, make some crimes of biblical law contingent on the agent’s mental disposition (Exodus 21:14; 22:7, 10; compare P.Oxy. XLVI 3285; P.Tebt. III.2 960; Pl., Leg. 876e–877a). Contemporary literature uses the words “to act maliciously” (ponēreuō) and “to attack” (epitithēmi) in a “subjective” sense. If the Septuagint uses these words in the same way, the gravity of the punishments for murder and property fraud depend more on the criminal’s state of mind than the actual results of his actions. The early rabbis too make the punishment for these crimes contingent on the criminal’s mental disposition—but in a completely different way (m. Sanh. 9:2; m. B. Mes. 3:12). Although the Septuagint never entirely agrees with later rabbinic halakhah, the comparison between the Septuagint and rabbinic halakhah can be informative (cf. Frankel, Vorstudien; idem, Einfluss). It can either throw into relief the implications of the Septuagint’s seemingly innocuous choice of words or lay bare the prehistory of rabbinic halakhah.

Scholars are readers. They may interact with the text more purposefully or with more historical background knowledge than the average Bible reader, but in the end, they remain readers. Therefore, insight in the reading process, from a cognitive point of view, is crucial to understanding contemporary scholars’ interaction with the biblical text. In this paper, we will address this interaction as a process of categorization. Relying on Prototype Theory (Lakoff 1987, Taylor 1995), we will show that readers, in this case scholarly readers, categorize on various linguistic as well as literary levels as they go through a biblical passage. Each category has good examples (the prototypes) and poor examples. For instance, when reading the Book of Judges, every judge will be judged (pun intended) for its degree of being a judge. Categories are dynamic entities, that are influenced by a reader’s previous experiences with representatives of the category. For biblical scholarship, a prototype approach to the Bible offers both opportunities as well as challenges. It is an excellent method to accommodate and reassess different classifications of, for example, judges, and thus to foster a scholarly or classroom dialogue (exegetical, linguistic, or otherwise). Prototype Theory draws attention to the importance of a reader’s context, not just the socio-historical background of the biblical text but also a general background of life experiences. At the same time, it challenges scholarship in its emphasis on the socio-historical context of the original readership. Such a reconstruction only catches part of the prototype construal, assessing the ancient readers as a homogenous category. What is more, this reconstruction is always influenced by the contemporary scholar conducting the study. Therefore, a prototype approach can function as a reflective tool in biblical scholarship. After all, scholars are readers.

It has been suggested that the well-connected religious experts of Christ groups thrived because they were able to transmit universal truths in a new world favoring global traditions over local ones. On the other hand, research related to voluntary associations has questioned this claim. This line of argument has emphasized that other associations besides Christ groups had translocal links, too. Furthermore, the universality of early Christianity might have been overestimated because of Christianity’s later developments. I will evaluate these claims through sources describing religious experts of Ephesus. My examples are from epigraphy and longer sources (especially Polycrates and Acts of John). I aim to clarify the role of wider prominence in the reputation management of the experts. In this analysis, I focus especially on the mobility of letters as well as the recent cognitive science approaches on human prestige and social learning. The mobile codex format surely altered religious expertise. However, only little of wider areal fame was turned into explicitly stated appreciation. I argue that the so-called prestige bias affects to this locality of honor. Our habit to learn from those valued as the highest among us makes the local more important than the translocal. For many, the mobile textual sources might have functioned as remembrances of local notables, who just happened to be currently absent.

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on The Relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

There is a plethora of attestations of different divinatory techniques from different periods of Ancient Egypt. Some of them were used by the state, others by private individuals. The reasons as well as the details in proceeding varied accordingly. Of special interest to a modern researcher are the hermeneutical principles employed. While some remain mysterious today because of our lack of knowledge, in other cases they can be unravelled, giving examples for what is to be expected in the remaining cases as well.

The author of Philippians plays on God-language in chapter two. What is it that happens when Jesus is assigned the name that is above every name and everyone is to confess that Jesus is Lord, looking forward to the day of Christ? Is the author aware of the connotation these phrases possess and is he intentionally playing with texts from the Old Testament? Is the Old testament meaning of these phrases vibrant in the text? We shall consider transposition of texts Old Testament texts and traditions as a reflection of worldview-change and explore the impact of exegetical change. Last but not least we shall consider whether this kind of recontextualization is in line with, a development of or in tension with recontextualization in the undisputed letters of Paul.

This is a teaching activity that I use when lecturing on the Synoptic Problem. The activity typically requires about 25-30 minutes in the classroom so I will be pairing it down for this 10 minute presentation. It begins by asking the students to write a brief summary of the story of the Three Little Pigs. After a few minutes, once at least half the class has stopped writing, I ask everyone to finish (enviably an unfinished story serves as a parallel to the shorter ending of Mark). I solicit four (or more) volunteers (depending on time), asking them to read their summary. I quickly take notes on the board, and then I lead a class discussion on the stories’ similarities and differences. Common phrases occur such as: once upon a time, the big bad wolf, I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and not my the hair of my chinny, chin, chin. The building materials also exhibit commonality, though with variety: hay/straw, stick(s)/wood, brick(s)/stone, occasionally the order or these vary (like the temptations of Jesus in Matthew and Luke). More diversity enters the stories in regards to the outcome of the pigs and the wolf. Sometimes the all the pigs survive and the wolf either leaves exasperated or is killed and/or eaten by the pigs. Other times only the final pig survives. The endings of the stories are the most discursive, not unlike the post-resurrection accounts in the Gospels. A lesson on the orality and transmission of this folk tale is compared with a reading assignment on the Synoptic Problem and the proposed solutions offered by source criticism.

In a chapter entitled “Rome and the corn provinces” Paul Erdkamp highlighted (2005: 209) the centrality of the provinciae frumentariae to the survival of the city of Rome, noting that while Rome was the heart of the Empire, the heart needed blood. Roman North Africa’s role as breadbasket of the Empire makes the highly visible presence of Ceres in votive dedications and religious offices there immensely interesting as an example of the intersection of industry and religion. The current paper takes a controversial approach to worship of Ceres in Roman North Africa by considering it as a reflex of the grain economy in the context of the cura annonae. While Ceres may indeed have had indigenous roots in North Africa, as Cadotte (2006) has suggested, her proliferation in frumentary regions also testifies to integration within the larger imperial Roman economy. The appearance of granular gods like Ceres, Frugifer, and Tellus in North Africa, multiple attestations of priests and priestesses of Ceres, and personnel directly connected with imperial grain production forces us to consider the priesthood of Ceres as both a religious and economic agent, at least in the territory of Carthage. I suggest that Ceres’ proliferation in the early Empire is tied to a shift in grain supply zones in the late Republic from Sicily to North Africa owing to greater demands for grain and a growing need for grain by the Roman army. The early imperial spike in dedications to deities connected with agrarian production, Ceres in particular, is a direct result of North Africa becoming the central hub of the Roman grain belt. Such a case study gains from juxtaposition with one of the few other industrial sectors of the Roman economy: mining. Metals and ores, like grain, were integral to the running of Empire and thus the appearance of votive dedications linked to industries like mining and food production through explicit mentions of offices or location at production sites becomes an intersection of worship and Wirtschaft. The province of Aquitania offers a useful analogue for studying the effect of large-scale imported and augmented industries on deity selection and creation. In southern (Pyrenean) Aquitania a local deity, Erriapus, seems to have represented a central material extracted in the area, marble. Erriapus, whose name means “the stone one” in Aquitanian, an ancestor of modern Basque, acted as a patron of marble workers and quarriers in an entirely new economic sector as marble quarrying does not predate the Augustan age in the area. Interestingly, unlike other mining areas, there was a high degree of native involvement in marble quarrying in the Roman Pyrenees, bucking the trend both of low indigeneity among gods linked to extraction in the Empire and among votives erected by mining personnel. In Aquitania, therefore, we can see both individual choice and opportunity at work, offering a prism with which to refract light on industrialized worship in Roman North Africa.

Rethinking the stoicheia of Galatians 4

Divine anger is on full display as God instructs Jeremiah to take “the cup of the wine of wrath” and force various nations to drink it, get drunk, and vomit. The narrative in Jeremiah 25:15-29 vividly depicts God as a violent deity whose destruction of nations is symbolized by a toxic drink. Jeremiah is God’s complicit agent who delivers the poisonous cocktail/prophecy of destruction to nations of mixed peoples. The book of Jeremiah reuses this imagery in the oracles against the nations (Jer 49:12, 51:7). Likewise, the poison cup image is used elsewhere in biblical prophecy, including in Ezekiel 23:31-34 where Jerusalem is told to drink her sister Samaria’s cup to represent the impending destruction of Judah. In the larger context of Jeremiah 25, the poison drink narrative is surrounded by other texts of rage. Preceding this narrative is the foretelling of the Babylonian exile (Jer 25:1-14). In this sermon, the people of Judah are blamed for provoking divine wrath. Similarly, after the poison cup narrative, two poetic oracles depict God as a ferocious lion who roars from on high to bring judgement against the nations (Jer 25:30-38). There are multiple approaches to reading these difficult passages. Taking insights from ecological hermeneutics, minoritized biblical criticism, and psychological criticism, this paper will present interpretive approaches for understanding the cup of wrath. Ecological hermeneutics is useful for unpacking the multiple Earth elements and images in Jeremiah 25. Divine destruction is depicted as a product of the Earth, i.e. intoxicating wine. Moreover, God’s destructive power is characterized in animalistic terms as a lion. Minoritized biblical criticism offers insights into the recipients of the poison drink. Kings from various groups, e.g. Judah, Egypt, Edom, and Media, among others, are instructed to drink. Mixed peoples (‘ereb) within the nations are also targeted. Psychological criticism assists in understanding the rationale for such a passage. It is helpful for conceptualizing divine anger as a punishment for human misbehavior and a motivator for human change. Reading Jeremiah 25 with multiple interpretive lenses can assist modern readers in understanding the divine cup of wrath.

Since at least the Middle Ages, Leviticus 13-14 has directly influenced practices of quarantine and isolation of people believed to suffer from contagious diseases. While modern medicine progressively distinguished leprosy, renamed Hansen’s Disease, as entirely different from the symptoms described in Leviticus 13-14, that discovery did not quickly change the fate of lepers, who continued to be stigmatized and segregated well into the twentieth century. For more than 1,000 years, leprosy reigned as the paradigmatic exemplar of contagious disease, and biblical legislation shaped policies of quarantine applied to far deadlier diseases like bubonic plague. Interpreters debate the significance of צרעת in Leviticus and the Hebrew Bible. Though it is associated with sin in many HB texts, Leviticus 13-14 never mention that association. Instead, these chapters Leviticus established the precedent followed in the Middle Ages that religious authorities (priests, bishops, and their delegates) would be called upon to diagnose leprosy so that civil authorities could impose the legal penalties for contracting the disease. These penalties could include being declared legally dead and losing all legal rights to property. Leviticus’s extension of priestly diagnostic authority from animal offerings to people and their property provided a long-lasting precedent for religious authority in diagnosing “leprosy” and also in overseeing the living conditions of lepers. Leviticus 13-14 provide justification for this diagnostic power by putting priests in control of admission to Israel’s camp as well as to its sanctuary.

Since the emergence of the historical Jesus as a central topic of New Testament studies, every generation of researchers has put forward their own understanding of the figure of Jesus according to the ideas of that time. Many of these depictions have since been revised, while some others have not entirely left discussion, one of which being the zealot hypothesis, which will be discussed in this paper. One of the strongest voices in the early 20th century who put forward this hypothesis is Robert Eisler. He published a monograph in 1929-30 in which he arrived at the conclusion that Jesus was a political revolutionist of the apocalyptic kind who caused riots in Jerusalem and was detained and executed by the Romans (see Hengel 1969). Eisler assumes that Jesus had a propensity towards violence and an aspiration to become the earthly king of Israel as a descendant of David. The fact that the Gospels of Jesus mainly speak about peace and loving the neighbors, especially the enemies, is explained by Eisler as an attempt on the side of the evangelists not to transmit the zealotic elements of Jesus’s preaching, because this would have neither appealed to Jews nor Romans. 83 years later the American scholar of religious studies Reza Aslan published his book “Zealot. The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth”, in which he also depicts Jesus as a revolutionist with the disposition to violence who wants to ascend the earthly throne of Israel. According to Aslan, the depiction of Jesus in the Gospels is almost a total reversal of the historical truth because after the destruction of the temple nobody would have followed a zealot. However, the message of a pacifistic preacher could move the masses. In my paper, Eisler’s and Aslan’s constructions of Jesus will be thoroughly criticized. Controversial pericopes which are taken as arguments by Eisler and Aslan, among them Q 12:49, 51, will be analyzed and explained as an apocalyptic, not a zealotic statement. It will be shown that this was misinterpreted to fit those theses (see Schrey 1985). Had there been two kinds of apocalyptic movements, an active zealotic and a pacifistic one, Jesus would have surely belonged to the latter. It will be shown in my paper that nonviolence and loving the enemies are not desperate attempts to strengthen the image of Jesus. They are rather historically plausible (as can be seen in Jos. Bell. 2,174.195-198) demands and ethical instructions of the historical Jesus (see Theissen 1989) which can already be found in Q (see Luehrmann 2014). Therefore, it is historically impossible to allege Jesus political apathy as Aslan does. On the contrary, these instructions of nonviolence and love were just as much the right answer to political issues 2000 years ago as they are now.

Traditionally the creation of the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican has been attributed to the emperor Constantine at some moment subsequent to his victory at the battle of the Milvian bridge in AD 312, in connection with his healing and conversion by pope Silvester (Acta Silvestri; LP 34.2, 16-20). Epigraphic documents (now lost) constituted one of the reasons for this attribution. The Liber Pontificalis reports an inscription upon a cross dedicated by Constantine and his mother Helena (LP 34.17 = ICVR 2.4093), and the epigraphic syllogae report both an inscription on the “triumphal arch” commemorating Constantine’s patronage (ICVR 2.4092) and an inscription in the apse that has often been taken as fulfilling the same function (ICVR 2.4094). Writing about the basilica’s antiquities in the fifteenth century, Maffeo Vegio also reported another inscription carrying the name of Constantine in an arch over the apse (ICVR 2.4095). Moreover, during the demolition of the basilica in the late 1500s, brick-stamps came to light that were reported by Cesare Baronio as clearly indicating the patronage of Constantine (CIL 15.1.1656). In a revolutionary contribution, however, Glen Bowersock drew attention to the fact that Baronio’s contemporary Giacomo Grimaldi provides a report of those same brick-stamps (Cod. Bar. Lat. 2733, fol. 165v) that is more accurate and ambiguous, and he then went on to make the case for patronage by Constantine’s son Constans (Bowersock 2002). Building upon Bowersock’s work, Richard Westall went on to point out that the same objections can be made against attribution to Constans that are valid regading Constantine and then made a case for attributing the basilica to Constantius II in AD 357-359 (Westall 2015). Further discussion that focusses upon this body of epigraphic material highlights various methodological concerns that must be kept in mind when using inscriptions to create a historical narrative. So, for instance, the inscription recording a dedication by Constantine and Helena points clearly to a date ca. 326, which is far too early at the Vatican even for those who still defend the traditional attribution of the basilica (e.g Liverani 2013). Or, to cite another example, the attribution of the inscription on the “triumphal arch” to Constantine seems untenable, both because of the natural tendency to economy of patronal affirmation (i.e. only one inscription claiming the credit for any given building, as with Septimius Severus’ inscription at CIL 6.896 = 31196) and in view of the likelihood that that of the apse preceded it because of the greater significance of the apse as the focus of cult. Last but not least, the clear epigraphic evidence of the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (CIL 6.32004), which occupied the most select spot in the basilica, highlights the fact that the basilica was completed only at the very end of the 350s. In short, new arguments can be adduced to reinforce and extend re-attribution of the basilica to Constantius II in AD 357-359.

This paper presents a blending-based approach to the characterizations of Nicodemus & Jesus in John 3, situated in its ancient rhetorical context. Pushing beyond linear frame-based models for characterization, I adapt Cognitive Blending Theory (CBT), pioneered by Gilles Fauconnier & Max Turner, as a compelling heuristic that better accounts for the complexity of characterization and the rhetoric involved therein. I begin by articulating a blending-based approach to ancient characters. Next, I demonstrate the validity of such an approach by modeling a blend of Jesus & Nicodemus in John 3.1-21. In the end, I argue that ancient audiences are likely to have thought of Nicodemus as an exemplar of a person whose love is distorted and misdirected toward the physical world. He loves the darkness instead of the light and so rejects God’s logos. On the other hand, Jesus emerges from the exchange as a philosopher of sorts, attempting to teach Nicodemus about spiritual love and generation. If one thinks of this exchange as a sort of sympotic dialogue, it is tempting to imagine Nicodemus emerging from his encounter with Jesus in John 3 as a sort of Alcibiades to Jesus’s Socrates, with the duality of love and generation as the central object of inquiry.

Given that this panel is co-organized by Religious Competition in Late Antiquity, it would seem to be a good moment to reconsider the physician Galen and his relationship to religion. Galen talks a lot about competition (agon) in his many treatises and he himself was fiercely competitive with other healers, but he never suggests that he is in a competitive relationship with healing gods, especially Asklepios. Instead, as this paper will explore, Asklepios affords Galen several significant benefits, including a model (as patron god) for a physician who operates under the limits of his techne and who prescribes treatments that may not be mainstream, deniability in refusing difficult assignments, and clout with the emperor. Moreover, Asklepios is an aspirational figure for Galen: Asklepios’s patients listen intently to the god and do almost anything he advises. So while Galen finds himself in combat against diseases and other healers, he perceives Asklepios consistently as an ally, not an enemy. This might raise the question of how a healer like Jesus would have been perceived by Galen. I’ll turn very briefly to descriptions of Jesus as a healer in the Gospels to suggest how Galen may have viewed him, since Jesus is portrayed as a very different kind of healer than Asklepios.

In Sirach 50.5–17, the ekphrastic description of the glorious appearance of Simon ben Onias is followed by the assertion that all of Israel worshipped God while facing the high priest. This paper explores the possibility that the Israelites’ visual encounter with the high priest is in part what incites them to worship God. What precisely about the aesthetic beauty of the high priest could engender this kind of response? I provide a partial answer to this question by situating Sirach’s ekphrastic description in the context of Greco-Roman artistic techniques used in crafting cult statues. Drawing upon Verity Platt’s work on epiphany in Greco-Roman religion (2011), I propose a taxonomy of epiphanic strategies in Greco-Roman religion to capture how cult images were intended to bring their viewers to worship. Two of these strategies are what I call ‘symbolic depiction’—presenting an image that symbolises an attribute of the god—and ‘economic depiction’—making visual something the god has done in the world. I demonstrate how these strategies are used in two texts which discuss idol-crafting, namely Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Dio Chrysostom’s twelfth oration. For both Philostratus and Dio, a proper visual depiction of a god must be as comprehensive as possible, not only visualising a god’s form but also providing symbolic or direct representation of a god’s attributes, actions, and associations. Both Dio’s and Philostratus’ accounts exhibit the conviction that viewing a well-crafted cult image is more effective in inciting worship than pondering or encountering any individual aspect of that god—precisely because cult images are able to allocate these distinct aspects and bring them all into view at once. This technique of allocating multiple aspects of a god in one image sheds light on the connection between aesthetics and worship in Ben Sira 50.5–17. Ben Sira conveys Simon’s appearance as aesthetically resembling numerous symbols of God’s creative works and actions in history: he resembles the star, moon, and sun (creative works) (50.6–7); the rainbow (symbolising God’s commitment to sustain creation) (50.7); the living plants that fill the earth (indicating the life God has given creation) (50.8); and cultic items such as incense and the golden vessels (highlighting that God dwells with his people) (50.9). He also wears on his breastplate the ‘stones of favour’ bearing the names of the twelve tribes, thus signalling God’s favour upon Israel (50.9). Since both the created order and his acts in history exhibit God as worthy of worship, the visual representation of these various divine works in the high priest’s appearance should naturally bring those who gaze at him to worship. This reading elucidates the connections between visuality and worship, demonstrating one way that the high priest might ‘embody’ God. My analysis also brings Judaism and Greco-Roman religion into closer contact by suggesting that, despite the aniconic polemic in many Second Temple Jewish texts, Ben Sira intended to provoke his readers to worship by utilising the same epiphanic techniques as some of those who crafted idols.

The character of the eastern school of Valentinian thought has not gained scholarly attention in a holistic way. Einar Thomassen (The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians’, Chapter Four), following Irenaeus, distinguishes the thinking of Valentinians in East and West. Four Nag Hammadi documents, along with Clement’s Excerpts from Theodotus, expand understanding of eastern Valentinian thought and practices. "The Gospel of Truth," a homily arguably from Valentinus himself, sheds light on the understanding and experience of Christianity in the eastern groups. For unfolding the religious life revealed in the document, this study will elucidate practices that give expression to the beliefs, along lines recommended in David Brakke’s The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity (Chapter 3). Outi Lehtipuu has shown that some early Christian writers accentuate the realized dimension of the resurrection over the futuristic one in Christians’ lives (Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity, Chapter 4). They were shaping the identity of their group over against other groups. The sermon implicitly establishes some boundaries between its hearers and others. Jesus is a teacher revealing to “children” a book with their “names,” their “real” existence. Similarly the preacher, then, continues this role of teacher in his proclamation (see John S. Kloppenborg, “Literate Media in Early Christ Groups: The Creation of a Christian Book Culture,” JECS 22.1 [2014]: 21-59). With such realized eschatological perspective from NT authority, especially Johannine, The Gospel of Truth explicates the importance of the incarnation of the Word in searching for the Father and gaining deliverance from ignorance and error and, finally, repose. He employs memorable images. Deepened religious experience the preacher offers from knowing the “book” brought by the Word. One discovers that material things are an illusion and that what is “real” is one’s name, that is, one’s real identity found in the book, and one’s relationship with the Father. Expressing the mystical union, the document explains that only “full jars,” “sealed” from anointing, in contrast to “broken” ones, will be moved to another “house.” Suggesting initiation, the preacher implies that the person experiences mystical union with the Father and in association with others in the assembly, at the same time separated from “broken jars,” those not spiritually illuminated in other Christian gatherings. This performative feature brings present holistic meaning to the hearer’s “real” identity with the Father and this now revealed knowledge. Mystical union and social solidarity become an experiential reality in the congregation’s life. This "gospel" (or proclamation) about the Father and the Word thus directs the hearers in spiritual enrichment. It adds depth to Johannine ideas about life with the Father through teaching by the Word. The document amplifies NT perspectives on Christian experience at a time when the proto-orthodox were writing primarily with apologetic intentions. The writer of "The Gospel of Truth" seems convinced that Christian groups in his day though knowledgeable of Christian scriptures were nevertheless deficient in grasping the depth of God’s larger plan.

This study proceeds in three (or, if there is time, four) stages: First, I will significantly enhance the text-critical argument of Georg Hentschel for emending the reading in 2 Sam 7:13a and establishing why it is best to replace “build a house for my name” with “build for me a house.” This emendation is redactionally significant because it removes any evidence for assigning v. 13 to Dtr. Second, I will show that the composer of the dynastic oracle in vv. 11c-16 presents the oracle as an expanding chiasmus, with v. 13a as the hinge / focal point of the oracle. Third, in this light we see that v. 13a functions as the rhetorical complement to YHWH’s rebuff in vv. 5b-7, a rebuff that is framed with rhetorical questions about David’s offer to build a house for YHWH (“Will you build for me a house to live in?” and “Why have you not built for me a house of cedar?”). The restored reading in v. 13a provides a direct response, saying, “[Your seed] shall build for me a house.” These findings will necessitate further reflection on the increasing likelihood that the dynastic oracle represents a pre-Dtr or proto-Dtr stratum in the development of the chapter. Fourth, if there is time, I will consider possible implications of this study for the overall unity of the entire chapter. For example, the reconstructed progression of thought removes any urgency about the issue of a house for YHWH, transferring that responsibility to the next generation. Furthermore, the bulk of the oracle, which surrounds the core in v. 13a, shifts the reader’s attention and focuses it squarely on YHWH’s promise to establish David’s house. The shift in the focus from YHWH’s house to David’s house nicely explains why David’s subsequent prayer mentions only David’s house.

Much of the work on biblical peacemaking focuses on principles and examples from the New Testament, with the Old Testament laws and narratives being largely neglected. There is some beginning work is being done on reconciliation in the Old Testament (e.g. Molito on Genesis 32-33, Martens on 1 Samuel 25; myself on Joshua 22) as an alternative to the escalation of violence fuelled by revenge. This is a pressing contemporary issue. In the Western world—where right and wrong are largely determined on the basis of a guilt/innocence paradigm—the issues of rights and justice are often foregrounded. Asian and Middle Eastern (i.e. West Asian) cultures typically base right and wrong on the basis of honour/shame, and this may have the potential of better hearing the emphases of the Old Testament, since it was written from and to an honour/shame culture. Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers is studied from this perspective. Once Joseph rises to a position of power in Egypt, his brothers appear in weakness before him to buy grain. Joseph may have been entitled (guilt/innocence language) to take (? violent) revenge on them for their violent enslavement and sale of him many years before. Alternatively, he could have simply disclosed his identity and given the brothers grain. This is what many Western commentators recommend, but this would have brought shame to the brothers without there being any way for them to regain their honour. Joseph’s elaborate ruse enables the brothers to change and know they have changed, thus leading them to regain their honour even as they face up to their past. Joseph’s willingness to forsake violence or revenge creates the possibility of lasting reconciliation through all parties regaining their honour. Joseph’s pursuit of peace involves a circuitous route, but it enables the family to establish the nation of Israel.

The Beibel Papiamentu Koriente (Papiamentu Common Language Bible) was published in two editions in 1998. One for the Protestant and evangelical public and one with the deuterocanonical books for the Roman Catholic audience. In this way the literary corpus of material in this Iberian based Caribbean creole language was greatly expanded. Papiamentu is the native language of about 300.000 speakers in the Caribbean on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, in the southern part of the basin. And there is a diaspora group of about 150000 in the Netherlands. The same translation team worked on all of the books and the same translation methodology and style was applied. The Bible was revised in 2013, after which a project to provide study notes was undertaken. Thus, the Papiamentu Study Bible saw the light of day in January 2019. It was the first Study Bible in an Atlantic based Creole language and explains the biblical passages with exegetical, socio-cultural and historical notes. Besides footnotes which elucidate specific passages throughout the corpus, it provides extensive introductions, a number of 150 sidebar articles with background information on key terms relating to customs, places and key figures in the Biblical texts. In addition, there is also a thematic index which groups different translation glosses under one umbrella or key term; it also contains smaller localized and larger end maps, a chronological table, and a number of didactic illustrations. The translation itself is an idiomatic translation based on the functional-equivalence theory of Eugene Nida, et al, but with an eye to the liturgical use in the churches. The book of Psalms is more formal-equivalent and is based on a particular rhythmic pattern. Since Papiamentu has been formalized in the school system as a vehicle and subject matter language, the Study Bible fits nicely with the nationwide promotion and standardization of the language over the past two decades. This paper will address the different sessions of the Study Bible and show how exegetical and cultural matters are dealt with in the paratextual material (notes and sidebars). As one of the collaborators, the presenter will also offer some constructive auto criticism as to the selection of the study notes and the background articles in terms of the possibilities that have been missed to engage some more in-depth cultural matters, dealing with systemic oppression and popular hermeneutics. Moreover, the challenges of a written Study Bible in strongly oral cultural will be addressed, with suggestions for oralization and internet applicability. And last but not least, the presentation will touch upon the Study Bible as a means of more formal and popular theological training in a way that fits the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Concrete examples of its use until now will be discussed.

The integration of biological knowledge into contemporary architectural design has resulted in what is known as biomimetic architecture. But the full integration of biology into architecture, in which architecture “has a mind of its own” and can speak, remains centered in the realms of computer animation and science fiction—and ancient liturgical and apocalyptic literature. John’s apocalypse included both visions and auditions, and in this presentation I will focus my investigation on the auditions that have provided interpretive difficulties for modern readers because they contain inanimate objects that appear to speak. I will first demonstrate that Rev 16:7, in which John states that he “heard the altar speaking,” is the key to understanding such phenomena in this apocalypse. Grammatical analysis of this “odd” text indicates that an animate altar is a plausible interpretation, despite reticence to accept the potential validity of this interpretation, as well as attempts to supply a voice from an angel, the martyrs, or the saints. Furthermore, Revelation’s close and sometimes unique literary and thematic parallels with Qumran’s Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, with its thoroughly animate architecture, including sanctuary foundations, pillars, beams, walls, portals, and gates, supports the conclusion that John did hear the altar itself speak. The “human” pillars of the heavenly temple in Rev 3:12, as well as literary evidence of similar animate phenomena from the Hebrew Bible and later works, such as the Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli) and 3 Enoch, provide further corroboration that speaking altars and related phenomena in Revelation cannot be considered so odd as to be unlikely. From this conclusion in Rev 16:7, I will also investigate references to various “voices” speaking from the four horns of the golden altar (9:13) and the throne (16:17, 19:5, and 21:3). I will further demonstrate that an animate architecture interpretation of these texts relieves concern about textual and interpretative ambiguity in John’s apocalypse and reasonably situates it within an auditory trajectory that included later Jewish Merkavah mysticism.

In Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus’s interaction with a Canaanite woman, who seeks his healing for her daughter, frequently raises problems for theological interpreters. In this encounter, Jesus appears dismissive, exclusive, and insulting. Interpreters of the passage often seek to soften Jesus’s poor treatment of this woman by suggesting the overall scope of his ministry justifies his exclusive care for the people of Israel. And yet, Jesus quickly makes an exception when she offers her riposte to his insult. Her clever incorporation of his words into her own interpretive framework draws implicitly on the wider context of Matthew, beginning with Jesus’s genealogy that includes four foreign women have already maneuvered their way under the umbrella of God’s saving care. With this precedent, and Jesus’s own teaching about the character of God, the Canaanite woman stands on good ground to expect Jesus’s healing attention.

At the end of the book of Job appear the attention-grabbing pair of beasts meant to quell Job's objections: Behemoth and Leviathan. Subsequent literature often envisions these as a contrasting pair. The same model is often imposed upon the LXX translation of Job. However, in this paper I suggest that LXX-Job does not distinguish between the two beasts and presents only a single "dragon" at the end of the book. In other words, what was two separate creatures is only one terrifying beast...

In the past half-century, there has been no consensus about the way Paul uses the term Χριστός. Some scholars argue that Paul uses Χριστός as a surname, which carries no significant meaning when the apostle speaks of Jesus (ὁ) Χριστός. Others maintain that Χριστός is a title implying a particular messianic Christology. Still others argue that for Paul the term is an honorific designation, signifying a collection of particular features according to their literary contexts. Pauline scholars are increasingly focusing on the messianic concepts in the apostle’s letters, particularly the Davidic messiahship in Galatians and in several passages in Romans. There are not, however, many scholarly discussions about the relationship between Paul’s concept of the Messiah and his Gentile mission. This essay will utilize the sociolinguistic approach of intertextuality, which investigates different voices embedded in the host text by employing heteroglossic analysis to demonstrate the intertextual relations. It will analyze Rom 1:1-7, 15:7-13, and passages related to the Christ events and the stories of creation (Rom 1:18-30; 3:23; 5:12-21; 8:19-30). By employing several Old Testament texts (Gen 12, 17; Ps.18; Deut 32; Ps.117 and Isa. 11) and Second Temple Jewish literature, particularly the messianic passage of the Psalms of Solomon 17-18, it will first explore how Paul’s concept of the Davidic Messiah is different from those of his Jewish contemporaries. Contrary to the idea that the Jewish Messiah will defeat and rule over the pagans, Paul declares that through Jesus the Messiah, the Gentiles share the same Abrahamic blessings with Israel. The essay will then examine the way Paul reads the creation stories, which can be revealed intertextually in his writing about Jesus the Messiah. In conclusion, the essay argues that Paul’s concept of the Messiah is intertextually related to the stories of Creation and Fall in Genesis 1-3, and that through Jesus the Messiah, Gentile Christians share the Abrahamic blessings.

Intersectionality is concerned with relations of power, and the ways that systems of power are implicated in the development, organization, and maintenance of social inequalities. The biblical text is mostly about Israel’s 1%s, primarily narrating the histories of its kings, priests, scribal elites, its wealthy heroes and few male-worthy heroines. But the voices of its marginals, such as the widows, the poor and destitute, child laborers, the sex-trafficked, prisoners of war, the diseased and disabled, are mostly silent in the biblical text. There are many ancient Near Eastern administrative texts that concern these marginals that could give us glimpses into the power relations that impinge upon their lives. This paper attempts to develop an intersectional analysis that critically and responsibly makes use of these texts to assist us in understanding these marginal populations in ancient Israel.

The distinction between the Masorah parva (Mp) and the Masorah magna (Mm) of the Tiberian codices is often made by the placement of the notes. The Mp consists of the Masoretic notes written in the side margins of the text and the Mm consists of the Masoretic notes written in the upper and lower margins of the text. Such distinction is well suited for the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex. However, it is not consistent with the Cairo Codex since there are the Mm notes written not only in the upper and lower margins but also in the side margins of the text. This paper focuses on the Mm notes that are written in the margins of the Cairo Codex. Using examples from the Former Prophets, I will discuss how the space in the margins of the text are used and its impact on the categorization of the Mp and the Mm in the Cairo Codex.

As it appears in Exodus–Deuteronomy, the record of the Israelite wanderings binds “history” and “geography” together. The biblical text, however, contains well-known problems on both fronts. In this paper, my interest lies in the geographical problems. Among them: Is the sea where YHVH defeats the Egyptian cavalry near Egypt? Or is it closer to Canaan? Is the mountain where a theophany and law-giving take place somewhere to the west of the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba or somewhere to the east? Where is “Mount Nebo, the summit of Pisgah” (Deut 34:1)—noteworthy as it is Moses’s final resting place but a description that appears nowhere else in the biblical corpus? These and other examples stem out of a long-recognized interest in the geography of the Pentateuch. This paper revisits the geographical problem of another place: “Kadesh,” or sometimes “Kadesh-Barnea.” At some points in the Pentateuch (Num 13:26) Kadesh appears to be somewhere on the Sinai Peninsula (commonly identified as present-day Tell el-Qudeirat) yet elsewhere (Num 20:1) Kadesh may be somewhere to the east, in the Arabah, or even as far as Petra. I argue that the geographical problem with Kadesh, like much of the geography of the Israelite wanderings, is a by-product of the compilation of the Pentateuch, and that the Pentateuch preserves multiple, yet irreconcilable, understandings of a place called “Kadesh” or “Kadesh-Barnea.” As the example of Kadesh demonstrates, the problems in the geography of the Israelite wanderings can be resolved after it is recognized that the Pentateuch is shaped by multiple records of the Israelite wilderness, each one with its own sense of “history” and “geography.”

Like other ancient Mediterranean writings that focus on gods or cult or philosophy, Paul’s letters participate in Greek and Roman rhetorics of ethnic difference. The point is not just that categories of Jew and gentile permeate these texts. Rather, Paul’s discourse on topics traditionally considered as ‘universalist’ – the high god, his promises, what Christ accomplishes, how initiates participate in Christ’s pneuma, and so on – is animated by ancient ideas about kinship, patrilineal descent, and people groups.1 The growing ‘Radical New Perspective’ or ‘Paul within Judaism’ movement relates to this ethnic redescription. One of its basic claims is that when Paul dissociates keeping the Jewish law from following Christ, his arguments are ethnically specific: he speaks to gentiles.

The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa’) were a ninth century CE Isma‘ili philosophical group that existed in Basra, Iraq. Little is known about the actual group or its members, and their only remains are 52 epistles and two summaries. However, their works played an influential role in various intellectual trajectories throughout Islamic and Jewish philosophical history. For example, their works played a leading role in Isaac Israeli’s (d. 932) definitions of philosophy and influenced Ibn Sina’s (d. 1037) approach to the concept of love. However, a thorough examination of their relationship to the Qur’an remains to be published (Omar Ali-de-Unzaga wrote an unpublished dissertation on this in 2005). This paper examines the presence of the Qur’an in the Brethren’s Epistle on Love. It shows how the Brethren combined Qur’anic symbols with Platonic psychology to exposit how their approach to love brings the human being closer to God. I argue that by using the Qur’an in this manner, the Brethren of Purity paved new ways of thinking about love that became influential in Islamic philosophical thought. The Brethren of Purity’s Treatise on Love (al-Risala fi mahiyat al-‘ishq) contains three sections: first, on the nature of love; second, on why certain objects are loved; and, third, on the kinds of lovers and the wisdom behind them. In this treatise, the Brethren used fifteen verses of the Qur’ān and also cite Prophetic Hadith. In the first case, they use these verses to validate their own statements or beliefs, as well as the beliefs of the philosophers from whom they borrow. In the second, they use the symbology of the Qur’an as a basis to establish their own interpretations of various topics. By using verses from the Qurʾan, the Brethren show how the rational power of the soul brings one closer to God. Finally, they use verses from the Qur’an that explicitly contradict what they are trying to prove to show that the external meaning of those verses cannot be taken literally. By means of a careful examination of their treatise on love, I demonstrate how the Brethren established an exegetical tradition of the Qurʾan that influenced the writings of both Isma‘ili and Peripatetic philosophical schools. This paper shows, then, how the Brethren of Purity develop a tradition that was followed by later Isma‘ili philosophers such as Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani (d. cir. 1002) and Hamid al–Din al–Kirmani (d. 1020-21).

Greek homophile Dinos Christianopoulos (née Konstantinos Dimitriadis) composed the earliest homoerotic reading of the Healing of the Centurion’s Slave in his poem Εκατόνταρχος Κορνήλιος (1950). This paper will explore how this reading emerged as well as the first substantial engagement with this reading, especially France in the 1960s and 70s. In addition to identifying and describing the hermeneutical development of such exegesis, this paper will discuss the political context from which it emerged. Homophile interpreters deployed the centurion as a figure to intervene in one of the more salient political issues they faced at the time: namely, the significant difference in age of majority for heterosexual intercourse and homosexual intercourse at the time (ages 21 and 15, respectively). By drawing attention to the fact that the evangelists designate the centurion’s beloved a pais, these interpreters argued that Jesus himself apparently had no problems with same-sex intercourse between an adult and someone under the age of 21. Homophile exegesis can be productively read within the general academic-activist context where many French intellectuals – Foucault, Derrida, De Beauvoir, Sartre, Deluze, Guatarri, and many others, for instance – on this same issue.

We have got two complete Hebrew versions of the Torah at our disposal: The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic text. The Qumran evidence gives us the possibility to better understand the way those versions differentiated: The specific Samaritan redaction which introduced the Gerizim composition in Ex 20 and Deut 5 presupposed an earlier redaction witnessed, e.g., by 4Q22 and 4Q175. So we can discern three versions: The pre-Masoretic, the so called pre-Samaritan and the Samaritan version. At first glance, none of these versions brings any new content into the Pentateuch compared with the others. Their pluses, as a rule, only duplicate information which is present in the other versions as well. Typically, in cases Moses cites God’s words, a speech of God with exactly those words is introduced by the narrator at the suitable place. But a closer examination reveals that those very cautious redactional activities have an impact on the balance between two different concepts of theocracy: On the one hand the prophetic theocracy, represented by Moses, the supposed lawgiver according to Deuteronomy – and on the other hand the priestly theocracy, represented by Aaron and his successors, promoted by the Priestly Torah. Aaron’s inauguration (Lev 8–9) stands in the very centre of the Pentateuch in all its versions, and his succession by Eleazar and Phineas is not questioned, indeed. But according to Moses’s words in Deuteronomy (Deut 9:20), God had intended to destroy Aaron after making the Golden Calf, and only Moses’s intercession saved his life. This is a serious difference to the account in Exodus as present in the MT (and the prehexaplaric witnesses of the LXX). However, 4Q22 and the Samaritan Pentateuch (as well as some later Greek manuscripts) introduce this notice in the narrator’s voice into the book of Exodus as well (Ex 32:10), thereby diminishing the authority of Aaron against Moses. Concerning Moses himself, the Pentateuch on the whole allows some doubts concerning his trustworthiness: His citations of God’s words, e.g. in the Decalogue, deviate from the words told in the former books of the Pentateuch. But after the bulk of harmonizing additions made in the pre-Samaritan version, especially throughout the book of Exodus, Moses is proven as a person who is absolutely faithful to God’s words. This has consequences for the authority of his own commandments in Deuteronomy. In my paper I will focus on the hermeneutical implications of the additions and changes made in Exodus 20 concerning the true prophet (pre-Samaritan) and the altar on Mount Gerizim (Samaritan), and place this in the broader context of post-Priestly redaction of the Pentateuch.

The concept of purity was one of the essential elements of the religious system of ancient Israel. The notion itself was established and well defined in the Pentateuch, which is the primary source of its legislation and practice, and the notion was invoked throughout the rest of the Old Testament corpus. Considering the influence that the concept of purity appears to have in ancient Israel, at least in some prominent textual traditions of Israel, it is not surprising that this topic has been the subject of critical scholarly investigation over the whole course of history of Old Testament interpretation. Over the last few decades scholars have tended to concentrate on the question of the relationship between ritual and moral purity. One of the most popular views is to posit a dichotomy between ritual and moral purity. This view is most forcefully argued by Jonathan Klawans who differs from yet builds on the work of well-known scholars such as David Z. Hoffmann, Adolph Büchler, Jacob Neusner, and Jacob Milgrom. More recently, however, some scholars—among whom the most prominent are Roy Gane, David P. Wright, N. Kiuchi, and Mark J. Boda—have favored the view that the line between these two different categories of impurity, often labeled as ritual and moral, is rather fuzzy. While the relationship between ritual and moral impurity in the Priestly texts of the Pentateuch has received a great deal of attention over the last few decades, it is surprising that this relationship in the book of Malachi has not yet been explored in detail. Although scholars comment on purity issues in the Malachi corpus—an unavoidable feature when dealing with many passages related to the cult—the concept of purity in general and the question of relationship between moral and ritual purity in particular has not been directly discussed as an important topic in its own right. This lack of academic research affirms the necessity of a comprehensive examination on this topic. The present essay undertakes this task by employing exegetical and anthropological insights for exploring the concept of purity in Mal 1:6–14. The research demonstrates that the impurity/purity described in the book of Malachi represents a blend of both ritual and moral elements. In its attempt to examine the concept of purity in Malachi, the present paper aims to contribute to scholarship in two ways: First, this study represents one of the few studies on the concept of purity in postexilic prophetic literature. Secondly, this study will employ a contemporary ritual theory by Catherine Bell for understanding the concept of purity, which will produce some overlooked insights.

Biblical sacrifice, when understood properly (on the basis of anthropological studies of the gift), reflects not a do ut des view of sacrifice, where the offerer gives in order to receive in return, but rather the use of sacrificial gifts to build a relationship between the worshiper and God. One might raise the question of whether the cessation of Jewish sacrifice stemming from the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, means the end of a ritual reciprocal relationship between God and Israel. Does the reciprocal relationship simply cease? Or is there a way in which that cyclical give-and-take can be made to continue, absent a Temple? This paper argues that an understanding the Talmudic rabbis’ view of the will, and particularly the role it plays in and around the Yehi Ratzon prayer, can explain how the rabbis replaced the biblical gift cycle relationship in sacrifice. Rabbinic treatment of sacrifice and liturgy places at its center matters of the will, with the related root ר.צ.י, in various grammatical forms, relates to multiple stages of the sacrificial process. The Yehi Ratzon prayer formula, which appears in dozens of Talmudic and liturgical texts, and which explicitly appeals to the divine will, possesses some interesting features. Significantly, the Yehi Ratzon prayer asks not that God make one’s wishes come true, but that God make it be God’s will that they come true. Furthermore, a series of redundant (and even self-directed) prayers of this sort appear in rabbinic literature, including a set of cases where the Yehi Ratzon prayer features a dual request, one part of which serves the supplicant, and the other of which serves God. These cases appear to reflect a reciprocal nature to the prayer. Building on some theoretical literature on second order desires by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, this paper argues that the structure of the Yehi Ratzon prayer entails a merger or a meeting of the wills between the supplicant and God, drawing each party closer together, as the supplicant follows the Torah and God in turn fulfills the supplicant’s wishes in the world. Given this understanding, one can understand that the rabbis see prayer as participating not in a gift cycle, but in a “will cycle.” This serves to not only place Israel on more equal footing with God, to a certain degree, but also to establish an alternative to the “gift cycle.” Acts of will-fulfillment are traded back and forth between God and Israel, and built upon one another, in forging a relationship (and a hierarchical one, at that) between the parties. In place of having a sustained process of gift-giving to build the relation between God, Israel, and the religious practitioner, as existed in Temple times, it is the offering of the will that plays this role instead. In the rabbinic world, where sacrifice functions as a literary discourse rather than physical praxis, the relational cycle shifts from the physical gift to the realm of offering the will.